On Tuesday, March 1, the owners and staff at ABA member stores began voting to choose the winners of  the 2011 Indies Choice Book Awards, which now include the E.B. White Read-Aloud Awards, previously administered by the Association of Booksellers for Children. Electronic balloting continues until the end of March [7].

The Indies Choice Book Awards finalists in six categories – Adult Fiction, Adult Nonfiction, Adult Debut, Young Adult, Picture Book Hall of Fame, and Most Engaging Author – were selected by a jury of independent booksellers from the 2010 Indie Next List Great Reads and additional bookseller recommendations. Each is representative of the type of books that indie booksellers champion best.

As a result of the recent merger of the Association of Booksellers for Children (ABC) and ABA [8], this year, for the first time, balloting includes the E.B. White Read-Aloud Awards in the categories of Middle Reader and New Picture Book. This year’s finalists reflect the playful, well-paced language, the engaging themes, and the universal appeal to a wide range of ages embodied by E.B. White’s collection of beloved books.

ABA members are voting for one favorite in each category, with the exception of the Picture Book Hall of Fame, where they are choosing three. The top vote getters will be declared the winners in each category with the remaining titles designated as Honor Books.

This year’s finalists are:

BOOK OF THE YEAR – ADULT FICTION

• Great House, by Nicole Krauss (W.W. Norton)
• How to Read the Air, by Dinaw Mengestu (Riverhead)
• Room, by Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown)
• The Surrendered, by Chang-rae Lee (Riverhead)
• The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell (Random House)
• A Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan (Knopf)

BOOK OF THE YEAR – ADULT NONFICTION

• At Home, by Bill Bryson (Doubleday)
• Cleopatra: A Life, by Stacy Schiff (Little, Brown)
• Let’s Take the Long Way Home, by Gail Caldwell (Random House)
• The Tiger, by John Vaillant (Knopf)
• Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand (Random House)
• The Wave, by Susan Casey (Doubleday)

BOOK OF THE YEAR – ADULT DEBUT

• Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, by Maaza Mengiste (W.W. Norton)
• The Emperor of All Maladies, by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner)
• Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, by Helen Simonson (Random House)
• Matterhorn, by Karl Marlantes (Atlantic Monthly Press and El León Literary Arts)
• The Quickening, by Michelle Hoover (Other Press)
• The Wake of Forgiveness, by Bruce Machart (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

BOOK OF THE YEAR – YOUNG ADULT

• Bamboo People, by Mitali Perkins (Charlesbridge)
• Before I Fall, by Lauren Oliver (HarperCollins)
• Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
• Out of My Mind, by Sharon M. Draper (Atheneum)
• Revolution, by Jennifer Donnelly (Delacorte Books for Young Readers)
• Will Grayson, Will Grayson, by John Green and David Levithan (Dutton Juvenile)

E.B. WHITE READ-ALOUD AWARD – MIDDLE READER

• Because of Mr. Terupt, by Rob Buyea (Delacorte Books for Young Readers)
• The Familiars, by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson (HarperCollins)
• Penny Dreadful, by Laurel Snyder, Abigail Halpin (Illus.) (Random House Books for Young Readers)
• The Sixty-Eight Rooms, by Marianne Malone, Greg Call (Illus.) (Random House Books for Young Readers)
• The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, by Tom Angleberger (Amulet Books)
• A Tale Dark and Grimm, by Adam Gidwitz (Dutton Juvenile)

E.B. WHITE READ-ALOUD AWARD – PICTURE BOOK

• Bedtime for Bear, by Brett Helquist (HarperCollins)
• Chicken Big, by Keith Graves (Chronicle Books)
• Children Make Terrible Pets, by Peter Brown (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
• Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes, by Eric Litwin, James Dean (Illus.) (HarperCollins)
• A Pig Parade Is a Terrible Idea, by Michael Ian Black, Kevin Hawkes (Illus.) (Simon & Shuster)
• The Quiet Book, by Deborah Underwood, Renata Liwska (Illus.) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

PICTURE BOOK HALL OF FAME

• Bread and Jam for Frances, by Russell Hoban, Lillian Hoban (Illus.) (HarperCollins)
• Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle (Henry Holt & Co.)
• Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault, Lois Ehlert (Illus.) (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
• Corduroy, by Don Freeman (Viking)
• Curious George, by H.A. Rey (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Goodnight Gorilla, by Peggy Rathmann (Putnam)
• Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse, by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow)
• The Little Engine That Could, by Watty Piper (Grosset & Dunlap / Philomel)
• Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, by Virginia Lee Burton (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• The Napping House, by Audrey Wood, Don Wood (Illus.) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats (Viking)
• Stellaluna, by Janelle Cannon (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle (Philomel)

MOST ENGAGING AUTHOR
(The author who is an in-store star with a strong sense of the importance of indie booksellers to the community.)

• Laurie Halse Anderson
• Jonathan Evison
• Kevin Henkes
• Mitali Perkins
• Richard Russo
• Terry Tempest Williams

All booksellers at ABA member bookstores in good standing are encouraged to vote via electronic ballot on BookWeb.org [7]; only one ballot per person will be accepted. (The bookseller’s name and the store name must be provided on the ballot.) Voting is open until March 31, and the winners will be announced on April 7.

This year’s winners and finalists will be honored at ABA’s Celebration of Bookselling Author Awards Luncheon on Tuesday, May 24, at BookExpo America 2011 [9].