The Dark,
written by Lemony Snicket and illustrated by Jon Klassen, is the winner of the seventeenth
annual Charlotte Zolotow Award for outstanding writing in a picture book. The
award is given by the Cooperative Children's Book Center, a library of the
School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and will be
presented in Madison this spring.
Lemony
Snicket’s playfully serious picture book personifies one of the most common
fears of childhood. Laszlo doesn’t like the dark, which lives in his
basement during the day. “At night, of course, the dark went out and spread
itself against the windows and doors …” One night, the dark, which has a voice “as
creaky as the roof of the house, and as smooth and cold as the windows,” lures
Laszlo out of his room. The narrative builds anxiety and anticipation as Laszlo
hesitantly descends through the house. Then a wonderful cascade of language
creates a sudden shift in pace, mood and perspective, inviting readers and
listeners to consider the dark in new light—as a presence with purpose. Lemony Snicket
never trivializes children’s fear of the dark. Instead he acknowledges that
fear while elegantly traversing the tension it creates to arrive at a point of reassurance
and humorous possibility, where the dark is both illuminated and illuminating. The Dark was edited by Susan Rich,
editor-at-large, and published in the United States in 2013 by Little, Brown
Books for Young Readers.
The 2014 Zolotow
Award committee named five Honor Books: Building Our House, written and
illustrated by Jonathan Bean, edited by Wes Adams, and published by Farrar Straus Giroux, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group; My Cold Plum Lemon Pie Bluesy Mood, written by Tameka Fryer
Brown, illustrated by Shane W. Evans, edited by Joanna Cardenas, and published
by Viking, Penguin Young Readers Group; Sophie’s Squash, written by Pat Zietlow Miller, illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf, edited
by Anne Schwartz, and published by Schwartz & Wade, an imprint of Random
House Children’s Books, a division of Random House Penguin LLC; This Is the Rope, written by Jacqueline
Woodson, illustrated by James Ransome, edited by Nancy Paulsen, and published
by Nancy Paulsen Books, Penguin Young Readers Group; and Year of the Jungle, written by Suzanne Collins, illustrated by
James Proimos, edited by Kate Egan and Emily Seife and published by Scholastic
Press, an imprint of Scholastic.
The
2014 Zolotow Award committee also cited seven titles as Highly Commended: Big Snow written and illustrated by
Jonathan Bean (Farrar Straus Giroux / Macmillan); Max and the Tag-Along Moon written and illustrated by Floyd Cooper
(Philomel / Penguin Young Readers Group); My Blue Is Happy written by Jessica Young and illustrated by Catia Chien
(Candlewick Press); Niño Wrestles the World written and illustrated by Yuyi Morales (A Neal Porter Book / Roaring
Brook Press / Macmillan); The Silver Button written and illustrated by Bob Graham (U.S. edition: Candlewick
Press); Stripes of All Types written
and illustrated by Susan Stockdale (Peachtree); and When No One Is Watching written by Eileen Spinelli and illustrated
by David A. Johnson (Eerdmans).
The award is given
annually for outstanding writing in a picture book for children in the birth
through seven age range published in the United States in the preceding year. Members
of the 2014 Zolotow Award Committee were: Megan Schliesman, chair (Librarian,
Cooperative Children’s Book Center, Madison, Wisconsin); Barb Huntington (Library
Consultant, Retired, Madison, Wisconsin); Lynn Montague (Youth Services
Librarian, Sun Prairie Public Library, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin); Duy Nguyen (Teacher,
Emerson Elementary School, Madison, Wisconsin); and Kristine Klopp (Library
Media Specialist, Boulder, Colorado).
