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By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published January 28, 2007
NEW YORK
A book by Pete Seeger about a young musician who loses his hearing and a wordless story about an underwater camera were among the winners of children's book prizes announced Monday by the American Library Association.
The John Newbery Medal for last year's outstanding contribution was awarded to Susan Patron's The Higher Power of Lucky, the adventures of a 10-year-old girl.
The Randolph Caldecott Medal for best picture book went to Flotsam, a seaside story about photos taken by a vintage underwater camera, narrated exclusively through pictures by David Wiesner, now a three-time Caldecott winner.
Also Monday, Seeger and co-author Paul DuBois Jacobs received the Schneider Family Book Award for "books that embody the artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences."
Their book, The Deaf Musicians, tells of a young boy who forms a jazz group with other deaf performers, becoming a sensation for their nightly subway concerts. Two other books received Schneider awards: Rules by Cynthia Lord and Small Steps by Louis Sachar.
A graphic novel and National Book Award finalist, Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese, won the Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults. The Coretta Scott King Book Award for best book by an African-American author and illustrator went to Sharon Draper's Copper Sun.
Two authors received honorary prizes. The late author-illustrator James Marshall, who worked on such humorous books as the George and Martha series and the mishaps of the Stupid family, won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for "a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children." The Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement was given to Lois Lowry, a Newbery winner in 1990 for Number the Stars and in 1994 for The Giver.
The Theodor Seuss Geisel award for the most distinguished beginning reader book was Laura McGee Kvasnosky for Zelda and Ivy: The Runaways.