Black Eyed Susan Awards
The Black-Eyed Susan Book Award Program (BES) is a children's choice award for the state of Maryland.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Resources
The Media Center staff usually starts promoting the BES program in January, after Winter Break, with voting to be held at the end of April.
Black-Eyed Susan Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the Black-Eyed Susan Book Award Program?
The Black-Eyed Susan Book Award Program (BES) is a children's choice award for the state of Maryland. The BES Award honors outstanding picture books and chapter books – each year 15 picture books and 10 chapter books are nominated. Students in the state of Maryland vote for the winning book in each category – that is what makes this Award program so exciting!
How does this affect my child?
Participation in this book award program is voluntary. All students may vote for their favorite picture book. It is recommended that students in grades 4 and 5 (and sometimes 3, when appropriate) vote for their favorite chapter book.
In order to vote for their favorite books, the students must have read or listened to at least 8 of the 15 nominated picture books and/or at least 3 of the 10 nominated chapter books. Voting will take place in the middle of April.
We will have three copies of each book in the Media Center for them to check out starting in January!
How does this affect me as a parent?
Hopefully all of you will encourage your children to read the nominated books – they are excellent pieces of literature!
Just like the program is voluntary for students, it is also voluntary for teachers. Some of the classroom teachers in the building will be reading selected BES books in class – check with your child’s individual teacher to see if they will be doing that.
Otherwise, just encourage your child to check out the books in the Media Center and/or public library and help them keep track of what they read.
Black-Eyed Susan Resources
Black-Eyed Susan Book Award Program
2007 - 2008 winners
2008 - 2009 winners
2009-2010 winners
2010-2011 Nominees