Grants and Awards

ALAN Foundation Research Grants

Members of ALAN may apply to the ALAN Foundation for funding (up to $1,500) for research in young adult literature. Proposals are reviewed by the five most recent presidents of ALAN. Awards are made annually in the fall and are announced at the ALAN breakfast during the NCTE convention in November. The application deadline each year is September 15th .

Gallo Grants

The Gallo Grants were established in 2003 by former ALAN Award and Hipple Award recipient Don Gallo to encourage educators in their early years of teaching to attend the ALAN Workshop for the first time. The grants provide funding—up to $500 each—for two classroom teachers in middle school or high school each year to attend the ALAN Workshop. (The amount of a grant may be less than $500 if the applicant lives within commuting distance of the convention location where airfare and housing would not be necessary.)

The Workshop is held at the annual convention of the National Council of Teachers of English on the Monday and Tuesday prior to Thanksgiving Day. Applicants must be teaching full-time; must have been classroom teachers for less than five years prior to the year in which they are applying; and must not have attended an ALAN Workshop previously. Membership in ALAN is not required for consideration, though applicants are expected to become ALAN members if they receive this grant.

Each applicant must fill out the grant application form and submit an essay of no more than 750 words explaining their interest in Young Adult Literature, what they hope to gain by attending this year’s ALAN Workshop, and how they hope to use the experience in their classrooms in the future. A letter of support must also come from the applicant’s school system. The deadline for submission is September 1. Applicants will be judged on their ability to articulate their understanding of the value of Young Adult Literature as well as their explanation of how they intend to use YA books and the information they gather at the Workshop in their own classrooms.

For further information about this grant, contact ALAN Executive Secretary Gary Salvner at gsalvner@ysu.edu or 330-941-3414. Information about the ALAN Workshop may be obtained from the ALAN Website—www.alan-ya.org. Information about the NCTE Convention may be obtained on the NCTE Website—www.ncte.org—by writing to NCTE Headquarters at 1111 West Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801.

Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award Committee

Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award Committee is pleased to announce

J. K. Rowling

as the 2008 winner of The Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award for her book

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Published by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic

Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince is the sixth book in the popular series and the fourth Blue Spruce Award for J. K. Rowling whose Harry Potter books also won in 2002, 2004, and 2006.

Please visit our website for the list of the 20 titles nominated by Colorado teens for the 2009 Award, and for booktalks, program ideas, foil stickers for the winning titles, and voting procedures.
www.cal-webs.org/bluespruce

The Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award is co-sponsored by Colorado Language Arts Society, Coloado Association of Libraries, and the Colorado Council of the International Reading Association.

Dr. Marge Erickson Freeburn, Committee Chair