Thoughts on Newbery: The Problem with Popularity Contests

Popularity is in the eye of the tweeter, facebook-liker, and such. That is, I do feel that those of us involved in social media can perceive and help foster the perceptions that particular books are more popular than others. And those involved in enthusiastically advocating for these books can feel dismayed when their evident popularity is not considered for awards like Newbery. But I’ve always felt that these representations of popularity are problematic — that they do not give us a true sen...