March 5, 2008 Carrie Frederick 376 Harrieta Lane Bedford, Pa 15522 Dear Mrs. Charlotte Zolotow, I am sending you this letter to inform you that you are the winner of The Coco award. I am a student attending Pennsylvania State University, Altoona. I am majoring in elementary education and preparing to become a school teacher. This semester I am learning about and discussing children's literature the other future teachers in the Language and Literacy Education block of our major. We were assigned a project that involved inventing our own award for outstanding children's literature. We made a name for our award, described the criteria needed for nominations, and we all had to nominate a book for each person's award. My award is called The Coco award, and it is given for excellence in children's literature featuring non-stereotypical gender roles. Criteria for Coco award nominations were books with characters playing roles not associated with their gender or books confronting gender stereotypes that exist in our culture. There were ten nominations for the Coco award and William's Doll was chosen by me as the winner. I had ten books nominated for my award and I was only allowed to choose one winner. Of the ten books I had to choose from, I have decided that the most deserving of my award is William's Doll. This book has everything that my Coco award stands for. William and his father are equally important in the story. Even though William expresses that he wants a doll, his father, who cares more about gender stereotypes, gets him a train set and a basketball set. At the end, William's father eventually reveals that he did want William to have a doll because dolls are for girls. Sadly, this is how many parents, not just fathers, would react if their son wanted a doll. Adults who react like this way are the reason there are "boy toys" and "girl toys." If a doll was not labeled a girls toy, boys would not feel wrong for wanting to play with o

This is a great story. The illustrations are great. This tells of Harriet Tubman as a child preparing to run away. She gets into trouble and is punished be being a field slave instead of a house slave. Then she gets whipped as another punishment. She decides to run away. Her father tells her things she needs to know before running away. She doesn't run away by the end but she is prepared to. It is a great story to tell of her struggle.

I like that they use photograph for the illustrations. It is a simple story. The children have questions and the parents explain they fought to much. The children live with their mom and are excited about weekends with their dad. They are upset when he leaves but they know they will see him again soon. I could not find a good site for this book. I looked forever, sorry.

I could not find a good website for this book. This book is very interesting. The pictures are paintings and they are great. Some pages do not have words. Some pages have two sets of words, one set telling the story, and the other set rhyming, it is interesting. It details her work as a miner. I notice a father in the pictures but he is never mentioned. It is a great example of a strong female.

This book is different from the original because she doesn't fall asleep for 100 years like the witch says. It is very different from the original in alot of ways. It is not a beautiful princess, it is a girl from New York. It is far from the original.

I think you have read this one. It is such a great book. I love that it has the Spanish version and well and English. It gives a great insight into the boy's life.

This is a great story of team work. When the little girl is feeling down, her animal friends help her build a great snowman. It makes her feel good about herself because she is told she is too small. It shows team work as they build the snowman. The snowman impresses everyone at the end.

This story is about an elephant who is told by a hippo that she has a big nose. She becomes self conscious and ties her nose in a knot to make it smaller. She decides that looks silly. She finally gets the knot out, and she is happy with her nose. When she goes back to school and they tease her, she points out that she may have the biggest nose but the hippo has the biggest mouth, the alligator has the biggest tail, and the rabbit has the biggest feet. I think this is a great story of how life is tough. She isn't making fun of the others, she is just pointing out that no one is perfect. It is a good lesson for children to learn. It would make them see that they shouldn't make fun of others,

This book tells of a Navajo girl who has to deal with the death of her grandmother, which she was been warned of ahead of time. She has a hard time dealing with it at first and tries to find ways to postpone it, but she deals with it in the end.

The Coco Award is being given to books that show genders acting in non-stereotypical ways. For example, depicting girls doing something other than being the saved princess, or boys being depicted as something other than the prince, or the knight slaying the dragon. This award is inspired by the book Interpreting Literature with Children, by Shelby A. Wolf. In Chapter five "Gender in Children's Literature," she qoutes Peterson and Lach to sum up the gender stereotypes in children's literature: "Males always outnumber females by a significant proportion regardless of whether the characters depicted were humans, animals, machines, or fantasy characters. In addition males were most likely to be portrayed as positive, active and competent, while females were likely to be portrayed as negative, passive, and incompetent." Nominations should be books for children ages 6-12. Examples could include books showing boys playing with dolls or helping their mothers cook or clean. Girls could be playing football or helping their dad work on the car. The characters should be seen in non-stereotypical ways, doing something not usually associated with their gender. The deadline for nominations is on Feburary 19.