Retracing My Steps

Give the people what they want.

And if said people want a picture of a lady in a red dress, it is advisable to hand that picture over to them. So here it is. The one. The only.

Ladies and gentlemen… the red dress.

Lovely, no? J. Crew, in case you’re interested. Note the matching freakish toenails. Oh, anthropologists of the future, wherefore do we do what we do to our feet?

As you can see, the dress (for all its charms) is not red at all, but a rather nice coraly, pinkly hue. Not red. My nose (and you cannot tell here) was exposed to the appropriate amount of sunlight the first day I was in town so as to match the dress in pinkness.  Fortunately it wasn’t so bad in most of the pictures.  I will now begin my recap of all things ALA with a look at the highpoint of my trip: The Newbery/Caldecott/Wilder Banquet.

This year the Newbery was held in the lovely Hilton Washington, a building located a freakish distance from the DC Convention center. By "freakish" I of course mean "I had to take the Metro there and WALK!". Some trepidation was ah-buzz amongst the attendees. Apparently (and this falls under the category of hearsay and conjecture) a previous Newbery was once held in this same building. Many people were able to relate to me the mystery meat nature of past Newbery/Caldecott Banquets. So it was that the previous food here was said to have once been particularly atrocious and its victims were anxious to see if the folly would be repeated again. Now this was my second Newbery banquet. As such, I have only known tasty food to be served. To my infinite relief, this year’s meal was no different. There was a salmon (I think… did I mention how dark it was in the room?), some wine, bread, a salad (very tasty), and a chocolatey mousse in a truffle-like shell.

But I get ahead of myself. After walking an ungodly distance (more than two blocks) from the Dupont Circle stop I found myself in a lovely hotel lobby. A lovely hotel lobby that was filled with the recent winners of the Third Annual Bookcart Competition. More on that another day. After locating a restroom I proceeded to change into my Newbery outfit. You might wonder why I chose to change only then. As it happened, I was staying in Silver Springs with a friend of mine, and I decided that on this particular day I was going to lug my dress and shoes about with me to save myself a trip. In doing this I had assumed incorrectly that my second trip to the convention floor would not yield any additional acquisitions. Couldn’t have been more wrong about THAT, lemme tell ya. So I had stuffed my dress in a big Cat in the Hat bag, rammed some shoes in there, then topped the whole kerschmozzle off with a pile of 8 or 9 books for spice. The result? That dress is a wonder, wrapped in a miracle, stuffed inside a gift from the heavens above. Very few wrinkles and not a spot or tear in sight.  And alongside the other Newberyites and our winners, it almost looked red.

Dressed with my eyes popped into my head (I’m thinking of exchanging my contacts for a monocle someday) I waltzed into the Green Room reception area. It was lovely. Nobs were hobbed. Hobs were nobbed. I mugged when appropriate and when not appropriate. I also located my saint of a friend Katherine Lord who had allowed me to sleep in her spare bedroom for the duration of my trip. Having an extra Newbery ticket, I handed it off to Katherine, who promptly managed to accidentally sit at a table that contained my boss. I couldn’t have planned that if I tried.

The actual banquet was in a very large room with lots of lovely seats. I was at the Simon & Schuster table with Matt Phelan (The Higher Power of Lucky‘s illustrator), his wife, Rebecca Sherman (his agent), two Newbery committee members, and three Simon & Schuster folks. I noted that the tables closest to the podium were of the Wilder committee members, which was particularly interesting to me.

Now the sole problem with sitting with the cool kids at this kind of thing is that you’ve a devil of a time figuring out where to look. I happen to own a pair of contact lenses that are at least 35 years old. They’re more like portable cataracts than useful extensions of my visual senses. As such, I can make out distant speakers best when I am on the verge of tears. And since that only happened two or three times during the evening, I was not always getting a clear view of things. There was also, I should note, a gigantic screen to my left. This gigantic screen was meant to show to the peanut gallery folk every pore, mole, and stray hair on the speakers’ faces. It’s a singularly effective mechanism and it was straight ahead of me. So I could either look to the right and pretend to see every twitch and tick on the faces of the podium speakers OR I could look dead ahead and see those same twitches and ticks IN LIVING COLOR! I opted for the former since looking straight ahead would have given the impression that I was staring at Rubin Pfeffer all night. A nice way to pass the time, but definitely calculated to creep poor Mr. Pfeffer out and, therefore, inadvisable.

Usually at these things the tables are outfitted with a program, a CD of the speeches, and a cute toy. At least, that was how the last Newbery/Caldecott/Wilder banquet worked. When The Hello, Goodbye Window won we all got cute little harmonicas on our tables. I wanted to see what this year’s Flotsam equivalent would be. My money was on those little red plastic fish you’re supposed to put on your hand so that they’ll tell your future. Cheap and fun, they’d have made excellent gifts. As it was, no little tidbits were around this year, which was a pity.

Words were said up on the podium. ALSC President K.T. Horning was eloquent as ever. Food was then served and I plowed through it.

Now would be a good time to note that I had spent the previous 2-3 days walking DC. Walking and running, trying desperately to get to various events on time. My legs, at first, took this to be an amusing joke on my part. "Oh? You would like to run? Up a flight of stairs? Well, by all means, my dear. Ho ho! Aren’t you a card?" My legs like to think that they’re alive in 1923. They keep calling things "bully" when they think I’m not listening. However, when it became clear to them that I was not going to stop running and walking like a madwoman, they went into open rebellion. Open rebellion usually takes the form of forcing me to walk like a duck. Not only that, I was wearing cute little half-a-size too small silver strappy shoes with paper thin little heels. So when the food had been served and people were meandering about the floor, I attempted to find the New York Public librarians and my friend by walking around the room. Like a duck. Needless to say, I did not find anyone I was looking for. The room was packed and I failed to recognize anyone.

Then came the speechifying. Here you can see HMOCL #something or other Kadir Nelson accepting his plaque for Moses. Later I would apologize to him for making him the top HMOCL and therefore possibly submitting him to ridicule. He didn’t quite know how to respond to that.

The author of Gone Wild, David McLimans, sported a pretty nifty outfit involving a lot of black. Two thumbs way way up for the outfit. Kudos all around.

And David Wiesner… well here are my thoughts on the matter. Insofar as I could tell, Wiesnery creates wordless picture books. A lot of them. And yet here he is, put on the spot, having to write a third Caldecott speech and undoubtedly his best material has already been used up. So Wiesner would totally have received a pass from me if he had flubbed his speech or phoned it in. Long story short, the guy killed. Maybe repeatedly getting a highly competitive award just means that you get to hone your speechifying skills. No idea. Whatever the reason, Wiesner had us in the palm of his hand and only once did my mind wander enough as to wonder whether or not he’s ever been tempted to race his Caldecott medals against one another. Which year would win if pitted against its fellows on a steep incline? He’ll have to get back to me on that one.

Newberyites followed. Has anyone else noticed that this turned into a Boys vs. Girls year? Boys won the Caldecott. Girls won the Newbery. Easy-peasy. And while McLimans had killed in the boys Fashion category hands down, no clear cut winner came through on the girl side of things. There was Kirby Larson sporting a subtle chocolate colored gown, designed to flatter her small waist. There was I-Just-Gave-Birth-2-Weeks-Ago thin as a rail Jenni Holm in her gorgeous cream colored number with ripples of delicious silky fabric undulating down her side. And then Ms. Cynthia Lord sported a swank light green dress with matching shug, intricately beaded so that she glittered and gleamed like a little roving light amongst the festivities. And Susan Patron, elegant in pearls and a subdued black.  Pictures, you say?  Fellow Newbery committee member Tim took the one below.  Well played, sir.

And when Susan Patron spoke her speech more than lived up to expectations. Oh, you’ll be able to read it in its entirety when Roger reprints it in the Horn Book, of course. And maybe someday I’ll create a podcast blog where you can hear snatches of the highlights. For now, you’ll just have to take my word on it. I had heard a very different speech the day before when the Newbery committee members were treated to dinner with Ms. Patron, Mr. Phelan, and the Simon & Schuster folk at Brasserie Les Halles. At that time she was just as eloquent as she was on the podium, but nothing really compares to the actual honest-to-goodness writ in stone speech itself. Ms. Patron spoke of her own upbringing, telling her little sister stories in the bath and getting that rush that comes when you’ve completely enthralled a listener. She spoke of her youth and how she hoped to be artistic and wild and a writer. "I would be tragic like Piaf . . . only taller." She spoke of the creation of Lucky. And she mentioned Fuse #8.

That night I would debate whether or not it would be a wise move to write in big bold letters on my blog I WAS FRIGGIN’ MENTIONED IN A NEWBERY SPEECH!!!! YEEEEEE-HAAAAAW! I decided against it A) Because I was tired and B) Because I was tired. But I was thrilled. No question. Would it be safe to say that this was the very first time in the history of a Newbery speech that a literary blog’s name cropped up? I’d like to think so but I like to think of all kinds of things. Not all of them are realistic.

It was a brief mention, but a thrilling one. You see, last year I posted a review of Patron’s book (one, I might add, that mentioned the word "scrotum" and how some people might raise a hullabaloo about it). At that time she wrote me a very kind response and that was the end of that.

In any case, I was a little humbled by the mention. And as my husband pointed out, now I can replay it from the CD I received whenever I like. Replay it and replay it and replay it.

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.

I think I have a problem with lists. I can’t let them go. I see one listed somewhere and ZIP! Instantaneous blog posting.

Today is the day I return to work from DC and BOY ARE MY ARMS TIRED!

silence

Oh right. That’s not how the joke works.

Anywho, I’ll recap all the other lovely things that happened when I get a moment or two to myself (you understand how silly I was to go the old return-home-and-go-directly-back-to-work route).  For now, take a quick glimpse and a gander at The Designated Dozen.  It’s a lovely thing to come home to.  Basically it’s a list of 12 children’s books chosen by the School Library Association (UK Edition)’s librarian of the year.  Twelve books everyone should know and read.  More than a couple surprises in this grouping, no question.  First of all, just a great look at peculiar British covers.  And I don’t dislike any of these titles, really.  At the same time, I don’t know if I’d label any of them my favorites.  Then again again, I think I’m the only person I know who wasn’t blown away by Saffy’s Angel. 

Thanks to Kids Lit for the link.

UPDATE: Monica Edinger pointed out to me that there’s a Guardian article about this list that explains its true purpose.  Tah-dah!

A very interesting piece was passed on to me recently regarding the Good Reading Magazine.  It seems that author Anthony Horowitz (of the Alex Rider series, amongst other things) wrote a piece wondering why all his villains have to be white these days.  In relating the recent filmed adaptation of Stormbreaker, for example, he writes, "How depressing it is that Herod Sayle, the Lebanese businessman that Alex Rider fought in his first adventure, Stormbreaker, quietly morphed into Darrius Sayle, Californian trailer trash, by the time the film came out last summer."

It’s funny, but this hit close to home.  You see, I rather disliked Stormbreaker for the very reasons Mr. Horowitz is bringing up here.  As I recall (and granted, my memory may be faulty here) I was under the impression that Herod Sayle appears in the book as someone who was adopted from his home country, brought to Britain, and grew up there.  Then he becomes the book’s supervillain and decides to kill all the children in England.  I’m so used to Muslim villain characatures in film that to find a Lebanese enemy in a YA novel struck me a bit cheap.  Cheap and kind of insulting.  The old, you take them in and raise them and they’ll turn around and bite you, kind of cheap.  I had other problems with Stormbreaker too, but that was my primary concern.

But Mr. Horowitz’s point is that nowandays it’s hard to create any kind of a villain who isn’t white and in full possession of all his limbs and bodily functions.  I sympathize, certainly, but up to a point.  Seems to me that if you’re beginning a great boy spy teen series then maybe your first villain doesn’t have to be a Muslim right off the bat.  Take a gander at the other sci-fi villains out there.  Horowitz is right when he points out that it’s a pretty white crowd.  Will we have achieved racial equality when children and teen literature villains are of as many hues as… well, not the heroes.  The heroes tend to be pretty white as well.  Hm.  There’s something to be said for showing skepticism if a book contains a white kid saving the world from an evil multi-ethnic crew.

I’d be interested to hear what you think on the matter.  A good villain is a difficult creation anyway.

Thanks to Jane Yolen for the link.