The Lewis Carroll Shelf Award was an American literary award conferred on several books annually by the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education annually from 1958 to 1979. Award-winning books were deemed to "belong on the same shelf" as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, having enough of the qualities of his work.
Seventeen books were named in 1958, including only two from the 1950s. Seven were named in 1979, all except two from the 1970s. Although short, the last class was also diverse, with one wordless picture book, The Snowman (1978) by Raymond Briggs, and one fictionalized biography, The Road From Home: The Story of an Armenian Girl (1979) by David Kherdian, about his mother's childhood and World War I-era migration.
The selection process included nominations by trade paperback editors, who were permitted to name one book annually from their trade catalogs. The Component Analysis Selector Tool rated tradebooks on authenticity, universality, insight, symbol systems–craftsmanship, impact, genre comparison, field setting of reader and test of time. The purpose was to identify and promote outstanding thoughts among the mediocre communications available in an open society.
The list was established by Dr. David C. Davis with the assistance of Professor Lola Pierstorff, Director Instructional Materials Center, University of Wisconsin, and Madeline Allen Davis, WHA Wisconsin Public Radio. Awards were announced and presented at the annual Wisconsin Book Conference, which featured speakers such as Dr. Seuss, William Steig, Helga Sandburg, Arna Bontemps, Nat Hentoff, Paul Engle, Jean George, Ed Emberly, Charlemae Rollins, Watts poet Jimmy Sherman, Maurice Sendak, Holling C. Holling, Pamela Travers, Ann Nolan Clark, Louise Lemp, Frank Luther, and Ramon Coffman/Uncle Ray.
Read more about Lewis Carroll Shelf Award: Winners
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“The Good and Great must ever shun
That reckless and abandoned one
Who stoops to perpetrate a pun.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“Then down came the lid—the day was lost, for art, at Sarajevo. World-politics stepped in, and a war was started which has not ended yet: a “war to end war.” But it merely ended art. It did not end war.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)
““Five o’clock tea” is a phrase our “rude forefathers,” even of the last generation, would scarcely have understood, so completely is it a thing of to-day; and yet, so rapid is the March of the Mind, it has already risen into a national institution, and rivals, in its universal application to all ranks and ages, and as a specific for “all the ills that flesh is heir to,” the glorious Magna Charta.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“Give him the darkest inch your shelf allows,
Hide him in lonely garrets, if you will,—
But his hard, human pulse is throbbing still
With the sure strength that fearless truth endows.”
—Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935)
“The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)