Blind Eyes on the Prizes

Blind Eyes on the Prizes

I think that the focus on prizes skews the discussion from what is to what gets rewarded.  The books are written the same with or without any award, awards are simply, in my honest opinion most useful as marketing devices. The sales of books that win any youth literature awards are all but guaranteed to skyrocket sometimes exponentially after they are recognized or “win” the award(s).

 Some books are chosen by the Newberry committee that is so carefully described by Bonnie J.F. Miller in her Fall 1998 article “What Color is Gold?. The books that win the famous Newberry award or win Newberry Honors, certainly give evidence to how the award is used and tremendously successful at selling those books. 

The critique by Marc Aronson in his article “Slippery Slopes and Proliferating Prizes” is fascinating in its approach to defining some awards as “limited by” the award committee’s identity.  MY response is that I agree with Miller’s point that “literature is subjective” and that awards are, as she quotes Joan Lyon Atkinson, “chosen by imperfect human beings who are of a particular time and place; they reflect the values and priorities of their eras and backgrounds.” (Miller, 1998)

  

I think we should add more awards for every category whether it be quality in a genre or more awards for more specific identities to increase the knowledge and understanding of all identities racial or otherwise.

There is simply no way to take the human aspect and the identity aspect out of a single person much less a whole committee of people, so why be upset at the human condition, and humanity in general, when we can work with each other. Identity is always a factor as long as we hold on to, and are attached to those identities, we will have to distinguish literature based on those identities, especially ethnicities or other identities who are treated as maligned and marginalized minorities whose youth literature could otherwise be ignored entirely or worse. If we do not distinguish literature, it can be and I think will be lost to our library users.