Benjamin Franklin Award winners

I'm in New York City for Book Expo America and I just got back from attending the Benjamin Franklin award ceremony. The Ben Franklin awards are given by PMA, The Independent Book Publishers Association to the most outstanding independently published books published in the previous year. The ceremony itself is fun. It's kind of like being at the Academy Awards, but without the movie stars. For each category, someone from the PMA Board reads the finalists as a video plays showing the nominated books. Then, the winner is announced and comes up to accept the award and make a few short remarks.

Whoever designed the video had a lot of fun choosing music that was humorously appropriate for each category; for example, when the category of best Psychology book was announced, the music from the famous scene from the movie Psycho played. For animal books, the theme from "Jaws" played, followed by "Born Free."

Here are the winners in the children's literature-related categories:

Audiobook - Children's
The Looking Glass Wars, Scholastic Audio

Children's Picture Book
Love, Ruby Valentine, Lerner Publishing Group

Cover Design-3 or More Color (Children's/Young Adult)
Erec Rex: The Dragon's Eye, Firelight Press

Best New Voice (Children's/Young Adult)
Fablehaven, Shadow Mountain (The author of Fablehaven said in his speech that winning it was "...a goofy, happy thing")

Children's Book & Audiobook
A Frog Thing, Kidwick Books LLC

Interior Design-3 or More Color - Children's/Young Adult
How the Moon Regained Her Shape, Sylvan Dell Publishing

Graphic Novel
Treasure Island, Stone Arch Books

Juvenile-Young Adult Fiction
Over a Thousand Hills I Walk With You, Lerner Publishing Group

Juvenile-Young Adult Nonfiction
Young Person's Career Skills Handbook, JIST Publishing, Inc.

The Bill Fisher Award for Best First Book (Children's/Young Adult)
Erec Rex: The Dragon's Eye,
Firelight Press

Click here for a list of all the child lit-related finalists.