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Newport News librarian to help choose Newbery book award

Laura Amos, family and youth services librarian at the Virgil I. Grissom Library in Newport News, will serve on the 2012 John Newbery Award Committee. This committee is charged with selecting the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children each year. The Newbery Award Committee operates under the direction of the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association.

Laura Amos, family and youth services librarian at Grissom Library, has been selected to serve on the John Newbery Award Committee.

A Newport News Public Library System staff member has been selected as one of only 15 librarians nationwide who will help choose the highest honor for children’s books.
Laura Amos, family and youth services librarian at the Virgil I. Grissom Library in Newport News, will serve on the 2012 John Newbery Award Committee. This committee is charged with selecting the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children each year. The Newbery Award Committee operates under the direction of the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association.
Members of the committee will read hundreds of books that are published in 2011 for children. These titles will include fiction, non-fiction and poetry and will be aimed at children ages birth to 14. In January 2012, the committee will meet to vote on the winner of the award and any honor books.

The Newbery Medal was named for 18th-century British bookseller John Newbery. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. The Newbery Medal is considered to be the best known and most discussed children's book award in the United States.

The purpose of the Newbery Medal is "to encourage original creative work in the field of books for children; to emphasize to the public that contributions to the literature for children deserve similar recognition to poetry, plays, or novels; and to give those librarians, who make it their life work to serve children's reading interests, an opportunity to encourage good writing in this field."
 

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