The awards table at Thursday night’s Evanston Public Library Blueberry Awards. Credit: Kristin Lems
A little snow didn’t keep away fans of Evanston Public Library’s fourth annual Blueberry Awards on Thursday evening.
Families, educators, librarians, environmentalists and curious others moved from room to room, browsing the 35 children’s books chosen for the awards and looking forward to the announcement of winners.
In a room of the children’s library area, volunteers from the Justin Wynn Leadership Academy set up small compostable egg carton pots with soil for children to plant flower seeds and take them home to grow. Reilly Pope (pictured below) was a Wynn volunteer from Chute Middle School. “We are chosen for the Justin Wynn awards for our leadership skills and the ability to communicate with people,” he said. “We volunteer for [things like] soup kitchens and beach cleanup.” Tonight was another way to “think green,” as Earth Month and spring approach.
Reilly Pope, Chute Middle School student and member of the Justin Wynn Leadership Academy. Credit: Kristin Lems
On the third floor, the Evanston Ecology Center set up exhibits and displays, including live animals to learn about and — if you were brave — touch! Margaret Isaacson from the EEC offered children who dared a chance to touch a writhing black millipede, explaining that they were quite different from centipedes, longer and with a higher body. There were also animal hides, starfish and skeletons, and even a live hermit crab peeking out from its shell.
Margaret Isaacson from the Evanston Ecology Center shows off a garden snake. Credit: Kristin Lems
It was Evanston Public Library’s fourth annual Blueberry Awards presentation, recognizing birth-to-age-10 books published in 2024 with both high appeal and high quality on themes of the natural world, the planet and protecting the environment. They included picture books (including nonfiction), board books and easy chapter books that share a view of hope, respect for the natural world and real-life solutions.
A dedicated group of local librarians, nature educators and environmentalists have pored over books for children ages 3 to 10, to choose 35 books for “The Blueberry List.” In addition to the Blueberry Award top winner, there are four in the “Changemaker” category and 30 “Honor” books. This year, a new category, the Blueberry Votes Award, was chosen by kindergartners and first-graders at District 65 and Roycemore schools from among five books read aloud to them. There is even a subcategory called “Baby Blueberry”
Laura Florian, EPL’s youth engagement director, has been involved with the project for three years and shared with teachers creative ways to use books in their classrooms. She pointed out that even though both adults and children experience “climate anxiety,” adults have resources, whereas kids don’t. “We need to let children know that they don’t have to do it by themselves,” she said.
The Blueberry Awards is an exceptionally appetizing name. But Martha Meyer, the project’s creator, explained it this way: “The most recognizable children’s award is the Newbery Medal, and [we changed it to] BLUE, so the name means ‘a children’s literary award about the blue planet.’”
Winning book
The 2024 Blueberry Award winner is The Great Lakes, Our Freshwater Treasure by Barb Rosenstock (illustrated by Jamey Christoph, Penguin Random House books). She spoke at the award ceremony, mentioning that she was “from Lake Michigan” and her illustrator was “from Lake Erie.” She said she was looking at the lake one day and wondered if a children’s book had been written about the Great Lakes. She spoke with Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) water walkers who had walked the Great Lakes to honor them, and learned that the lake was like a family member, a relative, to the Ojibwe. Her book sprang from this. “We are the Great Lakes and the Great Lakes are us,” she said. “We take care of what we love. We save what we love.”
The Blueberry Changemaker Award went to Loop de Loop, Circular Solutions for a Waste Free World by Andrea Curtis ( pictures by Roozeboos; Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press). Through winsome pictures and simple poetic images, the book demonstrates how nature has a cycle, and how we can “loop the loop” to be part of the natural cycle.
The Blueberry Votes winner, awarded by kindergartners and first-graders, is The Pelican Can! by Toni Yuly (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers).
Meyer, a library assistant at EPL who created the award in 2021, during the pandemic, wanted to help children form a joyous relationship with nature and the environment, and to recognize contributions of children’s authors and illustrators. She also said there was no award about nature and climate awareness given by any children’s book association.
Among other speakers at the awards presentation was Dr. Marie Cabiya, founder of District 65’s Climate Action Team. She worked with others to successfully pass a 2024 state law mandating climate education in Illinois schools.
The 2024 Blueberry selection committee included several librarians from the Evanston Public Library, Evanston’s sustainability manager, District 65’s sustainability coordinator and members of the Evanston Ecology Center, along with children’s book librarians.
Although the award originated in Evanston, winning authors and illustrators come from all over the world. The books will become part of many libraries and will be available in local bookstores, including Bookends and Beginnings and others.
There is no cash award, but the recognition will definitely help the books circulate. And the word is getting out! A blog at School Library Journal recently published a feature article American Libraries Magazine.
Authors and illustrators receive a certificate, and some publishers are printing the Blueberry Award logo on the book’s cover. A webinar by the Natural Start Alliance
All four years of winner lists, with book covers and descriptions, are at the Blueberry website
Meyer summed it up, saying, “Don’t you think it just smacks of Evanston that we felt that national children’s award committees were missing something, and we decided to fix it ourselves?”
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