Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie, written by Julie Sternberg, illustrated by Matthew Cordell, and published by Amulet Books, is the winner of the 2012 Gryphon Award for Children’s Literature.
The Gryphon Award, which includes a $1,000 prize, is given annually by the Center for Children’s Books. This year’s committee was chaired by Deborah Stevenson, director of the Center for Children’s Books, and Kate Quealy-Gainer, assistant editor of the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books.
The prize is awarded to the author of an outstanding English language work of fiction or non-fiction for which the primary audience is children in kindergarten through fourth grade, and which best exemplifies those qualities that successfully bridge the gap in difficulty between books for reading aloud to children and books for practiced readers. With a core of regular committee members, the award has become a way to contribute to an ongoing conversation about literature for inexperienced readers and to draw attention to the literature that offers, in many different ways, originality, accessibility, and high quality for that audience.
According to committee chair Deborah Stevenson, Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie, which follows a young girl’s adjustment as her beloved babysitter moves away, “provides a sympathetic and respectful treatment of a child’s experience of loss in a highly readable format. Kids will immediately grasp the seriousness of this kind of change in a young person’s life, and they’ll absorb the point about the inevitability of growth and change even as they understand how hard those things can be.”
Three Gryphon Honors also were named.
The No. 1 Car Spotter (Kane Miller Books), written by Atinuke and illustrated by Warwick Johnson Cadwell. The young protagonist’s vibrant and humorous narrative voice makes his account of life in his small African village (generously complemented by lively and idiosyncratic black and white illustrations) an utterly irresistible read.
Dear Hot Dog (Abrams Books for Young Readers), written and illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein. Free-verse poems on everyday things such as a toothbrush, spaghetti, and even toes take young readers gently from concrete to creative thinking about their world.
Waiting for the Magic (Atheneum Books for Young Readers), written by Patricia MacLachlan and illustrated by Amy June Bates. Clever alternation between standard text formatting and playscript-style dialogues brings extra accessibility to this tale of a family that, with the aid of its large collection of pets, struggles to rebalance when Papa first leaves and then later returns.
The Gryphon Award was established in 2004 as a way to focus attention on transitional reading, "which includes a variety of wonderful books that meet children where they are and encourage them to stretch a little farther at a key stage in their development as readers,” Stevenson said.
The award committee consists of members drawn from the youth services faculty of GSLIS, the editorial staff of the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, local public and school librarians, and the library and education community at large.
The award is sponsored by the Center for Children's Books and funded by the Center for Children's Books Gryphon Fund. Income from the fund supports the annual Gryphon Lecture as well as the Gryphon Award for children's literature.
Gifts may be made to the fund by contacting Diana Stroud in the GSLIS Office of Advancement at 217-244-9577.