Mere hours after Lafayette author Ingrid Law won a prestigious writing honor Monday, she went grocery shopping - not because her cupboard was bare, but because her heart was overflowing.

"I like to give back," she said, when reached on her cell phone. "We're loading up our cart for the Food Bank. I think when good things happen, you need to keep putting that good energy out there."

She had good things to celebrate, indeed. Law, 38, was notified early Monday morning that her young adult novel Savvy had been named a runner-up for the prestigious Newbery award.

The Newbery and other awards were announced in Denver at the American Library Association's Midwinter Meeting.

The top Newbery honor, the Newbery Medal, is given to "the most distinguished contribution to children's literature" from the previous year. This year's award went to noted fantasy writer/graphic novelist Neil Gaiman, for The Graveyard Book, illustrated by Dave McKean.

Savvy was named a Newbery "Honor Book," sharing the title with three others: The Underneath, by Kathi Appelt, illustrated by David Small; The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom, by Margarita Engle; After Tupac & D Foster, by Jacqueline Woodson.

Law's Savvy is the story of a 12-year-old girl born into a family in which members come to possess supernatural powers - or their "savvy" - at age 13. Two days before her birthday, the girl's father is injured in a car crash, and she sets out to help him.

Savvy, published jointly by Dial Books for Young Readers and Walden Media, is Law's first novel. The author, a single mother who recently quit her job at the Boulder County Clerk & Recorder's Office in order to write full-time, is writing a follow-up to Savvy. A film based on the book is under development.