2009 ALA Youth Media Awards on Twitter

Contact: John L. Amundsen
ALA Public Information Office
(312) 280-5041
jamundsen@ala.org

For Immediate Release
December 23, 2008

2009 ALA Youth Media Awards on Twitter

CHICAGO – For the first time ever, there will be a live Twitterstream for the 2009 Youth Media Awards, as ALA, the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) and the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) unveil the best in children’s and young adult literature and media during ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in Denver.

Starting at 7:45 a.m. MST on Monday, Jan. 26, followers of www.twitter.com/alayma on Twitter will get real-time updates on award winners as they are announced in Denver. Users of Twitter can read and follow posts — referred to as 'tweets'—instantly, either through ALA's Twitter page, RSS, SMS Text Messaging (if enabled), or social networking sites such as Facebook, with the Twitter add-on. 

Awards announced on Jan. 26 will include:
  • Alex Awards for the best adult books that appeal to a teen audience.
  • Andrew Carnegie Medal for excellence in children's video.
  • Coretta Scott King Book Awards honoring African American authors and illustrators of outstanding books for children and young adults that demonstrate sensitivity to "the African American experience via literature and illustration."
  • John Newbery Medal honoring the author of the year's most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.
  • Laura Ingalls Wilder Award honoring an author or illustrator whose books have made a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children.
  • Margaret A. Edwards Award honoring an author's significant and lasting contribution in writing for young adults as well as a specific body of his or her work.
  • May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award recognizing an author, critic, librarian, historian or teacher of children's literature for presenting a paper considered to be a significant contribution to the field of children's literature at a winning host site.
  • Michael L. Printz Award for a book displaying excellence in literature written for young adults
  • Mildred L. Batchelder Award, which is presented to an American publisher for the most outstanding book originally published in a country other than the United States in a language other than English and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States.
  • Odyssey Award, which is presented to the producer of the best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults available in English in the United States.
  • Pura Belpré Award recognizing Latino/Latina writers and illustrators whose work best portrays, affirms and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.
  • Randolph Caldecott Medal honoring the illustrator of the year's most distinguished American picture book for children.
  • Robert F. Sibert Medal honoring an author, illustrator and/or photographer of the most distinguished informational book published for children.
  • Schneider Family Book Award for books that embody an artistic expression of the disability experience.
  • Theodor Seuss Geisel Award, which is presented annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished book for beginning readers published in English in the United States.
  • William C. Morris Award, which begins in 2009, honoring a debut book published by an author writing for teens and celebrating impressive new voices in young adult literature.

For more information, please visit www.twitter.com/alayma, or email jamundsen@ala.org.