As a children’s librarian who gets to look at all the new books as they roll into my library, I like to keep an eye peeled for the trends of a given year. There are the usual trends, like 500+ page fantasy novels, dragons, dead moms, dead dogs, dead dog mothers, etc. There are also the unusual trends like sentient cheese (very big in 2006) and historical fiction titles where kids get their hands and arms mangled in a gruesome historically accurate fashion (ibid). In 2007, however, there has been a trend that will make for quite a lot of confusion and contention this upcoming award season: Books Beyond Categories.

What I mean by that is that there are certain books that refuse to be neatly arranged under a single category. They straddle the genres. When an author or an illustrator draws upon their own innate creativity to the fullest, their books become richer. That’s the good news. The bad news is that this will hurt them severely come the 2007 awards. Take a gander at some of the books I’m talking about and see if I’m not at all correct.

First of all there is The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick from the Arthur A. Levine imprint of Scholastic (the one that brought you Harry Potter, actually). It is undoubtedly the best known of these books of 2006. Selznick’s tale of a boy who lives in a Parisian train station while attempting to repair his father’s mechanical automaton rocketing up the New York Times Bestseller List and was featured on Al Roker’s Book Club for Kids. The title is remarkable since at a 500+ page count, more than half the book consists of illustrations. The result is more silent movie than graphic novel. When an exciting scene or bit of action comes up, the pages suddenly revert to black and white images. Hugo is sometimes seen running through a crowded station or disappearing behind a telltale gate. Much of the story is based on the real life of filmmaker George Melies, so photographs and stills from early or lost silent films also appear throughout the tale. It makes for an eclectic bit of storytelling but because it doesn’t slot neatly into fiction, non-fiction, or graphic novel categories, awards will be few and far between for Selznick’s masterpiece.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan is yet another Arthur A. Levine book (the man knows how to pick ‘em) and with its October release date this title is poised to be the most impressive children’s novel of the year. I am not kidding. Originally released in Australia, Tan’s tale takes the Hugo Cabret idea one step further. It’s entirely wordless. Telling through pictures the tale of a man as he immigrates to a foreign land, the book sounds like something you may have seen before. Cleverly, Tan ups the ante, as it were, by putting you directly into his hero’s shoes. Not only is everything foreign to the hero, but it’s also foreign to you. You can’t understand the language, the animals, the foods, or the customs. The simple act of looking through a small apartment’s appliances becomes frightening and strange. As our hero attempts to find lodging, food, and a place to work he meets other immigrants from different countries who convey their own stories of escape and survival. Without a single word this is the most moving, intelligent, thoughtful book I have seen in years and years. Designed like an old photo album and containing mostly sepia-toned images, you cannot read this thing cover to cover and not be struck by its superior storytelling. Of course, there is no award for wordless books out there. Worse still, because it was originally published in Australia, “The Arrival” is not eligible for many American prizes. A pity as it is a must read and a real shining gem.

Switching gears, here is a title that will have many a library cataloger scratching their heads. Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz is not quite non-fiction but certainly not entirely fictional. Yet Schlitz has created a book that turns out to be an answer to more than few prayers. As a children’s librarian, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dealt with patrons who have begged me for plays for children. Of course, no play written has ever had equal parts for all characters since it normally cannot be done. Enter, Schlitz’s book. The title contains 18 different voices of kids, tweens, and teens living in an average everyday English village. A map at the beginning shows where they live, but it’s their monologues that really tell their tales. Schlitz is gifted in her characterizations, but she never neglects to add real world facts when she can. Footnotes and factual inserts inform her audience while her characters talk about their lives. Because the Newbery Award can be given to both fiction and non-fiction, Schlitz’s book is my number one pick for that award this year. Yet because most awards like to relegate titles like this to a single category, I think that many people will fail to notice Schlitz’s effort or, worse, squirrel it away rather than deal with a book this original and eclectic.

Moving beyond the usual categories can certainly be informative, but kids are sometimes even more willing to try out new formats than their adult counterparts. Here’s a classic example. Though it may not be the first book of its kind, it’s certainly one of the more interesting ideas out there. In Middle School is Worse Than Meatloaf, two time Newbery Honor winner Jennifer L. Holm tells the tale of Ginny as she enters seventh grade. The catch? The novel is told entirely through her stuff. Notes passed in class, refrigerator reminders, receipts, detention slips, and other ephemera tell us the story of Ginny and her various travails. In a book such as this the illustrator is just as important as the author and artist Elicia Castaldi is more than up to the job. Her pages just overflow with junk and clues as to why Ginny grows so depressed as her year continues. This is the story of an everygirl told through the most minute of cast-offs. That makes for great storytelling, but no award for writing or illustration is going to claim it as its own. More’s the pity since this is one book kids will have a ball reading.

Kids also have a sweet spot for comics, and as a children’s librarian I say loud and proud that I do not mind one little bit. Now anyone with a passing familiarity with underground comics knows that they don’t naturally lend themselves to the picture book format. Plus the fact that artist Mark Newgarden’s last book was titled, “We All Die Alone”…. well, it doesn’t inspire much in the way of confidence. Yet when it comes to great picture books of the year place, Bow-Wow Bugs a Bug, on the top of the heap for me. Part picture book, part graphic novel, the book is entirely wordless and utterly sublime. The premise is remarkably simple too. Bow-Wow, the pup, follows a bug out of the house with a single-minded intensity. As he walks around the block his experiences become increasingly bizarre. Funnier than it has any right to be, “Bow-Wow” is one of those books created on the computer that work. Too nice to be a cartoon and too cartoony to be seriously considered for an award, this is a worthwhile purchase flying just below the radar.

Speaking of computer work, when I say, “web comic” to you, is your first instinct, “Great book concept!” No? Yeah, it’s not mine either. Yet somebody at Abrams had the wherewithal to look at Jeff Kinney’s online saga of an average kid and his adventures in the strip Diary of a Wimpy Kid and put it between two shiny red covers. The result? A New York Times Bestseller and one of the funniest books of the year. Part journal and part comic, Kinney hones in on a kid’s school year and the various troubles he runs across. The design of the book is extraordinary and the storyline far better than you’d expect from an online site. It may be one of the first successful leaps from the electronic to the physical page (rather than the other way around).

I appreciate that you can’t make an award for every kind of book out there, but should the current standards be relaxed? Should the Caldecott go to any book that uses illustration in some way? Should the Newbery consider pictures? It’s a brave new world, and I hope our awards change to embrace the delightful changes we’re seeing each and every day. Otherwise artists are going to be inclined to be less creative so as to get some awards and push some paper. I can only hope that these books make one heckuva impact in the meantime.

Posted by: Elizabeth Bird, New York Public Library