By KAREN MACPHERSON, Scripps Howard News Service

In the past 25 years, they've created more than two-dozen CDs for kids and adults and won two Grammy Awards.

Now singers/songwriters Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer have turned to a different audience: babies and their parents.

Jack Gantos kept his hopes for winning a Newbery Medal -- given annually by the American Library Association to the best-written children's book -- in "lockdown mode" over the past few months.

DALLAS - A wordless story of a dog and her beloved ball and a hilarious historical tale of a boy's unforgettable summer have captured the most prestigious awards in the world of children's literature.

Librarians and other children's-literature lovers across the country are making friendly bets about which books will be chosen for the 2012 Newbery and Caldecott medals.

As a student chaplain at a children's hospital years ago, John Green spent his days at the intersection of life and death, working with terminally ill children and their families.

"To see young people die and their families torn apart, it was just devastating," Green said in a recent telephone interview from his Indianapolis home.

For years, award-winning author Walter Dean Myers was puzzled and hurt by his adopted father's apparent lack of interest in his books.

For years, award-winning author Walter Dean Myers was puzzled and hurt by his adopted father's apparent lack of interest in his books.

As a student chaplain at a children's hospital years ago, John Green spent his days at the intersection of life and death, working with terminally ill children and their families.

"To see young people die and their families torn apart, it was just devastating," Green said in a recent telephone interview from his Indianapolis home.

Simms Taback won the Caldecott Medal -- given for the best-illustrated children's book of the year -- for "Joseph Had a Little Overcoat" in 2000.

Growing up in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, author Tom Angleberger says he was a "nerdy kid."

"I was a very awkward kid, very lonely, stuck way out in the country," Angleberger said in a recent interview before appearing at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C.