Children's Books discussion

I'd like to share an observation: I was looking at the nominations in the Picture Book category of the Goodreads Choice Awards 2013. It's probably the only category I'll cast a vote in, and pretty much all the original nominees were either books I had really enjoyed or books on my to-read shelf. But among the write-ins in the semi-final there's one that sticks out in the sense that it only has a total of 19 ratings and barely a handful of give-away reviews . And while some of those reviews term the book as "cute", none of them conveys any of the enthusiasm you would expect from the best picture book read of 2013. So I'm left wondering whether all it takes to get a Goodreads Choice Award nomination now is to get a couple of girlfriends to vote for your book. I'm not trying discredit the book itself, because I'm sure it's a great book, but as far as I can tell, this is what happened. (And I did verify, the author nominated her own book indeed!)

Apparently over 1,000,000 votes have been cast. So, I'm puzzled if it only takes 3 votes to get your book in. Can anybody here suggest any explanation to what's going on here? And are you planning to vote? I'll be curious to see the final winner. If participation in the Picture Books category is this low, I can probably get a more accurate consensus for the best book by simply doing a tally in my child's classroom ...

There are discussions in the GR Feedback group about this kind of issue. Staff has not been terribly effective at clarifying the procedure. Personally, I don't pay attention to these awards at all.

Your question and concerns might be better sent to the Goodreads Librarians Group as they are the ones who coordinate the Goodreads Choice Awards.
I'll have to go take a look at the picture book section again. I already voted and I didn't remember seeing the book you mention. I am wondering if it was a self-published book as opposed to a book from a major publisher.

Fjóla wrote: "I'd like to share an observation: I was looking at the nominations in the Picture Book category of the Goodreads Choice Awards 2013. It's probably the only category I'll cast a vote in, and pretty ..."

I just looked at the semi-finalist list and voted in this round (Mr. Wuffles!) and I was wondering: to which book were you referring?

Cheryl, that's one way to see it. Best case I would expect the awards ("the only major book awards decided by readers"!) to highlight books worth my while, books which otherwise might not have come to my attention. But, worst case they will only display books pushed forward by marketing teams and authors focused on their own agenda. I think that since the website is flaunting this big number of 1,000,000 voters, I was hopeful that the readers were actually having their say. But now I'll conclude that participation in a marginal category like picture books is way to low for the results to have any relevance. It will just be like another manipulated listopia, except that the awards have no transparency: it will never be revealed how many readers will have even voted for those books.

Beverly, are you sure? I would not have thought Goodreads Librarians had either the resources or the data access to organize something like this.

Obviously I can't link to the book I'm referring to, but I hope I'm not breaking any rules by alluding to this. I love to discover great picture books, this is why I was looking at the nominees. I don't like being used and manipulated however, which is why I felt so let down when I saw this. I personally don't think an author should be placing her own book on a list of nominees for best book. If the book is that great, why not trust the readers to do it justice?

I voted already, but I didn't use my chance to write in since there already were at least six books among the original nominees that I was quite excited about. I liked, or was aware of 15 of the books, so I started looking at the ones I hadn't heard of before, which led me to discover the book that had such few ratings. You can actually see the rating details for each book by hovering over it with your mouse. The surprise nominee is up to 23 ratings as of today, maybe this hidden gem is quickly developing an ardent following ...

Here's the link to the results:
https://www.goodreads.com/choiceaward...
All choices look 'legitimate' to me. I wish you had mentioned the title, Fjóla, so we could see what happened to the book since it was nominated.

Ah, blast from the past. The book in question - and the book is perfectly valid by the way, it's published and has a professional illustrator, it just didn't seem to have any "real" reader support at the time - still doesn't have the appeal you would expect from a reader nominated book. It has come a long way however since I noticed it. The fact that it got the Goodreads Awards nomination may of course have helped publicize it.

Three months later it even made it to the "NEW" purchases shelf at my local library! But again, at the time of it's nomination (and this is the fact that struck me as odd!) it only had "a total of 19 ratings and barely a handful of give-away reviews . And while some of those reviews term the book as "cute", none of them conveys any of the enthusiasm you would expect from the best picture book read of 2013." How does a book qualify as "best picture book" of the year and yet only 19 readers are aware of it??

Anyway, I can tell you what happened to the book: Whether it's thanks to its Goodreads Awards "success" or not, it's way up in ratings now. And yet, far fewer readers have actually read it now, five years down the road, than the number of Goodreads members who voted for it in 2013. YES! Voted for it as their favorite book of the year (but didn't bother reading/rating it)! I don't know how you would explain that.

My remarks at the time didn't have anything to do with the quality of this book (I'd never seen it), I was more wondering about the quality of the awards. I read it after it got on the award list however, and I didn't like it. I found the illustrations good, but I just didn't think the text was funny, creative or of quality.

But I'm sure you understand why I couldn't and can't directly refer to the title of the book. That would be sure to land me in trouble beyond what I want.

Cheryl wrote: "Here's the link to the results:
https://www.goodreads.com/choiceaward...
All choices look 'legitimate' to me. I wish you had mentioned the title, Fjóla, so we could see what h..."

Deck the Walls by Erin Dealey looks a bit suspect to me. It still only has 181 ratings but somehow managed to get 338 votes. The two books who got less votes have more than 2400 ratings- quite a bit more than 181. I'm sure Fjóla won't want to confirm, but, that book has WAY different stats from all the others.

Ah, you both enlighten! :smiles: