I’m Still Here, and I’m Not Alone
Happy July! Can you even believe it’s already approaching the end of July? Well, I’m interupting your regularly scheduled summer of ignoring this blog to give you a little bit of an update about what’s happening with us.
As you know, Jonathan has moved on from Heavy Medal and we will miss him dearly. I’m happy, though, to announce that I’ll be joined by two new contributors making us an unbeatable team of three. I’m so excited to welcome Steven Engelfriend and Roxanne Feldman to the Heavy Medal team!
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Steven is the Library Services Manager at the Wilsonville Public Library in Oregon, just south of Portland. He does some library-wide management-type stuff with this job, but also gets to do storytimes, visit schools, select children’s books, and work on the Children’s Desk.
“I’ve read a bunch of excellent 2017 books so far and have longer list of books-to-read-as-soon-as-possible. This morning I just finished maybe my favorite book of the year (A Face Like Glass) but since Frances Hardinge still lives in England, that book won’t show up on Heavy Medal. My most recent eligible favorite is Vincent and Theo by Deborah Heligman, who did Charles and Emma a few years ago (wait, I just checked: that was 8 years ago!).”
Roxanne is the Middle School Librarian at the Dalton School in Manhattan and a longtime evaluator (and blogger) of children’s literature.
So, we will be back with our regularly scheduled blogging program in September and we’ll start really digging in then. In the meantime, here’s a small sample of what we’ve been reading.
What’s on your summer reading list?
Filed under: Book Discussion, Uncategorized

About Sharon McKellar
Sharon McKellar is the Supervising Librarian for Teen Services at the Oakland Public Library in California. She has served on the Rainbow List Committee, the Notable Children’s Recordings Committee, The Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Committee, and the 2015 Caldecott Committee. You can reach her at sharon@mckellar.org.
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So exciting! I can hardly wait for discussions to resume in the fall!
Looking forward to it!
My summer reading list includes:
Short by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Train I Ride by Paul Mosier
See You in the Cosmos by Jack Cheng
I’ve read See you in the Cosmos, but not the other two yet. Think they are contenders?
I really liked TRAIN I RIDE. Definitely a contender.
Just read and reviewed Eucabeth A. Odhiambo’s AUMA’S LONG RUN and think it a contender.
https://medinger.wordpress.com/2017/07/23/aumas-long-run-by-eucabeth-a-odhiambo/
Oh great! I’ll check that one out.
I’m reading Auma’s long run and it is really good so far. I’m at the critical part about Baba.
Jen J. just updated her list of 2017 Starred Reviews: https://booksheets.wordpress.com/
It’s an excellent resource for tracking which books are getting highest praise from review journals. It will include some books that aren’t eligible for the Newbery, and of course reviewers aren’t using the same criteria as the Newbery Committee. But it’s very useful (and interesting) to see what’s earning acclaim so far.