At the end of every January, the American Library Association announces their newest book awards. In children's literature, the Newbery and Caldecott winners are the most exciting. Flora & Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo won the Newbery Award (the award for the most distinguished children's book of the year). This is especially exciting in Texas because this book has already been chosen to be on the 2014-2015 Texas Bluebonnet List. This quirky chapter book takes the reader on an adventure with Flora, a girl seeking more out of life, and Ulysses, a squirrel who has had a traumatic experience and can now understand humans. Kate DiCamillo also won the Newbery Award in 2004 with The Tale of Desperaux.
Locomotive by Brian Floca won the Caldecott Award (the award for the most distinguished picture book of the year). Brian Floca wrote and illustrated this informational picture book about the introduction of the locomotive in the United States. The text and illustrations work so well together to inform the reader about how trains worked, people riding them and how they connected across the country. The invention of the locomotive provided a form of transportation that vastly altered the speed of travel and began a new way of life in our country.