Editor’s note: Fleen Senior French Correspondent Pierre Lebeaupin attended the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée in the midsized city of Angoulême in the southwest of France. The third largest comics event in the world (eclipsed only by Lucca Comics & Games in Tuscany, and the twice-yearly Comiket in Tokyo), Angoulême is the center of the Franco-Belgian comics style, with a healthy representation of work from around the world. He’s here to tell you all about it.

I had never been to Angoulême before, whether for the FIBD or any other purpose. The town of Angoulême has a few claims to fame, notably that it was the domain for a junior branch of the French royal family, up until the senior branch became extinct and its lord ended up becoming king under the name François Premier (the first), thus starting the Valois-Angoulême subdynasty. But regardless of its historical role, I had never needed to go there, until this week-end for the 47th edition of its world-renowned comics festival.

There are a few reasons why I decided to (finally) start covering the festival this year, but the main one is clearly the Grand Prix having been awarded to Rumiko Takahashi in 2019 as a definite proof of the FIBD sincerely correcting its course (unfortunately, neither Takahashi-san nor any showcase of her works could be seen at the festival¹ besides her poster, but as predicted the Grand Prix resulted in new releases of her classic works). Even then, the festival was the occasion for protest and other such activities, whether they were in relation to the impoverishment of creators², like creators taking to the streets or taking advantage of the awards ceremony to raise their concerns, or in relation to more general opposition, such as when president Emmanuel Macron posed along a t-shirt denouncing police violence during his visit, or the placards in town denouncing the same, using comics characters.

However, I do not feel comfortable reporting on such events since I did not get to witness them first hand. I much prefer, inspired by fellow Angoulême first-timers Spike Trotman³ and Deb Aoki to give you my impressions and advice for attending the FIBD, coming from someone more used to regular Euro comics festivals. Indeed, Angoulême from its sheer scale has to or can afford to act differently from the former, and may not be representative of them.

• It feels like Disneyland: the lines The legends did not mislead me: you must pad your schedule to account for the lines everywhere. Waiting for a signing is done in a line, of course, but as is waiting to enter a tent, waiting to enter an expo, sometimes for eating, etc. Fortunately, none of those were of the “one-off hard limit” variety: all of the spaces I waited in line for, I was able to enter, the worst being the Claveloux expo, set up in an old townhouse where I was told only about 25 people could be allowed in the ground floor at any one time, and only about 20 allowed in the first elevation. Yup, once you were done with the ground floor you had to again get in line for the first elevation …
• It feels like Disneyland: the marketing This is the main event of the year for comics publishers, and it shows, with the booths in the mainstream publishers tent seemingly trying to outdo each other. For instance, just like you can spot children coming out of Disneyland, everywhere in town you could see children holding balloons, except here the balloons were shaped like Titeuf’s hairdo.

  As for Editions Dupuis, they went as far as to feature performers wearing oversized costumes of some of their characters in their booth, Disneyland-style. At least the marketing is focused on comics, and possibly comics-related works (for instance, there were a few advance showings of the latest Ducobu movie).

• It feels like Disneyland: the scope Not only do the festival activities take over the town center with five tents, plus some buildings such as the Espace Franquin, resulting in an area that requires about 5 minutes to walk across, but an additional tent and a library were set up about a 15 minutes walk away from that, next to the train station, to which you have to add a cluster around the Musée de la Bande Dessinée, about a 20 minutes walk away from either of the other centers.

  And the center is on an elevation, so a bike might not be that helpful. Take good shoes, and one pair of socks for each day you’ll be there. Finally, they had a townwide PA system to remind of upcoming events and announce cancellations and the like.

• It feels like Disneyland: the price Okay, it still does not compare to Disneyland, but at 19€ for a regular day, 25€ for Sunday, or 45€ for all 4 days, this is 5 times as expensive as, say, Lyon BD.
• Plan in advance, or else The lodging situation is absolutely crazy, with every hotel room in the vicinity being booked months in advance; this is owed not just to the festival scale, but also to the fact Angoulême is not a big city like Lyon, and is not a beach resort like Saint Malo which finds itself with plenty of vacancies when the festival occurs, outside peak touristic season. I was able to get away with booking a B&B about 25km away a few days before and get there by train from Angoulême, but first I’ve been told I lucked out on being able to book so late, second this requires some faith in the reliability of the train service⁴, and lastly ties you to the train schedule even when everything goes well, which is an issue because:
• Expect long days Regular festival activities only end at 8:00pm; this is in contrast with other such festivals, which generally close at 6:00pm. As a result, I had to bail out of an interesting exposé on how a new wave of superhero-style comics are too using crowdfunding and other such techniques to fund themselves outside Diamond distribution, since the last train for my B&B was departing at about 7:00pm. Moreover, I can’t help but think of the ordeal this must be for creators, since the festival lasts 4 days, with the other festivals lasting at most 3 days.
• The footbridge does not give access to platform 3 This one is rather specific. There is a new footbridge over the train tracks, which is very practical to get to the side of the train tracks opposite the station, where the library and manga city cluster was, and to get directly to your platform, wherever you come from. However, you cannot go directly to platform 3 from it: it turns out you first have to get off the footbridge as if you wanted to get to the station building, walk the entire length of the building alongside it, and finally you will get to platform 3. No, I did not miss my train, but I had seriously started to worry at some point.

I also brought back a few more pictures:

• The bubble reads: I repeat my question: are you more interested in a career (a) in computing? (b) in mechanics?
• Nothing, just a projection of the Rumiko Takahashi poster illustration on the Angouléme cathedral …
• Two cosplayers, who I met in the Manga City tent.
• A few helium balloons ended up getting stuck under the tent entrance …

We at Fleen thank FSFCPL for his efforts, and look forward to his next dispatch from the world of BD.

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¹ Here is a translation of the relevant part:

On May 30th the Fauve of the Grand Prix was given to Rumiko Takahashi at the French embassy in Tokyo. Upon deliberation and exchanges over the last months, and in coordination with her publisher, she eventually declined the traditional proposals from the Festival, such as a retrospective exhibition and a public appearance, which would have entailed a workload and availability incompatible with her ongoing workload and commitments. Furthermore, she deems her work to be best discovered through her books, rather than her original plates. The Festival is naturally understanding and respectful of her decision. Sincerely moved by the honor, she wished to create a poster symbolically and concretely representing the richness of her world-appreciated body of work. The Festival will honor the creator through a program of meetups and tributes.

“I once again thank the creators who voted for me and I was particularly moved by the professional recognition I was bestowed. It is particularly moving to realize how European creators have grown in contact with my works and how much they love them. I have particularly enjoyed and put my heart into the illustration for the Festival poster. It showcases the manga I admired with a lot of respect in my childhood. I hope you will like it.”
— Rumiko Takahashi, Tokyo, 2019/09/20

² Who had reasons to be upset, for instance a newly-released report on their situation contained a few bombshells on their pensions situation.

³ All of her impressions from her time there are worthwhile, but don’t miss her considerations on French food, which are relevant since the duck-based products she procured are typical of southwestern France where Angoulême is located.

⁴ I again lucked out on train issues, but my fellow first-timers were not so lucky; and before you think “strikes”, those issues can occasionally happen outside of any strike.

We at Fleen have been very excited for goin’ on two years now about the launch of Random House Graphic, and about Gina Gagliano being named to head up the imprint. We’ve followed the announcements, watched the first book hit release, looked out the next couple of years at what’s coming down the line.

Now it’s time to celebrate, y’all:

Come meet the Random House Graphic publishing team: GINA GAGLIANO, WHITNEY LEOPARD, PATRICK CROTTY, and NICOLE VALDEZ, as they discuss the launch of this new imprint, featuring The Runaway Princess by JOHAN TRIANOWSKI and Bug Boys by LAURA KNETZGER. [emphasis original]

That from the events page of Books Of Wonder, the venerable New York children’s bookstore. They’ll be hosting the imprint launch party on Thursday, 13 February, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm at their 18th Street location, in the vicinity of Union Square Park. Both Bug Boys and The Runaway Princess will be available for purchase, and each copy sold will be matched with a donated copy to a children’s charity. Light snacks provided, but I’d grab an insurance slice beforehand if I were you.

There’s a lot of talk these days about how publishing remains overwhelmingly white, but if you kept an eye on the acquisition announcements, RHG is buying books from a lot of POC, and mostly from women. True, graphic novels take a long time and we won’t see a lot of them until next year or later, but it’s clear that Gagliano, Leopard, et al, have decided that they’re going to be part of a solution to books only reflecting a small percentage of the population, and I intend to thank them in person for it. If I see you there, say hi.

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• It was a tough 2019 for Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan; they worked up two books for print, and Moen had a well-documented (and damn brave of her to do so) intensive treatment for her mental illness. So starting in late December, they turned Oh Joy, Sex Toy over to guest strips for six weeks, to give themselves a break.

  Yesterday, they returned, and with the absolute happiest strip I’ve ever seen them collaborate on, and they do a comic all about ways to bring people to orgasm. Take a look at the panel I tweeted yesterday and tell me it’s coming from a place other than pure, contented happiness¹. Welcome back, Matt and Erika, and glad to see the break² did you some good.

• Also taking a break for about the same block of time, Yuko Ota and Ananth Hirsh, who put Barbarous on pause to get caught up on other projects. The first three or so chapters of Barbarous were a measured introduction to the characters, always showing rather than telling³.

  Chapter four started to really build in the possible conflicts that the outside world might bring to Percy and Leeds, and chapter five got us back into the swing of things after a lengthy hiatus, dropping us into the middle of a magical attack from an thus-far unknown adversary. Things are speeding up and now is the ideal time to get caught up if you weren’t.

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¹ In this case, from having a squeaky-clean butthole.

² Or at least a bidet attachment.

³ Not only are the pair masterful storytellers, Ota’s one of the best character and costume designers in comics; nobody pays as much attention to how clothes accent a character except Kosuke Fujishima.

Jim Ottaviani and Maris Wicks may be the most potent combination in nonfiction comics. How else to explain how they can spin such engagement and — dare I say it? — suspense from events past and in the public eye? They took the recent history of the three women who lived among Primates, and now they’re looking at the history of women in space in Astronauts, a copy of which was provided by :01 Books; pretty much everything in the book is available to anybody with access to interlibrary loan, but let’s tag this with spoilers, ahoy anyway.

Compared to Primates, Ottaviani and Wicks take a different approach this time around; last time they partnered, the book was told by an omniscient narrator, observing what Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas did in their research on chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans (respectively). In Astronauts, the bulk of the story is told as remeniscences of its central subject, Mary Cleave, with forays into the experiences of other women who came before her.

In case you don’t recognize her name, Dr Cleave (biologist, ecologist, environmental engineer, and pilot from the age of 14) was a member of the 9th NASA astronaut group — the second recruited following efforts by Nichelle Nichols to broaden the pool of applicants beyond white guy test pilots — and really only applied because being an astronaut meant you had to qualify as a jet pilot and she always wanted to fly a plane with an afterburner. She twice flew into space on Atlantis, specialized in the operation of the shuttle’s robotic arm, and was instrumental in working out the design and operation of the NASA space toilet. After retiring from flight status, she served as head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

And in telling her story, she tells the story of Valentina Tereshkova, of the thirteen women who passed every test that Mercury Seven did but weren’t allowed to join the astronaut corps, of the designers that made the Shuttle, of the astronaut one class in front of her that had the weight and eyes of the world on her as NASA’s first woman in space.

Oh, and she tells about how it took NASA 23 missions before they figured out that zero-G crumbs from sandwiches could be avoided by using tortillas, thanks to fellow STS-61-B rookie Rodolfo Neri Vela’s meal preferences. Sometimes the obvious answers aren’t obvious until you let somebody with a different background into your club, y’know?

Mary Cleave may not be the most famous astronaut you’ve ever heard of, but Ottaviani and Wicks found maybe the most typical member of the NASA astronaut program — whip smart, widely experienced, endlessly curious, problem solvers, people who maybe didn’t set out to be astronauts but wound up there because they had the skills to get there¹.

Being born in 1947, Cleave’s lifetime parallels that of crewed spaceflight; she was solo piloting about the time that Yuri Gagarin took the first human spaceflight. She was just about the same age at the time of her astronaut selection that Neil Armstrong was at his. She helped make the Shuttle workable for extended missions, and her first flight helped work out the construction techniques that would be used to build the International Space Station. She was instrumental in diverting Eileen Collins away from a career as a Mission Specialist and towards that of Pilot and Commander. Like I said, typical.

Astronauts is bookended with the idea of what an astronaut looks like, starting with a floating figure doffing the pressurized launch suit and only revealing Cleave on page two, and ending with pages of photos: Tereshkova, Ride, and Cleave, their cartoon representations next to their pictures.

This is followed by a two page spread of people whose faces we should know — Guion Bluford, Ellison Onizuka, Mae Jemison, Sunita Williams, Leland Melvin, Chris Hadfield, and more². It’s perfectly synced with the message of the book, and if, like me, you’ve spent your life looking up at those explorers that have left the bounds of Earth, it’s likely to inspire a tear or two.

We, as a species, made it to space, to the moon, to semi-permanent residence in orbit, because of women. We’re going back to the moon, and we’re not forgetting half of humanity this time. We’ll be going further in the future and that will require astronauts, who can no longer be picked from less than 6% of the planet’s population. Ottaviani and Wicks want you to remember that, and wants everybody reading Astronauts to ask themselves one question: What do you want to be?

Astronauts, by Jim Ottaviani (words) and Maris Wicks (pictures) is available at your local bookstore or comic shop starting today. It doesn’t shy away from the fact that we’ve lost astronauts, and you may need to explain about Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia; assuming that’s not a problem, it’s an ideal read for any wannabe astronauts or space enthusiasts with the patience to get through 160 pages.

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¹ Or, as Cleave put it, I got my first job at NASA because I could fix the toilet.

² There are three photos that I didn’t recognize, and while I get the point Wicks and Ottaviani are making — astronauts can look like anybody — my only wish for the book is that might have included a key to the astronauts on those nearly-final pages.

Well, last week certainly sucked, but I’m back in the swing of things, and eager to talk about some books with you. First up: Go With The Flow by Lily Williams (words and pictures) and Karen Schneemann (also words). A review copy — that is, an advanced, not-final-version-of-the-book review copy, so your reading experience may be slightly different than mine — was sent by the fine folks at :01 Books a few weeks back, just as release day was happening. I took the unusual step of waiting to write this review until I could discuss the book with somebody else (more on that in a moment), so for once what you’ll read here is not based solely on my reading and interpretation. Oh, and spoilers ahead.

This is a book about periods; having never had one, I talked with my wife at some length about her experience with the topic, through the lens of several dozen years of having periods, to be sure that I wasn’t missing anything important. She assures me that GWTF gets it right, particularly its emphasis on the fact that no two period-havers¹ experience menstruation the same way. The framing story — high school, friends, mean girls, jerk bros, institutional sexism, screwing up and apologizing, crushes, and the rest of what it means to be a teen — provides a structure to hang the information on, without anything seeming preachy or lecturey.

Except for when it’s meant to. To the extent that there’s a single POV character in the circle of four besties, it’s Abby, the artsy, headstrong who sees something wrong and wants to do something about it. She’s joined by Brit (literary, reserved), Christine (blunt and sometimes inappropriate to hide her capital-F Feelings), and Sasha (new in school, picked on by the Mean Girls)². They’re all mad that period supplies are rarely stocked in the bathrooms (and when they are, they cost money³), but it’s Abby that cajoles (and sometimes browbeats) the others into her protests and letter-writing.

Abby’s assumptions that her friends feel about things as strongly as she does precipitates the big conflict moment in the story, and puts those friendships at risk. This part read particularly true, because we all ow that as teens, we don’t think through the consequences of our actions on those we care most about — oh, and she gets in trouble with Principal Condescending, too.

The crux of the story isn’t defeating institutional sexism — or even the localized, petty kind — but rather finding a way past that screw up. The fact that Abby’s Big Moment Of Protest resulted in positive notoriety and funding for period supplies throughout the district is less important than the fact that she grew as a person (not the mention the fact that she shouldn’t have had to go crowdfunding in the the first place).

And although Abby’s campaign for period justice forms the central plotline of the book, all four characters get their own time in the spotlight. Sasha adjusts to the new school with the help of her friends, and has the most typical social experience of sophomore year — first relationship, first experience with dating, etc. Brit deals with endometriosis and the time it keeps her from school, but is lucky enough to have supportive parents (at least one of whom is a doctor) and treatment by a specialist that hopefully knows what they’re doing⁴. Christine deals with an older dude negging the shit out of her in trying to scam his way to a physical relationship (and being too smart for his crap) while also dealing with her confusion over her own sexuality and her feelings for Abby⁵.

All of which is a lot to deal with in 330 pages or so, but Go With The Flow is more than up to the challenge of telling the story of friendships and periods, while simultaneously providing quality, truthful information about menstruation and more⁶. Oh and the art is inviting, with clear lines and distinct character silhouettes; there’s a variety of human shapes, sizes and ethnicities and nobody reading the book need feel it’s not for them.

I recommend it for anybody that’s having periods, had them in the past, can be expected to have them in the next couple years, or who knows anybody in any of the other categories; let’s say ages 10 and up. It’s available now via your local bookstore or comic shop.

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¹ The book both acknowledges and honors the experience of gender non-conforming and trans folk with respect to periods, and notes that some trans women can develop hormonal cycles that mimic period symptoms

² You can meet adult versions of them in The Mean Magenta, the webcomic that Schneemann and Williams started to discuss periods, and which became the basis for the book.

³ The rather condescending principal who explains to Abby that no there’s no money to stock the supplies in the bathroom and it’s not like the boys get free jock itch cream refuses to acknowledge that this is a hygiene issue, and he’d never not think about stocking toilet paper. He dodges the question of why the football team got new uniforms and equipment after only two years if there’s no money in the budget.

⁴ If you follow Williams on her twitterfeed, she’s open about her own experience with endometriosis, and the shamefully poor understanding of it that doctors — even OB/GYNs! — have of the condition and its treatments. It took Williams fourteen years to get a diagnosis and it looks like Brit will be far luckier in that regard, but the story ends without a definitive solution for her. The webcomics of adult Brit indicate that she’s mitigated the worst of her symptoms, but still way the heck over at one end of the menstrual experience spectrum.

⁵ Like Brit’s endometriosis and Abby’s quest for gender equality, Christine’s story isn’t resolved by the end of the book. She pines, Abby doesn’t notice, Brit does, but they don’t come out and talk about it. Again, Williams and Schneemann really get what Teens and Feelings are like, and capture the awkwardness of trying to figure out who you are with laser clarity.

Judging by the adult versions of the characters from The Mean Magenta, Christine found a way to accept her feelings and keep her friendship with Abby. Oh, and Sasha appears to have a type — the dude she’s with in The Mean Magenta has a pretty strong resemblance to the first high school boyfriend from GWTF. I’m pretty sure it’s not the same dude, but maybe?

⁶ I came to the book prepared to learn a lot and found as I went along that my sex education back in school was pretty good. Granted, transgender and gender non-conforming people didn’t really come up but I would have been getting that information from about 1978-1985. I will say that there was some remarkably non-judgmental content back then about gay and lesbian people, and at least an acknowledgment of prominent individuals that had undergone what was termed sex reassignment (rather than gender confirmation) surgery.

I was lucky to grow up in a window of time post-sexual revolution, pre-Moral Majority culture wars, when truthful information was seen as the best way to deal with the still-new AIDS epidemic. Also, thank glob, I grew up in New Jersey. I had to explain the mechanics of human reproduction to more than one of my classmates when I got to college in Indiana, after there was a spate of sudden, unplanned marriages amongst dudes on my freshman dorm floor and their first girlfriends away from home.

After all the lost time, we’re just gonna start fresh next week. I’ll be spending the weekend celebrating St Groundhog’s Day which, while not as important to me as some folks, marks the weekend in 1991 when my wife and I first met. Y’all be safe, we’ll see each other on Monday.

That post title sounds like a particularly unfortunate Doctor Who porn parody. Sorry. Let me make it up to you with a pair of brief items.

• I’m sure you’ve seen it, but Gunnerkrigg Court got optioned as a series. Reminder — we’ve been here before and it’s a long, long way from option to something we can watch. That being said, there’s a mountain of story that Tom Siddell has graced us with since my goodness, April of 2005 — the strip predates this page — and given the smart animated series that have been made since then (looking at you, Aang and Korra), it’s one that I think could find an audience. Fingers crossed that it progresses in exactly the way that Siddell wants.
• Haley Boros is an illustrator, designer, and comics artist from Vancouver, and she draws dogs really, really well. I mean, super good; she drew my good boy Flynn before he died, but it’s not her best dog drawing. Those are reserved for her good boy, Rusty, who among other things was the star of a fantasy epic using the prompt words for Inktober 2019.

  Now she’s Kickstarting a print version of his good boy adventures as a MAKE 100 project. 75 folks can get the print book (CA$20, approx US$16), 25 more can get the book plus a marker portrait of their own good doggo or other, lesser pet¹ (CA$50, approx US$38). And 31 people can get one of the original illustrations from Rusty’s Inktober 2019 adventure, on a first come, first dibs basis (CA$75, approx US$57). No FFF Mk2 on MAKE 100 projects, the potential backer counts are too small to make predictions, but it’s just under 50% funded with another 27 days to go. Boros is great, Rusty’s great, and the combo of his inspiration for her art is super-great. Check ‘er out.

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¹ I know people that keep various fish, cats, lizards, hamsters, gerbils, chinchillas, turtles, tortoises, pigs, snakes, birds, chickens, geckos, and/or axolotls as pets. They are all loved and wonderful, but deep down we all know dogs are the best and make the best portraits. Don’t believe me? Look up the warrior dogs that Ron Dan Chan illustrated on Twitter. I think the greyhound is the best, but the Pomeranian phalanx always makes me smile

Re: this situation yesterday. If anything, they are even more reckless today, requiring multiple halts to class so I can fix things. Tomorrow, maybe?

Just check me on this, okay? You’re following along an exercise in a course dealing with a very complicated piece of database technology, and you get multiple, literal red flags on the final status screen of the thing you’re doing. The text message that pops up tells you that the thing you were doing was pooched. Chooseable-path adventure time! Do you:

1. Tell your instructor and pal, Gary, so that he can figure out why it happened¹ and what needs to be done to get back on track?
   Go to page class is delayed by five minutes and it’s a healthy learning experience for all.
2. Decide that telling anybody, including your lab exercise teammate, is for suckers, leading your teammate to continue working on the assumption that everything’s good and unpooched, which puts things in a state where they cannot be repaired²?
   Go to page class is delayed close to two hours and while you learned something — literal red flags are there for a reason, duh — the primary takeaway is Gary doesn’t know how he’s going to fit everything into the remaining days of this very full class, good job.

So yeah — review when I can swing it. Maybe a brief post tomorrow, maybe not.

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¹ It’s because you didn’t follow the instructions, but we won’t know that for another 45 minutes.

² This rare double-pooching — where you are even more pooched than ever before — in fact renders things into such a state that even uninstallation and reinstallation will not allow all the functionality prior to the initial pooching.

Oh, and in addition to the un/reinstall, all of the work done in the lab landscape for the past day and a half must be recreated³ so that your two teammates are not prevented from doing the remaining exercises in the remaining days of the course because you couldn’t follow the godsdamned instructions and threw them under the bus re: sharing the existence of literal red flags.

³ By Gary.

Namely, the news relating to the Youth Media Awards given out at the ALA Midwinter conference, home of prestigious names like Caldecott, Newbery, and Printz. The librarians got their announcements on this morning, and the comics are represented up and down the list.

The big news, of course, is that the John Newbery Medal for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children was given for the first time to a graphic work. New Kid by Jerry Craft takes its place among the classics of childrens literature. While books like El Deafo and This One Summer have been named as Newbery Honor books, those are the almost-won titles; New Kid will have its own court of Honor books to accompany it, but it is the actual, sole winner. Oh, and it also took the Coretta Scott King Author Award as well, just in case you were wondering if there were a better contribution by an African-American writer in the past year.

We’re just getting started.

• Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me continues its march to universal acclaim as a Printz Honor book (for the record, the big three awards in kidlit are the Newbery, the Caldecott — most distinguished picture book — and the Printz — for exemplifying literary excellence; all the others are a big deal, too).
• Both Stargazing and They Called Us Enemy were recognized with the Asian/Pacific American Award, in the Childrens and Young Adult categories, respectively; the award is for promoting Asian/Pacific American culture and heritage and is awarded based on literary and artistic merit.
• Gender Queer and In Waves received the Alex Award, given to the 10 best adult books that appeal to teen audiences.
• Hey, Kiddo¹ received the Odyssey Award for the best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults, available in English in the United States.

A full rundown is available at the School Library Journal’s website, and descriptions of the awards, their histories, and previous winners at I Love Libraries. Fleen congratulates all the winners, the honor books, and the nominees. You’re all doing amazing work.

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¹ Also a National Book Award finalist, a slightly big deal.