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The TODAY Show Turns Down Newbery/Caldecott Winners

It’s become a tradition. The Tuesday after the Newbery/Caldecott Awards are announced, the winners, along with the YALSA or ALA president, are guests on the Today Show.

But the only author on the show this Tuesday was MTV Jersey Shore star Snooki, for her debut novel, A Shore Thing.

Publishers Weekly reports that, in response to inquiries, the Today show said they turned down the segment this year because of a a “lack of interest and scheduling problems,” but asserted that the show “does more book segments in a given year than any other television show,” and “supports the publishing industry with initiatives like Al’s Book Club for Kids and Read for the Record.”

Below is last year’s show:

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And, here’s Snooki:

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The Today Show missed an opportinity; in libraries that own copies of A Shore Thing, holds are much lower than for Moon Over Manifest or for A Sick Day for Amos McGee.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 13th, 2011 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Awards, Books & TV, Childrens and YA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to “The TODAY Show Turns Down Newbery/Caldecott Winners”

  1. Cathy Says:
    January 14th, 2011 at 12:23 pm

    The horror, the horror!

  2. :paula Says:
    January 14th, 2011 at 1:06 pm

    Thank you Lisa for putting this in perspective – I hope your information about library reserves reaches the desks of the programming people at TODAY.

  3. Library Dude Says:
    January 17th, 2011 at 3:16 pm

    Here are some stats that are more likely to get their attention (since we all know that big media only cares about $$$):

    According to Amazon, Moon Over Manifest and A Sick Day for Amos McGee are ranked #30 and 31 on their bestseller list, while Snooki’s booki is 857.