The Massachusetts Children's Book Award (MCBA) program was started in 1975 by Dr. Helen Constant. The program is geared towards 4th through 6th graders.   

A group of librarians, teachers, and publishers nominate books for consideration and then a committee selects twenty-five books for each year's list.   Participating schools provide the master list of books to students.  When students read five books from the list, they are eligible to vote for their favorite book from those read.  The students' votes are then submitted to the program and counted along with votes from other students within the state.   A plaque award is given to the author with the most votes. The program is sponsored by Salem State University.

The 2015-2016 school year is the third year that Hildreth Elementary School has been participating in the program.  In the HES library, we have at least 1-2 copies of each book from the MCBA master list. Students are welcome to borrow the print books as well as the digital books from other libraries.  Listening to an audio version of a book counts as reading a book.  

At HES we recognize students who have read from 5 to 25 of the titles!

We are awaiting the 2016-2017 MCBA list from Salem State University.  Check out the MCBA link for updates.