First and Foremost: Newbery Banquet Reporting (Part Three)

After Ms. Patron finished (to thunderous applause, of course) Roger Sutton announced the Wilder winner (James Marshall) and we watched a very nice short documentary of his works and their impact. In honor of the occasion, current Newbery chair Nina Lindsay came dressed as Martha from the George and Martha books. When she told me this I asked if that meant she’d show up in a skirt, a flower behind her ear, and no shirt. As you can see, however, there was a gray shirt involved and she looked very nice indeed.

Marshall’s partner accepted the award on his behalf and uttered a touching thank you, "for acknowledging the triumph of his monumental silliness," which was perhaps the nicest sentence I’d heard in a long time.

The evening ended with all of us watching the Carnegie Award (slash Weston Woods Award) winning video of Knuffle Bunny. I look forward to watching the sequel win as well in the future.

Afterwards I got in line to congratulate the winners, chat with their sons, and generally crash. It was a lovely evening, made all the more so by some cool Higher Power of Lucky posters we got for fun. If you said hello to me that night, I apologize for not speaking with you at more length. Come by my library sometime.  I’ll make it up to you.

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