FAQs

Some of you may have questions about the Fids and Kamily Awards. This is our brief attempt at answering some of the most common questions. If you've got more questions, please leave them in the comments.

What is Fids and Kamily?
It's a yearly poll that compiles the lists of the year's favorite kids and family music from kids music writers, radio programmers, and others in the industry into a consensus list of the year's best music for kids and families.

How do you submit a CD for consideration?
Get your CD into the hands of the F&K judges. Judges come and go every year, but a list of this year's judges is there to the left. The F&K coordinators are not responsible for distributing CDs to judges.

Is there an entry fee for submitting a CD?
Nope!

How does the poll work?
Individual judges are required to allocate 100 points to their 10 favorite kids and family CDs of the year. Exactly 100 points, exactly 10 CDs -- no more, no less. There are minimum point levels (5) and maximum point levels (25) assigned to each album. The top albums are ranked in order of their cumulative point totals. We have spreadsheets, and we're not afraid to use them.

What is the eligibility period?
It's for albums generally available between November 1 and October 31.  Sorry, that was the old schedule -- as of the 2013 year, it's been shifted up a month, to between October 1 and September 30.  Our apologies for any confusion this caused.

Do winners get anything?
Besides the acclimation of a group of people who spend thousands of hours a year listening to hundreds of kids' CDs, no. Not yet, anyway.

Who came up with the name?
Yeah, you can blame Stefan Shepherd for that one. He came up with the idea for the poll, inspired by the Village Voice's annual "Pazz and Jop" Poll, which surveyed writers on their favorite pop and jazz records. He thought "Fids and Kamily" would be an appropriate name for a kids and family music survey. Unwisely, his two poll co-founders, Bill Childs and Amy Davis, didn't object at the time.