Congratulations to the 2012 Children's Choice Book Award finalists and Get the Widget

The finalists for the 2012 Children's Choice Book Awards were recently announced. I'm excited to say that books written by four of JacketFlap's members are among the finalists! Please join me in congratulating the four finalists by clicking their names below and leaving a congratulations comment on their profiles:

Zombie in Love, written by Kelly DiPucchio

Sidekicks, written and illustrated by Dan Santat

Pirates Don't Take Baths, written and illustrated by John Segal

DORK Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Talented Pop Star, written and illustrated by Rachel Russell 

Launched in 2008 by the Children's Book Council and Every Child A Reader, The Children's Choice Book Awards is the only national book awards program where the winning titles are selected by children and teens of all ages. Young readers can vote for their favorite books, author, and illustrator of the year at BookWeekOnline.com until Thursday, May 3, 2012. Educators, booksellers, and librarians can also tally and enter kids' votes as a group. This year, more than 20,000 children and teens nationwide determined the finalists: children spent months reading and rating books in the classroom through the IRA-CBC Children's Choices Program; teens made their voices heard through voting hosted by TeenReads.com. The Author and Illustrator of the Year finalists were selected by the Children's Book Council from an evaluation of best-seller lists with an emphasis on Bookscan. Learn more about the finalist selection process here. The award winners will be announced live at a galacelebration in NYC hosted and presented by kid lit heavyweights on May 7, 2012 as part of Children's Book Week (May 7-13th, 2012), the nation's longest-running literacy initiative. 
To enhance the awareness of the awards, the Children's Book Council is working with JacketFlap again this year to create a Children's Choice Book Awards Widget, which displays the finalist books on your web site or blog. You can get the Widget for your own blog or web site at:

http://flap.me/CCBA2012widget

Please spread the word to children and teens so they can vote. Remember, voting ends May 3, 2012! The full list of award finalists are listed below.

Tracy 

Kindergarten to Second Grade Book of the Year

Bailey by Harry Bliss (Scholastic)
Dot by Patricia Intriago (Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Macmillan)
Pirates Don’t Take Baths by John Segal (Philomel/Penguin)
Three Hens and a Peacock by Lester L. Laminack, illustrated by Henry Cole (Peachtree)

Zombie in Love by Kelly DiPucchio, illustrated by Scott Campbell (Atheneum/Simon & Schuster)

Third Grade to Fourth Grade Book of the Year

Bad Kitty Meets the Baby by Nick Bruel (Roaring Brook/Macmillan)

A Funeral in the Bathroom: And Other School Bathroom Poems by KalliDakos, illustrated by Mark Beech (Albert Whitman)

The Monstrous Book of Monsters by Libby Hamilton, illustrated by Jonny Duddle and AlekseiBitskoff (Templar/Candlewick)

Sidekicks by Dan Santat (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic)
Squish #1: Super Amoebaby Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm (Random House)

Fifth Grade to Sixth Grade Book of the Year

Bad Islandby Doug TenNapel (GRAPHIX/Scholastic)
How to Survive Anythingby Rachel Buchholz,illustrated by Chris Philpot (National Geographic)
Lost & Foundby Shaun Tan (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic)
Okay for Nowby Gary D. Schmidt (Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Racing in the Rain: My Life as a Dogby Garth Stein (HarperCollins)

Teen Book of the Year

Clockwork Prince: The Infernal Devices, Book Twoby Cassandra Clare (Margaret K. McElderry Books/Simon & Schuster)
Daughter of Smoke and Boneby Laini Taylor (Little, Brown)
Divergentby Veronica Roth (Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins)
Passion: A Fallen Novelby Lauren Kate (Delacorte/Random House)

Perfectby Ellen Hopkins (Margaret K. McElderry Books/Simon & Schuster)

Author of the Year

Jeff Kinney for Diary of a Wimpy Kid 6: Cabin Fever (Amulet Books/Abrams)
Christopher Paolini for Inheritance (Alfred A. Knopf/Random House)
James Patterson for Middle School, The Worst Years of My Life (Little, Brown)
Rick Riordan for The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, Book 2) (Disney Hyperion)
Rachel Renée Russell for Dork Diaries 3: Tales from a Not-So-Talented Pop Star (Aladdin/Simon & Schuster)

Illustrator of the Year

Felicia Bond for If You Give a Dog a Donut (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins)

Eric Carle for The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse (Philomel/Penguin)
Anna Dewdney for Llama Llama Home With Mama (Viking/Penguin)
Victoria Kann for Silverlicious (HarperCollins)
Brian Selznick for Wonderstruck (Scholastic)