The Grand Canyon Reader Award is a reader award program for students in Arizona. Students vote annually on their favorite book in the following categories: Picture, Non-Fiction, Intermediate, Tween and Teen (which will be a voting optional category).
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Battle of the Books Questions for Intermediate 2012
2013 Grand Canyon Reader Award Nominees
Booktalks for Intermediate and Tween Books by Shirley Berow
The 2011 winners have been announced!
Picture Book: I Need My Monster by Amanda Noll Illustrated by Howard McWilliam
Non-Fiction: Big Cats: Hunters of the Night by Elaine Landau
Intermediate: The Gollywhopper Games by Jody Feldman
Tween: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Teen (voting optional, no award given): The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Please see the previous winners page for voting totals and runner-ups.
The 2012 Grand Canyon Reader Award Nomination List
Acceptance Letter from Chester by Melanie Watt.
Letter from Gordon Korman about winning the 2010 Grand Canyon Reader Award in two categories.
I'm so sorry I can't be with you in person to accept this double-honor. Wow! To win in two categories in the same year! I could not be more thrilled that the readers of Arizona chose SWINDLE and SCHOOLED. These are truly the awards that mean the most, since they are chosen by the readers themselves.
I should set the record straight from the outset that neither of these novels is autobiographical. SWINDLE was born while I was doing research for my adventure series. I kept coming across these great books and movies about robberies, which started me thinking about writing a good old-fashioned heist story for a younger audience. The problem was always the same: Robbery is a crime. How can I expect readers to sympathize with kids who are engaged in a criminal enterprise? The reason for the heist had to be so compelling that people would forgive my characters for breaking the law. That’s a tall order – unless the protagonists aren’t so much stealing something as stealing it back. Presto – kids who have been conned out of a million-dollar Babe Ruth baseball card by an unscrupulous collector launching an elaborate operation to take it back.
Nor am I an ex-hippie. I was only six when the sixties ended, so I don’t have any memories of the counterculture myself. But in researching that time for SCHOOLED, I feel as if I got “inside the Day-Glo.” I saw that a lot of that world was weird and sometimes silly – it certainly provided me with a whole lot of opportunities for humor. But beyond the jokes, beyond the craziness, I realized that the much of the hippie idea – the principles, if not always the reality – was genuinely good. We could learn a few things from what hippies tried to do in back in the 60’s, just as the students of C Average Middle School learn from Capricorn Anderson.
In Cap's spirit, I wish I could individually thank by name every boy and girl in both age categories who voted for me, but I guess that’s just not possible. All I can do is say how honored, how flattered, and how grateful I am to accept the 2010 Grand Canyon Reader Award for SWINDLE and SCHOOLED.
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Kerrlita Westrick and Shirley Berow are the Co-chairs of the Grand Canyon Reader Award Committee. If you are interested in becoming a member of the selection committee for the 2012 nominees or have questions about the Grand Canyon Reader Award, please e-mail kerrlita@cox.net. To be on the committee it is recommended that you are a member of the Arizona Library Association or the Arizona Reading Association, but it is not a requirement at this time.
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