ALA 2010:The Hard Road to the Newbery and Caldecott Medals
By Brian Kenney, SLJJun 28, 2010
Both Jerry Pinkney and Rebecca Stead delivered deeply personal speeches at last night's Newbery-Caldecott Awards Banquet, reflecting on their decisions to create books for children, the creative process, and the impact that the awards have had on their lives.
Pinkney (below) received the Randolph Caldecott Medal, awarded annually to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children, for The Lion & the Mouse (Little, Brown), while Stead received the John Newbery Medal, awarded for most distinguished contribution to American literature for children, for When You Reach Me (Random).
The banquet, sponsored by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), took place June 27 at the Washington Hilton as part of the American Library Association's (ALA) Annual Conference. The award-winners were announced in January during ALA's midwinter meeting.
Pinkney, 70, has had a long history with the Caldecott Medal. Five of his earlier books were Caldecott Honor books--runners up to the big award--and the author/illustrator drolly recounted the anticipation surrounding the announcement of this year's award. As much as he tried, Pinkney says he couldn't ignore the buzz leading up to the announcement of the awards, which "bounced around my head like a child on a brand new trampoline."
When Caldecott Committee Chair Rita Auerbach called Pinkney at 6:20 a.m. on January 18 to inform him that he was the Caldecott Medal-winner, "Time seemed to stand still as I waited for the word 'honor'," he says. "And even after I heard her say 'medal', I was still waiting for the word 'honor' to sandwich itself between those two words."
Pinkney went on to discuss the special role that nature plays in his life and art, and recounted how his nearly wordless picture book evolved. He originally intended to include words, but along the way he began to wonder if the story needed text. He ultimately produced drafts with and without words, crediting his editor, Andrea Spooner, for steering him toward the final version, which contains only a few words that describe the sounds of the animals. Pinkney delights in how children are able to use the book to create their own telling of the classic Aesop's fable, often producing different versions with each reading.
Stead (below) conceded that she wanted to deliver "one great speech" that conveyed what winning the Newbery Medal meant to her, but along the way she "learned how hard it is to write a great speech." Instead, she delivered several "short speeches" that recounted the journey that brought her "to the place where I am standing now."
Quoting British children's author Philip Pullman, Stead says that "story begins when you discover that you have been born into the wrong family." As a child, Stead dwelled on an essential existential question: "How am I me? Meaning, how did my particular self get in here?" She "sought around for a door" that would let her out and allow her not to be alone. "And that door was books." People in books, she added, told her the things she needed to know.
Stead's path to becoming a writer, and specifically a writer for children, wasn't easy. "Like a lot of people who secretly want to write, I became a lawyer," she says, drawing a huge laugh from the crowd. The author began writing When You Reach Me in 2007, but it took several attempts before she could confront her fears and give herself permission to "really...pour all of my weirdness into this book." Hearing author Laurie Halse Anderson at a writer's conference remark that "sometimes you need to stop thinking and write" gave her the permission to ignore her fear "that my book was becoming too strange," and to finish the novel, which "became more and more about the ordinary mysteries of life."
According to Stead, receiving the Newbery Medal seemed to be yet another mystery of life. "For me, the Newbery Medal was an impossibility," she says. When she received the call at 6:45 a.m. from Newbery chair Katie O'Dell, "It felt like a lightning bolt of joy. It felt like knee-locking happiness.
Photos: The American Library Association
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