The Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal was awarded for the first time in 2001 to Marc Aronson for SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND THE QUEST FOR EL DORADO. It is given to honor the authors, illustrators and/or photographers of the most distinguished informational book published for children in the preceding year. Informational books are defined as those written and illustrated to present, organize and interpret documentable factual material. The award is named in honor of Robert F. Sibert, the long-time President of Bound to Stay Bound Books, Inc. of Jacksonville, Illinois.

2010 Winner

ALMOST ASTRONAUTS: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream
Tanya Lee Stone
Candlewick Press
ISBN: 9780763636111
Ages 10-up
144 pages
February 2009

What does it take to be an astronaut? Excellence at flying, courage, intelligence, resistance to stress, top physical shape --- any checklist would include these. But when America created NASA in 1958, there was another unspoken rule: you had to be a man. Here is the tale of 13 women who proved that they were not only as tough as the toughest man but also brave enough to challenge the government. They were blocked by prejudice, jealousy, and the scrawled note of one of the most powerful men in Washington. But even though the Mercury 13 women did not make it into space, they did not lose, for their example empowered young women to take their place in the sky, piloting jets and commanding space capsules. ALMOST ASTRONAUTS is the story of 13 true pioneers of the space age.

2010 Honors

CLAUDETTE COLVIN: Twice Toward Justice
Phillip Hoose
Melanie Kroupa Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 9780374313227
Ages 13-up
144 pages
January 2009

On March 2, 1955, an impassioned teenager, fed up with the daily injustices of Jim Crow segregation, refused to give her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Instead of being celebrated as Rosa Parks would be just nine months later, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin found herself shunned by her classmates and dismissed by community leaders. Undaunted, a year later she dared to challenge segregation again as a key plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle, the landmark case that struck down the segregation laws of Montgomery and swept away the legal underpinnings of the Jim Crow South.

THE DAY-GLO BROTHERS: The True Story of Bob and Joe Switzer's Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors
written by Chris Barton
illustrated by Tony Persiani
Charlesbridge Publishing
ISBN: 9781570916731
Ages 7-10
44 pages
July 2009

Joe and Bob Switzer were very different brothers. Bob was a studious planner who wanted to grow up to be a doctor. Joe dreamed of making his fortune in show business and loved magic tricks and problem-solving. When an accident left Bob recovering in a darkened basement, the brothers began experimenting with ultraviolet light and fluorescent paints. Together they invented a whole new kind of color, one that glows with an extra-special intensity Day-Glo.

MOONSHOT: The Flight of Apollo 11
written and illustrated by Brian Floca
Richard Jackson Books/Atheneum
ISBN: 9781416950462
Ages 4-7
48 pages
April 2009

Simply told, grandly shown, here is the flight of Apollo 11. Here for a new generation of readers and explorers are the steady astronauts, clicking themselves into gloves and helmets, strapping themselves into sideways seats. Here are their great machines in all their detail and monumentality, the ROAR of rockets, and the silence of the Moon. Here is a story of adventure and discovery --- a story of leaving and returning during the summer of 1969, and a story of home, seen whole, from far away.