Over 400 Kansas schoolchildren swarmed Emporia State’s campus for the William Allen White Children’s Book Awards Oct. 4-5. Children who attended the event were able to listen to and meet authors Patrick Jennings and Peg Kehret, this year’s award winners.
“It is very exciting,” said Peg Kehret, author of “Ghost Dog Secrets,” which won the award for grades 6- 8. “It’s an honor. I love that the kids do the voting,”
Patrick Jennings, author of “Guinea Dog,” picked by students in grades 3-5, said he was on “cloud nine.”
“This award is literally the highest honor I could dream of,” Jennings said.
The award was founded in 1952 to honor William Allen White’s love for reading. Each year, two authors are selected to receive the WAW Book Award. The recipients are chosen by student votes in two sets of grade levels (3-5 and 6-8) across the state of Kansas.
“When William Allen White passed away, there were a number of things done in his honor,” said John Sheridan, executive director of the WAW Book Awards and dean of university libraries and archives. “He was just a tremendous reader and he wrote 17 books and thousands of columns and millions of words so books were something very dear to him.”
Before students are given the books to vote on, a selection committee of representatives from different organizations across the state must narrow down the master list of nominees.
“There is this group of people who do the really, really heavy lifting, and I bring them together on one Saturday in September, and it consists of representatives of a number of different organizations,” Sheridan said. “This past year there were 123 nominees.”
Over time, these children’s book awards have grown to encompass much more than the presentation ceremony. As early as Friday afternoon, the authors were interacting with the visiting children.
“We had Patrick signing (books) at the William Allen White house, and all the children, Kansas childre, know that William Allen White is one of the eight wonders of the state,” Sheridan said.
Following dinner, the authors joined the early arrivals of students for a question and answer session.
“It was part of my job to know when to pull (the authors) away because they would be there all night if I let them,” Sheridan said.
Saturday, events kicked off at 7:30 a.m. with more book signings. Students could engage in other activities while they waited for the ceremony to begin.
“We found that there has always been a line, so we thought up some activities, some arts and crafts, making dog toys and some other things,” Sheridan said. “Students could come in and write the authors…there was also some science and robotics for students interested in science.”
The festivities ended with a parade through campus and the awards ceremony.
At the end of the day, the awards are more for the students than they are the authors, Sheridan said.
“Books don’t fall from trees – people write books. ‘You’re a person, so am I. Maybe I could do this’ – that is the process we want children to realize,” he said.