The 2010 Florida Book Awards have been announced...

...with the YA Gold Medal going to The Red Umbrella, by Christina Diaz Gonzalez.

I love state book awards. More often than not, I get introduced to titles that I'd have missed otherwise, and The Red Umbrella sounds like one that'd be right up my alley.

I did think it was strange, though, that unlike almost all of the other categories, the YA slot only had a Gold Medal winner. No YA books were awarded the Silver or Bronze. Does that mean that there weren't many Floridian YA books last year, so there weren't any others that the judging committee found worthy? I can't imagine that they'd just give an award to a book by default. Anyway. Regardless, this one's going on my TBR list.

See the rest here.