NAKED! helps turn a young reader into a lover of picture books

Kurt Stroh is featuring posts by teachers, librarians, authors, illustrators and booksellers on his blog during November to celebrate Picture Book Month. What a wonderful idea! And I was so moved by this first post by Jim Bailey about the power of picture books, and how NAKED! helped turn his young son into a lover of picture books. Made me all weepy, it did.

NAKED! nominated for the Missouri Building Block Picture Book Award

I can't believe I missed seeing this. I'm SO honored that Naked! is one of the nominees for the Missouri Building Block Picture Book Award for 2015. This award is administered by the Youth Services Community of Interest of MLA, is presented annually to the author and illustrator of the picture book voted most popular by preschool children in Missouri’s public libraries. More about the award: http://molib.org/awards/building-block-award/

You can find a list of all the nominees along with activity sheets. Wow, so impressed by all the hard work that must have gone into creating these activity sheets!

Especially tickled that one of the other nominees is my friend Brian Won for his wonderful HOORAY FOR HAT!

Thanks also to DBRL Kids (of Daniel Boone Regional Library) for the great post this month about NAKED! as well as extra discussion topics and suggested activities for young readers.

NAKED! is a picture book written by Michael Ian Black and illustrated by yours truly. You can find a Teacher's Guide by Marcie Colleen and other bonus material at: http://debbieohi.com/naked

Thank you so much to the preschoolers in Missouri who nominated NAKED!

NAKED! has been translated into Japanese!

NAKED! IS IN JAPAN!!!!!! My copies of the Japanese version of Naked! just arrived, woohoooo!!!! I helped Hisakata Child create a new cover illustration and endpapers specifically for this version. Thanks to my friend John Chew for his help (and for providing some of the toys I used as models on the cover) and to Sarah Perillo and Jonathan Lyons of Curtis Brown Ltd's foreign rights team for working with Hisakata Child to get this book into Japan.

Here's the Amazon Japan link for the Japanese version of NAKED!

Here's the Hisakata Child book page for NAKED!

I was highly amused by the results of Google Translate for the Amazon page. Synopsis was translated to: "Boy coming out of the bath, you run around full of vitality do not wear anything. Even chasing mom with clothes, in the state as it is naked, pants also do not need even shirts! But, be cloak want to give a little. Recommended of the picture book to mom to have a boy." :-)

It's official: NAKED! won a BCCB Blue Ribbon Award!

 

Totally thrilled that NAKED! is a 2014 BCCB Blue Ribbon winner! The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (BCCB) is one of the leading children's book review journals for school and public libraries. You can see the full list of the other 2014 BCCB Blue Ribbon winners on the BCCB website.

"Blue Ribbons are chosen annually by the Bulletin staff and represent what we believe to be the best of the previous year's literature for youth." You can see the Blue Ribbon Archive for other lists from 1990 through to the present. You can also download a PDF version of the list.

You can browse BCCB Blue Ribbon book covers from past years in the LibraryThing Book Awards archives.

Curious about how books are reviewed at The Bulletin Of The Center For Children's Books? Check out the video above, which shows a book's journey through the CCB and how it becomes part of the  CCB's research collection.

Congrats to my fellow Blue Ribbon winners, especially the other Simon & Schuster Children's author/illustrators Scott Campbell (Hug Machine) and Marla Frazee (The Farmer and the Clown):

Also delighted to see Jonathan Auxier's The Night Gardener (Amulet/Abrams) in the list; the book was one of my own favourite reads of 2014.

The Bulletin Of The Center For Children's Books is devoted entirely to the review of current books for young people. It provides concise summaries and critical evaluations to help its readers find the books they need. Each review gives info about the book's content, reading level, strengths and weaknesses, quality of format and suggestions for curricular use.

The Bulletin is published monthly (except August) by The Johns Hopkins University Press for the Graduate School Of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

From the website of The Center For Children's Books: "The Center for Children’s Books (CCB) at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) is a crossroads for critical inquiry, professional training, and educational outreach related to youth-focused resources, literature and librarianship. The Center’s mission is to facilitate the creation and dissemination of exemplary and progressive research and scholarship related to all aspects of children’s and young adult literature; media and resources for young (age 0-18) audiences; and youth services librarianship.

In partnership with The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books—an authoritative analytic review journal—the Center aims to inspire and inform adults who connect young people with resources in person, in print, and online. The Center sponsors activities and hosts interdisciplinary research projects involving both theory and practice. In its dual role as research collection and educational community, the Center has national impact on the future of reading and readers."

I encourage you to check out The Bulletin's website, a rich resource of children's book recommendations and information, and The Center For Children's Books.

And again, THANK YOU so much to The Bulletin of The Center For Children's Books for the Blue Ribbon honor!

NAKED! in Scholastic.com's list of "Top 12 Books Of 2014"

Thanks to Brian Smith for including NAKED! in his "Top 12 Books Of 2014" Top Teaching blog post on Scholastic.com!

Excerpt:

"I am a pushover for a book that will get my kids to laugh, and the top two ways to get them to laugh are anything restroom related or the word naked. These two literary devices will get a belly laugh every time. This book is about a boy running around the house naked after a bath. The illustrations are such a great match for the feel of the book that it really makes it one of the best books of the year. If you give this book as a gift make sure to buy a red cape to go along with it!"