It was a good ALA (Midwinter 2011)

Yes, it was a good ALA:

Jen and I celebrate with the honored books*

But let me back up. Midwinter was held in beautiful San Diego this year. ALA Midwinter is generally quieter than other conferences--we don't usually bring authors to the conference, because many librarians are busy meeting with their committees to decide the Youth Media Awards. No authors means no "author care" for editors. So, what do editors do at Midwinter? We work at the booth, we meet with agents, we walk the floor and check out our competition, and we sit in on open committee meetings. I sat in on a few sessions of the Best Fiction for Young Adults (BFYA--formerly known as BBYA--Best Books for Young Adults. They changed the committee to only consider fiction, as the list was unwieldy when it included nonfiction. There is a separate YA nonfiction award and list now), and a bit of the Notables committee meeting, too. It's fascinating to hear the members talk about the books, and I especially love it when they get really passionate or emotional about the books. Although, it can also be nerve-wracking when they talk about books that I've edited!

This year, since I was already in Southern California for the holidays, I arrived in San Diego early to help a little with setup:

boxes everywhere

Zoe and I are proud of our tower of power. And no, we did not match on purpose.

enjoying our post set-up treat at Ghirardelli

The food eating and tower of ARC building continued throughout the show:

fish tacos!

Malinda Lo's HUNTRESS

13 CURSES by Michelle Harrison

FALLING FOR HAMLET by Michelle Ray
(the original pile was bigger, but these piles are prettier.)

chocolate souffle

tater tot nachos!

bouillabaisse

But it wasn't all food and building. We also hosted a preview breakfast bright and early Saturday morning (7:30 am!) where we highlighted around 25 of our upcoming titles for 2011. This is what the room looked like:

Our special guest star was debut author Holly Goldberg Sloan. Her YA novel I'll Be There is due out this May. Holly was so lovely and funny and her publishing story was captivating.

And now, on to the awards. ALA Midwinter is always buzzing all weekend with people speculating on and trying to predict the winners of the Caldecott, Newbery, Printz, and more. To be perfectly honest, aside from having fairly high hopes for a Geisel medal of some color for Grace's Ling & Ting, we weren't expecting anything else this year. Not that we ever expect awards, but we've had a little more buzz going into a conference in prior years. (Well, make that last year, and no other year before that....)

A few weeks prior, the Morris finalists (for debut YA) had been announced, so we knew going in that we would have at least one medal for Karen Healey's Guardian of the Dead (yay Karen!).

We found out Sunday morning that we had won the Printz Medal for Ship Breaker. Amazing. Well, I didn't find out till a little later, but suspected when our library marketing director Victoria Stapleton and the editor of Ship Breaker, Editorial Director Jennifer Hunt ran out of the booth together...

We heard about Grace's silver Geisel honor later that afternoon evening. Happy, good news. Of course, we were not to reveal any of this news before the press conference on Monday, so we had to keep poker faces at the booth and not look too happy. But it was a good day, and my colleagues and I celebrated with champagne and Karaoke later that night (speaking of poker faces, I sang Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" up on a stage. Thankfully, there is no video or photo evidence, to my knowledge.)

On Monday morning, as per tradition, we were to gather in Victoria's hotel room at 6:30 am to see if we were getting any additional calls. At 6 am, as I was getting ready, I received a call from Victoria.

"You should sit down" she said. For some reason, I thought this meant there was bad news of some sort, although what kind of bad news she could share with me at that day and hour is beyond me.

"Dave the Potter has just won the Caldecott Honor," she tells me.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think the first words out of my mouth were "Holy f*ck" which is saying a lot because I really hardly ever curse. But I think that wrapped up what I was feeling at that moment. For whatever reason, that possibility hadn't been on my radar, not because I didn't think Bryan Collier's absolutely breathtaking art wasn't deserving, but because there had been very little buzz on the book. But...wow.

"Get here as soon as you can!" she said. I hurried to get ready, and while I was in the elevator, she called again. "Dave the Potter has also won the Coretta Scott King Medal for illustration," she informed me. I wasn't alone in the elevator, and in the off chance the woman was a librarian or in publishing, I couldn't give anything away. "That's very interesting. I'm in the elevator. I'll be there in a minute." and then I went to the hotel room and proceeded to jump up and down in glee.

We also found out that Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes had won a Coretta Scott King honor for text. Woo-hoo! Room service delivered bagels, pastries, coffee, juice, and champagne, and we toasted our wonderful books with mimosas.

And then it was on to the press conference for the announcements of the awards. We actually got lost trying to find the ballroom in the conference center and missed the very beginning, but we soon settled in. One of the first awards announced was the Stonewall Children's and Young Adult Literature Award. And SURPRISE! Freaks and Revelations by Davida Wills Hurwin won an Honor! The committee hadn't informed us in advance. And, as I found out later when I called Davida, they hadn't called her, either. I was double surprised because the book was published in 2009--but it had published in November, so was eligible. I love this special book so much--read more in my Beyond the Book post. It hasn't seemed to find its audience, so I hope this award will bring a new readership to this powerful book.

Our other winners, adorned with their fancy medals:

For a complete list of the winners, go here.

To be honest, I'm still in shock. After the amazing conference we had last year, this feels a little bit...greedy, somehow. I also can't believe that I've almost achieved my pie-in-the sky goal for 2011 that I posted two weeks ago:

-Win an award for books I've edited in every category: picture book, early reader, MG, and YA

With Dave the Potter, Ling & Ting, Freaks and Revelations, and Guardian of the Dead all winning honors, I "only" have a MG award left to attain. That doesn't seem as daunting a goal as when I first stated it! I can't help but wonder if this is a case of me throwing a wish out into the universe and having it answered.

I do want to say that these awards really are a crap shoot, or, as another editor said, winning is like winning the lottery--who knows what each committee is going to think about any book. There are so many deserving and wonderful books out there, and authors and illustrators who weren't honored last Monday shouldn't feel disappointed. As one author on Facebook said, "we're in good company!" So true. But for those books that do win, it's wonderful when the hard work of the authors, illustrators, editors, designers, production people, copyeditors, proofreaders, marketers, publicists, etc. etc. is rewarded.

And of course winning is happy and giddy--all in all, not a bad start to the year!


*As Freaks and Revelations was published in 2009, we did not have a copy in the booth to display

Kids know best!

Last week was a pretty good week--I attended the awards ceremonies for two awards voted on by kids. The first was the Children's Choice Books Awards sponsored by the Children's Book Council. It was held at Guastavino's under the 59th Street Bridge. I live less than 15 blocks away and I never knew it existed. But it was a gorgeous space.

Peter Brown was up for Illustrator of the Year for The Curious Garden. As soon as we entered we checked out the competition:

The authors were given colored name tags so that the kids could identify them and ask for autographs:

After noshing on heavy hors d'oeuvres (Sliders! Mac 'n cheese!) and wine, it was time for the award ceremony. It was emceed by the incomparable Mo Willems:

The first award was for Kindergarten to 1st grade. And the winner was...

Lulu the Big Little Chick written and illustrated by Paulette Bogan, as presented by Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs author Judi Barrett.

Next up was the award for Third Grade to Fourth Grade Book of the Year. And the winner (as presented by Jacqueline Woodson) is...

Friend of the Blue Rose Girls, Jarrett J. Krosoczka for Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute! 

OMG, who is the next presenter?!

Judy Blume!!! She announced that the Book of the Year for Fifth to Sixth Grade was...

Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-so-fabulous Life written and illustrated by Rachel Renee Russell


The next award was for the Teen Choice Book of the Year. Future Little, Brown author Libba Bray was the presenter, and announced the winner as...

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins.

And finally, the big two awards, Author of the Year and Illustrator of the Year. First up was for author of the year. And the winner is (as presented by Newbery Award-winner Rebecca Stead)...

James Patterson for Max.

And the moment of truth...Caldecott Medal winner Jerry Pinkney was on hand to present the Illustrator of the Year award. And the children's choice is...

Yahoo!!!!!

(sorry, Peter, for some reason my only pic of your speech is you with your eyes closed.)

Peter gave a lovely, heartfelt speech. But the night wasn't over yet. Next on the stage was none other than our National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, Katherine Patterson,

who presented a special honor to First Book President and co-founder Kyle Zimmer:

A few more pics from the night:

***

Two mornings later, I attended an event with a very different feel, but with the same spirit. The Irma Black Award is sponsored by Bank Street College of Education:

The Award goes to an outstanding book for young children — a book in which text and illustrations are inseparable, each enhancing and enlarging on the other to produce a singular whole.

Kids selected four finalists, and Sergio Saves the Game by Edel Rodriguez was one of the four. It wasn't ultimately the winner--that was Robot Zot by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by David Shannon. But I was happy to celebrate the Honor win with Edel at a breakfast ceremony.

Carmen Agra Deedy gave the keynote. She's an amazing storyteller, and I swear, I could listen to her forever. She made us laugh, she made us cry, she surprised us, she inspired us:

And then Edel gave a short thank you, and commented that like Carmen, he too was from Cuba, having come to the U.S. when he was eight. He said, "I hope that Americans realize that we need immigrants." Hear, hear.

And there's the Scieszka guy again, making us all laugh as usual:

Check out more pictures on Edel's blog here.

Congratulations to all the honorees, nominees, and winners. And a hip hip hurray for the REAL winners: the kids, of course!


P.S. Here's a video of Carmen speaking at TED:


P.P.S. Happy Birthday, Grace!!

Josette Frank Award

The Newbery Honor is not the only award that Grace's Where the Mountain Meets the Moon has won. Last week Grace was in New York to accept the 2010 Josette Frank Award for fiction, awarded by the Bank Street College of Education. From the website:

This award is given each year to honor a book or books of outstanding literary merit in which children or young people deal in a positive and realistic way with difficulties in their world and grow emotionally and morally. In addition to being a well-known author of articles about children's books, Josette Frank was the first editor of the Children's Book Committee publications and remained a member for over sixty years.
The prize to the author of the award books has been generously provided by The Florence L. Miller Memorial Fund.

She shared this honor with The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly. The other honorees were Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone and Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 by Brian Floca for nonfiction, and Red Sings from Treetops by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski for the picture book award. Everyone but Jacqueline Kelly was on hand to accept their award, and it was a lovely ceremony.

I know Grace was a little relieved to know that Newbery Honor winners do not give speeches, but she did have to give a few words to accept this award. And wow, what words they were. Grace seriously brought the room to tears with her heartfelt, beautifully written speech.

After all of the speeches (and to be honest, Grace wasn't the only talk that made me tear up!), the authors signed books. They were seated behind a desk with quite a bold sign, and Grace showed us what kind of rebel she is:

 

Grace, me, agent Rebecca Sherman, and Connie

Afterwards, the winners (and a few guests--including me!) had lunch with the committee members. It was nice hanging out with old friends and meeting new ones.

Congratulations, Grace!

The 2006 Cybils

This is a great day. The winners of the 2006 Cybils were announced earlier than expected…and while I was taking a nap! Congratulations to the authors and illustrators who were honored today! Congratulations, also, to the authors and illustrators of all the Cybils finalists and nominated books.

Once again, I want to thank Anne Boles Levy of Book Buds and Kelly Herold of Big A, little a for establishing these kidlit blogger book awards. I really enjoyed serving as a member of the poetry-nominating panel.