WNBA Announces Children's Bookseller Award Winners

The Women's National Book Association (WNBA) has announced the winners of this year's Lucile Micheels Pannell Award. This year's Award for a general bookstore goes to Anderson's Bookshops from Naperville, Illinois. The winner in the children's specialty category is Eight Cousins Children's Books from Falmouth, Massachusetts.

When contacted by BTW, Carol Chittenden, owner and co-founder of Eight Cousins said, "David McCullough thinks he’s happy [winning the 2002Pulitzer Prize]. I am so excited and so pleased. Pretty good for two women whose previous business experience consisted of one good yard sale."

The announcement couldn't have been timed more perfectly for Becky Anderson of Anderson's Bookshops, "We were having a rep night with staff from all three of our stores attending. It's because of them that we won this award. This is the greatest justification for all that we do here."

The Pannell Award was created in 1983 to honor Lucile Micheels Pannell, who was an esteemed Chicago bookseller. The Award recognizes retail booksellers who excel at creatively bringing books and children together and inspiring children's interest in books and reading. The Awards will be presented at BookExpo America in New York at the Children's Book and Author Breakfast sponsored by the American Booksellers Association (ABA)-Children's Book Council (CBC) Joint Committee and BookExpo America on Friday, May 3. Each winner will receive a check for $1,000 and a framed piece of original art created by a children's book illustrator. This year's art was contributed by artists David McPhail and Elisa Kleven.

"This year 25 stores were nominated and 18 chose to submit entries for the jury to consider, nine in each category. The quality and diversity of the entries was exceptional, and the jurors had a very difficult time making their decision," said Eileen Hanning, WNBA's Pannell committee chair. After six weeks of deliberation, the jury of five book industry professionals selected Anderson's and Eight Cousins based on their creativity, responsiveness to community needs, passion, and understanding of children's books and young readers.

WNBA noted that Anderson's Bookshops impressed the jury with the store’s collaboration with the schools, community groups, and other businesses, which provided "extensive programming to get children reading." Working with two school systems and the public library, Anderson's "Naperville Reads Gary Paulsen" program worked to get the town of Naperville (population 130,000) to read a book by Paulsen in anticipation of an author visit.

Eight Cousins' creativity caught the juror's attention, according to WNBA. Store programs and marketing, including window displays, demonstrated "a refreshing grasp of the needs of young readers and a desire to engage the entire community." One of their first window displays involved giant three-letter words in their front window. The goal was to give beginning readers a word to sound out as they passed the store, and to create a theme for the window display. However, soon, the entire town was window watching. Four years later, the list of words used became the springboard for a writing contest.

In addition to the award winners, the jury selected the following stores for honorable mention: Butterfly Books, DePere, Wisconsin; Flying Pig Children's Books, Charlotte, Vermont; Hawley-Cooke Booksellers, Louisville, Kentucky; Mother Kali's Books, Eugene, Oregon.

The Women's National Book Association, founded in 1917, is a national organization of women and men who work with and value books. WNBA, an all-volunteer organization, exists to promote reading and to support the role of women in the community of the book. To learn more about the organization, contact the national secretary at lvanstip@tln.lib.mi.us.
Watch for further coverage, when BTW profiles both winning stores.