Snooki Vs. Newbery/Caldecott Winners

This was disappointing news, and speaks volumes about our celebrity-centric popular culture. Even combining Snooki and Newbery or Caldecott in the same sentence is a conundrum.

For the first time in 11 years, The Today Show decided not to feature the Newbery and Caldecott Medalists, in order to do a show with Snooki from Jersey Shore reality-tv fame. In the NBC program’s defense, they do present segments on children’s books throughout the year  ~ but I’m not sure they could have chosen a more insulting displacement in this particular case.

We all understand “ratings rule”. But this was ill-timed. Doesn’t seem right.

Media blunder aside, cheers and congratulations to the 2011 winners of the most prized awards for children’s literature:

John Newbery Medal (outstanding contribution to children’s literature): “Moon over Manifest,” written by Clare Vanderpool. The book is published by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

(More from Publisher’s Weekly, here: No ‘Today Show’ for Vanderpool or Stead.)