Caldecott: Beth Krommes for The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson (Houghton Mifflin). I'm delighted that this book won the Caldecott. Here's what I said about it in a post from last November: "It's a beautiful bedtime book, based on a cumulative poem found in The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book. I love the way the marigold highlights objects that are familiar yet fascinating to a preschooler--a key, a book, a bird, the moon." My favorite honor book this year is Uri Shulevitz's How I Learned Geography (FSG); post forthcoming.
Newbery: Neil Gaiman for The Graveyard Book, illustrated by Dave McKean (HarperCollins). I'm also delighted that this book won the Newbery! I read it last week and put it on my list of favorites; it was the only one on my list to be recognized by the committee. Of the honor books, I'm reading Margarita Engle's The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom first. Although it won the Pura Belpre Medal for writing today, too, I think I can safely say that it appeared on no one's Newbery shortlist.
Congratulations! And reactions?