Award History:
The South Dakota Children’s Book Awards has a long history of fostering a love of reading. The Prairie Pasque Award was first given in 1987 to Ivy Ruckman for her book, Night of the Twisters. Other winners include Phyllis Reynolds Naylor for Shiloh, David Pateneaude for Someone Was Watching, and Louis Sachar for Holes.
Created by the Prairie Valley Reading Council, the Prairie Bud Award has been given annually since 1998. The Prairie Bud Award was first given to Patricia Rae Wolff for her book, Toll-Bridge Troll. Other winners include Bill Grossman for My Little Sister Ate One Hare and Joan Steiner for Look-Alikes.
Each Fall, the Grant County Public Library highlights the books on the Prairie Bud, Bloom and Pasque lists. Each book on the display comes with a bookmark for students to give the book a star rating. From those bookmark ballots, a winning book each division is named. Always fun to see if our Grant County library readers match the statewide book award choices.
And the State 2022-2023 WINNERS are …
Prairie Bud:
1st Place: What about Worms!? by Ryan T. Higgins
2nd Place: Crossings: Extraordinary Structures for Extraordinary Animals by Katy S. Duffield, illustrated by Mike Oradán
3rd Place: Every Night is Pizza Night by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt
Prairie Bloom
1st Place: Pea, Bee, & Jay: Stuck Together by Brian “Smitty” Smith
2nd Place: Our Friend Hedgehog: The Story of Us by Lauren Castillo
3rd Place: Yorick & Bones by Jeremy Tankard and Hermione Tankard
Prairie Pasque
1st Place: Becoming Muhammad Ali by James Patterson and Kwame Alexander
2nd Place: The Smartest Kid in the Universe by Chris Grabenstein
3rd Place: The Radium Girls: Young Reader’s Edition by Kate Moore