Boston Globe-Horn Book Award hoopla!

We didn't have to wait long for the announcement of these illustrious awards! Good thing, too, as the last few days have gone something like this...

SUNDAY
BGHB judges: We've just been deliberating about the awards!
me: Tell me tell me!
judges: No.
me: Just a little hint?
judges: No.
me: What if I ask questions and you say yes or no?
judges: Nope. Keep checking the website, though.

MONDAY
me: [feverishly reloading Horn Book website] Arg.

TUESDAY
me: [opens email] WHAHOO!

The 2009 winners and honorees are (cue fanfare and ticker tape, please):

Picture book
Bubble Trouble by Margaret Mahy, illustrated by Polly Dunbar
Old Bear by Kevin Henkes (honor book)
Higher! Higher! by Leslie Patricelli (honor book)

Fiction
Nation by Terry Pratchett
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (honor book)
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation Vol. II: The Kingdom on the Waves by M.T. Anderson (honor book)

Nonfiction
The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary by Candace Fleming
The Way We Work by David Macaulay (honor book)
Almost Astronauts: Thirteen Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone (honor book)

Many of these titles are already CG staff favorites -- what up, Kevin Henkes? Congratulations, Leslie Patricelli! The ceremony in October should be a blast, between endearing Margaret Mahy, engaging David Macaulay, hilarious Terry Pratchett, and charming M.T. Anderson (known to inspire women to attend his readings minus their wedding rings!). I'm already scheming about how to get in. I need to start psyching myself up now, though, because you know with both Neil Gaiman and the Rog in attendance my head might explode from an overload of amazing.