The Schmidty Awards

First of all, congratulations Neil Gaiman – The Graveyard Book was excellent and deserved to win the Newbery Award.   I shall celebrate by seeing Coraline this weekend (we’ll pretend I wasn’t already planning on going!)

Looking over the lists of winners and honorees, I realize I’ve got some reading to do; I haven’t read them all!  It also made me think of the books I’d award – if I had the amount of power that I do in my mind.  I mentally began to compile my lists of can’t-put-them-down books, the books I had talked about so much that I had a waiting list to read it before I’d even finished.  To these books I bestoy The Schmidty Awards!

(Sidenote: I know not all of these books came out in 2008, but that’s when I read them and these are my awards, so I get to make the rules.)

Once Upon a Crime by Michael Buckley
Cross my Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter
Trouble by Gary Schmidt
Drums, Girls, Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick
Schooled by Gordan Korman

Young Adult:
13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
Wake by Lisa McMann
The Off Season by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Generation Dead by Daniel Waters

Just because I don’t yet have a novel in the running, doesn’t discourage me – it just means I’ve got a whole new year to polish and shop my book. 

Congrats to the winners (and the readers too!) and to everyone else, good luck next year!