RI Children's Book Award

The RI Children's Book Award winners and nominees will be updated soon at:
https://olis.ri.gov/youth/ricba/winners.php

This year 7,160 students from 99 schools and public libraries voted for their favorite 2024 nominee. A big thank you to all the librarians and teachers who promoted the list, connected kids with the books, and conducted voting!

Accompanying resources can be found on the RICBA LibGuide.

1. Art Club by Rashad Doucet
2. The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name by Sandhya Parappukkaran, illustrated by Michelle Pereira
3. Champion Chompers, Super Stinkers and Other Poems by Extraordinary Animals by Linda Ashman, illustrated by Aparna Varma
4. Ellen Takes Flight: The Life of Astronaut Ellen Ochoa by Doreen Rappaport, illustrated by Oliver Dominguez
5. Finch House by Ciera Burch
6. Grimwood by Nadia Shireen
7. The Guardian Test by Christina Soontornvat, illustrated by Kevin Hong
8. Home Away from Home by Cynthia Lord
9. How Not to Get Eaten by Josette Reeves, illustrated by Asia Orlando
10. Jovita Wore Pants by Aida Salazar, illustrated by Molly Mendoza
11. The Last Plastic Straw by Dee Romito, illustrated by Ziyue Chen
12. Lolo’s Sari-Sari Store by Sophia N. Lee, illustrated by Christine Almeda
13. Mabuhay! By Zack Sterling
14. Meesh the Bad Demon by Michelle Lam, illustrated by Lauren “Perry” Wheeler
15. My Powerful Hair by Carole Lindstrom, illustrated by Steph Littlebird
16. Sam Makes a Splash by Nicole Melleby
17. Sejal Sinha Battles Superstorms by Maya Prasad, illustrated by Abira Das
18. Shermy & Shake, the Not-So-Nice Neighbor by Kirby Larson, illustrated by Shinji Fujioka
19. Something Like Home by Andrea Beatriz Arango
20. These Olive Trees by Aya Ghanameh

The Rooster Games is a trivia competition that engages kids with the current RICBA nominated titles. Schools and public libraries coordinate competitive Rooster Games activities between students, classrooms, or schools in their community. The Rooster Games typically feature several rounds of trivia or activities, can be planned to take place for any length of time, and may take place in-person or virtually. There is no right or wrong way to run the Rooster Games; anything that gets kids excited about reading is a success!

Materials for facilitating Rooster Games based on the 2024 RICBA nominees are available thanks to Gina Kilday at Metcalf Elementary, Wendy Gustavel at Rocky Hill Country Day, and Linda LaCava at the North Providence Public Library.

These documents are being developed and shared to encourage and support Rooster Games in school and public libraries throughout Rhode Island.

Anyone has editing rights to the shared spreadsheet for Question Development. Please consider adding content based on any of the RICBA nominees that you read.

A popular suggestion from the Rooster Games - Resources for Teachers and Librarians Facebook page was to have trivia questions that did not require reading the books to be used as a promotion of RICBA voting and the Rooster Games. A file of Google Slides has been started and anyone is invited to edit this document, also.

Most other documents are “View Only”. Feel free to copy and edit that copy to use as you wish. If you feel that you need editing access to any original shared documents to help with the collaboration, PLEASE ASK!!!! If you are not sure who owns the document, ask gina_kilday@ewg.k12.ri.us and she can get you the permissions that you need.

Feel free to share your folder of your school/library specific documents as “View Only” to inspire and support others (as long as you are willing for people to copy and use them).

Remember, our goal in developing these resources collaboratively is to share and support each other. Let us know how we can help!!!

• Gina Kilday, Metcalf Elementary, Exeter gina_kilday@ewg.k12.ri.us
• Wendy Gustavel, Rocky Hill Country Day School, wgustavel@rockyhill.org

• Linda Lacava, North Providence Public Library, llacava@nprovlib.org

2024 Rooster Games Materials

Curious about starting Rooster Games at your school or library? Join North Providence librarians at the RI Library Association Conference on Thursday, May 23 and learn how a public library/school partnership began a tradition of Rooster Games and Lighthouse Games (RIMSBA) in their community.

The Rhode Island Children's Book Award committee is seeking three new members to serve a three year term, 2024-2027. Prospective members should have experience working with youth in grades 3-5 and knowledge of current children's literature.

Please complete the application below by Monday, June 17. Applicants will be notified at the end of June regarding their application status for the term beginning in September 2024 and ending in June 2025. Please feel free to share this application with anyone you think may be interested.

Join the RICBA committee at the 2024 RI Library Association Annual Conference. Learn about the committee and hear about the 2025 nominees. The RICBA committee will be presenting on Thursday, May 23 as part of a plenary session highlighting all statewide book awards for youth.

Beginning with the 2022 nominees, all resources will be on the RI Children's Book Award LibGuide. The LibGuide includes materials curated and developed by the RICBA committee and additional resources submitted by librarians and teachers. Author video messages are also now included on the LibGuide. The RICBA LibGuide is set to community sharing so please reuse content for your own guide!

The Rhode Island Children’s Book Award Committee, composed of Rhode Island teachers, school librarians, and public librarians, works annually to create a diverse list of nominated books using specific criteria. The committee is intentional in seeking books that affirm marginalized groups and champions stories and characters that reflect the lived experiences of Rhode Island youth as well as the larger world. The committee aims to provide an annual list of nominees that maintains diversity in race, gender, sexuality, family makeup, socioeconomic status, and ability. Nominee lists are thoughtfully curated with an anti-racist lens, to allow all youth to be seen and their voices actively heard. The Rhode Island Children’s Book Award Committee believes representation matters and strives to create mirrors, windows and prisms for all children.

A growing list of resources for addressing book challenges can be found on the RICBA LibGuide at https://olis-ri.libguides.com/ricba/challenges.

The Rhode Island Center for the Book is pleased to partner with the American Library Association in support of Unite Against Book Bans, a national grassroots campaign to engage the public in the fight against censorship. This non-partisan campaign leverages the reach of national organizations representing librarians; educators; parents; authors, publishers; distributors; champions for civil liberties, civil rights, and equality; and more.

We invite you to raise your voice for the right to read:

• Join the Rhode Island Center for the Book Unite Against Book Bans Advocacy Committee to help us fight book bans and soft censorship in our state.

• Connect with thousands of others and sign up to Unite Against Book Bans: join and follow Unite Against Book Bans.

• Spread the word on social media. Here are some graphics.

Email kate@ribook.org to get involved.

Together, we will defeat censorship!

The RI Library Association Intellectual Freedom Committee has created a form for reporting material challenges and other forms of censorship taking place in Rhode Island. This will allow the committee to track the censorship happening in RI to be better informed on how to help. The committee will also report the data to ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom if the respondent chooses, so those facing book bans and other censorship attempts can report to the state and national library organization using only one form. The Intellectual Freedom Committee encourages any librarian, library staff member, or educator to report any incident of attempted censorship happening at your institution, no matter how small, using this new form. The link to the form can be found in the Intellectual Freedom Committee's webpage, linked below. Please share this information with your colleagues.

https://rilibraries.org/intellectual-freedom

Annually children in grades 3 to 5 have the opportunity to vote on their favorite book from a ballot of 20 selections nominated for the Rhode Island Children’s Book Award by a panel of librarians, reading specialists and teachers. Children vote as part of their class or with their local public library.

The award began in 1990 as a joint project of the Rhode Island State Council of the International Reading Association, the Rhode Island Library Association, and the Rhode Island Educational Media Association, under the coordination of the Rhode Island Office of Library and Information Services. Today, the Rhode Island Children's Book Award is co-sponsored by the School Librarians of Rhode Island (SLRI), the Rhode Island Library Association (RILA), and the Rhode Island Center for the Book at the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities (RICFB), and is advised by the Rhode Island Office of Library and Information Services (OLIS).Three public youth services librarians, three members of SLRI, and three members of RICFB are each chosen to each serve three year terms on the committee.

20 nominees are announced each spring. Public libraries, school libraries, and classrooms promote the award and share the nominees throughout the year. Voting takes place the following February and the winner is announced in March. Children in grades 3-5 who have read at least 3 books from the list of 20 nominees are eligible to vote. Voting takes place at participating schools and public libraries throughout the state.

Please visit the RICBA web pages, Facebook page, LibGuide or contact Danielle Margarida for more information.

Email: danielle.margarida@olis.ri.gov
Website: http://www.olis.ri.gov/youth/ricba/index.php
Location: RI Office of Library and Information Services, Providence, RI, United States
Phone: 401-574-9309
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Rhode-Island-Childrens-Book-Award-1353731481320472/?ref=page_internal