Newbery Announcement at ALA

OK, so maybe you stayed up late watching the Golden Globes last light. Nothing compared with how the library and children's book world feels this morning, awakening to the announcement of the Newbery and Caldecott, Coretta Scott King and Printz Awards, among others.

Predictions and mock voting have been rampart in the last few weeks, and a lot of kids will be happy about the winners this year. Rebecca Stead's book will be a popular choice for the Newbery. Great book, fun read.

I think Bryn Mawr School, where I joyfully served as librarian for a few years, may have been one of the original Mock Newbery programs in the country. Now there are lots. One year we even took the Bryn Mawr students to Washington DC to hear the exciting announcement of the winners.

Now, had you risen early this morning, you could have tuned in to a live webcast, almost like being there. Except I doubt you could duplicate the excitement our students felt that year, dressed as book characters, holding signs and cheering their favorite book.

This year the American Library Association met in Boston and has just moments ago announced the winners. I'm delighted to say a book I reviewed and loved is the 2010 Newbery Medal book. Another I reviewed, Mare's War, is a King Honor winner. TaDa, drumroll please!



Related Posts: Calpurnia Tate

Reliable Narrators

What do you do when someone, your critique group, a professional, your sister or best friend, says to be careful that your main character is likable? How do you create a character readers will actually want to read about because s/he's funny, intriguing, smart-assed, whatever it takes, yet also appealing?

Enter the Reliable Narrator. A character kids want to know. She may not be lovable but she should be interesting in some way. Oddball, quirky (that much disparaged word), spunky, full of life.

One of my favorite books to read and hardest to get my head around and write about was this year's much-discussed novel for middle graders, Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me. So I liked this Story Sleuth posting about the narrator, Miranda, being a character kids really wanted to get to know. Here's a bit of the post. Click here to read more:

I’ve been thinking about what grips me about this story, why I’m so engaged. I think it’s largely because the narrator, Miranda, is so appealing. She feels like a real kid. Stead set the story in pre-cell phone, pre-email 1979. Miranda is a 12 year old 6th grader living on the Upper West Side of New York City with her single mom, who works in a law office. Miranda navigates her school as an office monitor, and her street as a “latchkey child.” (p. 3) Her best friend from day care grows away from her, and she seeks new friendships in her class, friendships that are strained, broken, and ultimately healed. What draws me into this story, in addition to the underlying mystery, is Miranda’s reliability as a narrator. I trust her, because she admits to feeling sad, and mad, and lonely, even mean and jealous. When her friend, Annemarie, hopes that a rose left on the doormat might have been left by Colin, the boy Miranda also likes, Miranda suggests to Annemarie that the rose might have been left by her dad. “Your dad is so nice. It has to be him.” (p. 112) Then the narrator Miranda describes her own feelings: “I was miserable, sitting on the edge of her bed in that puddle of meanness. But I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want Annemarie’s rose to be from Colin.”

Related post: Book Reviewing

Book Reviewing

Reading books, then writing about them, seems like a perfect gig, right? Opening a new book with great expectation and anticipation, a story no one else has insisted You Must Read This and then proceeded to tell me what happens- All good. But there's a lot of responsibility in this newness. And then there's the pulling together of the review. You know a lot of really accomplished writers are going to see it, and you don't want to get it wrong. Apostrophes count. Just recently someone commented on something I'd written and cautioned me to watch for typos. Typos? Me? I'm the original line editor. What I think he meant was my propensity to leave out commas in short compound sentences. I do that occasionally and I know I do it (like that).

Is that so wrong? Well, I guess not, as long as I realize what I'm doing and do it intentionally. That's my story anyhow.

Check out Barbara O'Connor's recent blog posts (scroll past the hilarious antics of her new puppy Ruby...) to see how even the most experienced writer anguishes over her latest manuscript edits. Or at least that's what accomplished writers should do. There's nothing worse than reading a book filled with grammar and puncutation mistakes. I know. I've been sent books, albeit just galleys, so filled with errors that I wonder how they could ever fix them for the actual book.

But back to my reading and writing about books. Today's Christian Science Monitor featured my review of Rebecca Stead's book When You Reach Me. That was one hard book to review! I didn't want to give too much away because the story is complicated and hinges on events that take place early in the writing but later in the story. Aha, see that right there makes no sense when I write it. You just have to read the book. It was a terrific book, well-written and accomplished and unusual. And I loved reading it.