Two Twin Cities writers and a Minneapolis publisher were honored Monday when the winners of the Caldecott and Newbery medals were announced in Boston.

Wayzata writer Joyce Sidman's book "Red Sings From Treetops" won a Caldecott honor medal. The book was illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski of Stonington, Conn., who collaborated with Sidman in 2007 on "This is Just to Say."

And Phillip Hoose, formerly of St. Paul, won both a Newbery honor medal and a Robert F. Sibert honor for nonfiction. Hoose's book, "Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice," had already won a National Book Award.

"This is great," Hoose said in an e-mail. "This is the most excited for an honor I've been since I was runner-up at the Minnesota State Fair in 1984 for my song about moving to Minnesota entitled 'Whose Idea Was This?'" (Hoose now lives in Vermont.)

"Pamela did such an incredible job of augmenting the text," Sidman said Monday. "I just feel blessed that she took this text and made it her own, and put so much of her own passion into it."

This is Sidman's second Caldecott honor book. The first was "Song of the Water Boatmen" in 2005, illustrated by Ely's Beckie Prange. (And Prange and Sidman have another book together, "Ubiquitous," coming out this spring.)

Meanwhile, a book published by Carolrhoda Books of Minneapolis won the Coretta Scott King Book Award. "Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal," was written by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson and illustrated by R. Gregory Christie.

The top honors on Monday went to Rebecca Stead, whose "When You Reach Me" was awarded the John Newbery Medal for best children's book, and Jerry Pinkney, whose wordless book "The Lion and the Mouse" won the Randolph Caldecott prize for picture books. Both books were based on beloved old stories -- Stead's was inspired in part by Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time," and Pinkney's book was a retelling of a classic Aesop fable.

The awards were announced at the American Library Association's annual midwinter meeting. For a list of winners, go to tinyurl.com/4usuwp.

Laurie Hertzel is the Star Tribune's books editor. This report contains material from the Associated Press.