For the past few years, leading up to the ALA Youth Media Awards, Booksource folks have done a mock award contest to see which employee can guess the most winning titles. This year we broadcasted the award ceremony live in our training room. We cheered for most of the winning titles, but there were some underlying groans from employees who were certain a particular title would be recognized but wasn’t. We are lucky enough to see most (if not all) of the newly published books for children and young adults, and (not surprisingly) we get pretty passionate about the books we think should win.

This year, we thought, “Why not make this into something bigger that we can share with our readers?” After all, the Booksource Banter blog is the place where educators and industry experts alike come together to have playful, intelligent and original conversations about classroom literature and teaching. What better place to share excitement about newly published books for the classroom! Forthwith, we bring you the Booksource Scout Awards!

The heroine from our number one best-selling title, To Kill a Mockingbird, was our inspiration for the name of the award. We want to recognize the new classroom classics that will be around for years to come, just like To Kill a Mockingbird. We will tag Scout Award hopefuls throughout the year and then post a ballot in mid-December and open up voting. We will vote on books for the following categories:

• picture book
• middle grade novel
• young adult novel
• graphic novel
• nonfiction science
• nonfiction social studies
• nonfiction math
• poetry
• biography
• best overall

We will announce the winners the first week of January. Winning authors will receive virtual badges on the blog and a donation of $1,000 in books to a organization of their choice. We will also raffle of to three winnings all winning titles in each category. We will shout about them from the rooftops!

We’ve added a Scout Award category on the left-hand side of the page to link to all of our hopefuls. Be sure to check it out throughout the year! Also, keep an eye out for the Scout Award medal. This will be posted on articles where we talk about Scout hopefuls. The Scout awards are one more chance to celebrate newly published titles that we want to recognize, and we invite you will join the conversation! Closer to the end of the year we will start asking for nominations on Twitter and Facebook. Be sure to use the hashtags #DoYouBanter and #ScoutAwards when you nominate! You can also contribute by writing a blog post on your own hopefuls! Email banter@booksource.com for more details if you’re interested.

It’s never too early to start thinking about award season. I, for one, am already brimming with bookish excitement! So, please comment below with what I should read next! And don’t forget to check back for Scout Award hopefuls throughout the year!