Selection committee chair Nancy Pearl announced the six finalists for the first annual Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction recently.  The awards are made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. The winning titles (one fiction and one nonfiction) will be announced at a special event at the American Library Association Annual Conference on Sunday, June 24, in Anaheim, CA—the cash prize for the two winning authors is $5,000, while the four remaining finalists will each receive $1,500.  Click on any of the titles above to view and reserve in the library catalog.  (Musings - does having "Russell" in your name and putting a reptile on the cover better your chances for being a fiction finalist?)