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2013 Golden Kite Award Winners
THE 2013 GOLDEN KITE & SID FLEISCHMAN
AWARD WINNERS AND HONOREES
The 2013 awards are presented for excellence in books
for young readers published in the 2012 calendar year.
Golden Kite Award Winners
Fiction:
The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook
by Joanne Rocklin
Amulet Books/Abrams
The Golden Kite Fiction Award goes to The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook by Joanne Rocklin. This uplifting middle grade novel focuses on Oona and her brother, Fred, and the love of their sickly cat, Zook. Oona and Fred are convinced Zook can only get better at home and decide to break Zook out of the vet’s office. During the rescue mission, Oona tells Fred the story of Zook’s previous lives, from fairy tale to odyssey to slice of life; each reincarnation echoes Oona’s own family life, which is going through a transition she’s not yet ready to face.
Nonfiction:
  
Noah Webster & His Words
by Jeri Chase Ferris (Illustrated by Vincent X. Kirsch)
HM for Children
Noah Webster (1758–1843) was a bookish Connecticut farm boy whose love of words propelled him into history books and gave America its fist dictionary. This year’s Nonfiction book winner, Noah Webster and His Words by Jeri Chase Ferris, cleverly depicts and teaches us all about the man who spent twenty years writing two thousand pages to produce the first 100 percent American dictionary. An illustrated chronology of Webster’s life makes this a picture perfect bi-og-ra-phy.
Picture Book Text:
Me and Momma and Big John
by Mara Rockliff (Illustrated by William Low)
Candlewick
“Building a cathedral isn’t just a job, it’s an art,” Momma tells her son John in Mara Rockliff’s Me and Momma and Big John, this year’s winner for Picture Book Text. This touching story about the construction of Saint John’s Cathedral is told from John’s perspective as he watches his mother, a stonecutter, work tirelessly to carve a single stone in the cathedral. When John see’s the finished cathedral, he is confused as to why his mother’s stone is lost among the others, but Momma assures him it’s not about the individual stone, but the pride of working together and creating something beautiful.
Picture Book Illustration:
 
Lester's Dreadful Sweaters
by K. G. Campbell
Kids Can Press
K.G. Campbell’s imaginative use of illustration in Lester’s Dreadful Sweaters makes it the winner of this year’s Golden Kite Award for Picture Book Illustration. This quirky and cute story about Lester and his Cousin Clara’s unwanted gifts comes to life with hideous color combos and mortifying patterns that test Lester’s good manners. Anyone who has had to grin and bear less-than-pleasant presents will enjoy this creative romp.
Golden Kite Honor Recipients
Fiction:
Code Name Verity
by Elizabeth Wein
Hyperion
Nonfiction:
We've Got a Job
by Cynthia Levinson
Peachtree
Picture Book Text:
A Leaf Can Be
by Laura Purdie Salas (Illustrated by Violeta Dabija)
Millbrook
Picture Book Illustration:
Electric Ben
by Robert Byrd
Dial
Winner: 2013 Sid Fleischman Award for Humor
Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs
by Mo Willems
HarperCollins
The 2013 Sid Fleischman Award for Humor goes to Mo Willem’s Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs. Imagination and quirk lend itself to this hilarious twist on a classic fable. Willem’s whimsical storytelling and illustrations will delight both children and parents alike.
The Golden Kite Awards and Honors are given each year to the most outstanding children’s books published during the previous year, and written or illustrated by members of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Four panels of three judges each (one panel for each category, consisting of author or illustrator members of SCBWI whose own works are that of the category being judged), award the titles they feel exhibit excellence in writing or illustration, and that genuinely appeal to the interests and concerns of children.
A list of previous Golden Kite Award winners and honor books is available here.
The Sid Fleischman Award for Humor
Nam ed for the late Newbery-winner Sid Fleischman the SCBWI is pleased to offer this eponymous award for authors whose work exemplifies excellence in the genre of humor, a category so often overlooked by other aw ard committees in children’s literature.
The Golden Kite Awards and the Sid Fleischman Award for Humor are presented at the Golden Kite Luncheon, the centerpiece event of SCBWI’s 42nd Annual Conference on Writing and Illustrating for Children, taking place in Los Angeles, California from August 2-5, 2013 will be presented to the winners on Sunday, August 4.
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