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Park Slope kids authors kick butt at convention

By Gersh Kuntzman
The Brooklyn Paper
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Hyperion Books
Kids book author and Park Slope resident Mo Willems won big at this week’s American Library Association convention.

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Park Slope children’s writers swept — well, almost — the award ceremony at the American Library Association convention on Monday night.

The top award — the Caldecott gold medal — went to Brian Selznick for his book, “The Invention of Hugo Cabret,” while Selznick’s Slope neighbor Mo Willems earned the silver for “Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity,” the follow up to his 2005 “cautionary tale” about a girl, her bunny and a now-famous Park Slope washing machine.

The Caldecott medal — which is basically the Pulitzer Prize and Oscar award of the kids book business — is awarded annually to the author of the best illustrated kids book.

It’s Selznick’s first gold, though he won Caldecott honors in 2002.

He hadn’t noticed the Park Slope sweep.

“Well, if there’s something in the water, I’ll keep drinking it,” said Selznick. “But seriously, I never thought I’d win with a 550-page book about an orphan and French film director Georges Melies.”

Of course, Willems’s name and the word “Caldecott” are interchangeable at this point. He won Caldecott honors for the first “Knuffle Bunny,” and won honors a year earlier with his seminal work, “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.”

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Also at the Monday ceremony in Philadelphia, Willems earned the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for his forthcoming “There is a Bird on Your Head!”

And rounding out the distinguished field, Jackie Woodson got a Newbery silver medal for her book, “Feathers.”

©2008 The Brooklyn Paper

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