Quercus, vol 1, no 3

Marsha Qualey and Vicki Palmquist, editors

July 2006: volume 1, number 3

Our quarterly drawing for $250 worth of free books happens again on September 30th. Linda Nelson, a first-grade teacher in Rochester, Minnesota, won the June drawing and received 14 hardcover books, some signed by the authors! Encourage your colleagues to sign up for this newsletter so they can be the first to know about new books, authors, and more ... and for their chance to win wonderful books.

Gennifer Choldenko is the author of the 2005 Newbery Honor book Al Capone Does My Shirts. The Newbery winner and honor books are announced each January at the midwinter conference of the American Library Association. Authors are notified early in the morning just prior to a news conference. The awards are then presented at a banquet in June at the annual ALA convention. She recently took the time to answer a few questions for Quercus.

Receiving the Call

an interview with author Gennifer Choldenko

Quercus: Looking back: how did it feel to get the phone call?

The weeks leading up to the 2005 Newbery announcement were nerve-wracking for me. Every day I would get an email from someone I knew saying “Did you know Al Capone Does My Shirts just won our Mock Newbery award?” Or “Wow we’re so excited for you. We think you have a chance to win the Newbery this year!” Since there are no early indicators of whether a book is up for consideration for a Newbery medal, I knew that none of these people had any real idea if my book had even a rat’s chance of winning. But knowing something in your head and trying to convince your heart not to get your hopes up are two different things entirely. It was a full-time job trying to keep myself in check.

I wasn’t the only person having difficulty with this either. My editor, who was at ALA, had had so many people approach her saying: “Good Luck! We think it will be you this year,” that the night before the announcement she went to bed at eleven pm and got up at eleven-thirty p.m. and that was it for sleep for her for the whole night.

I, on the other hand, had a great night’s sleep. All of my life I’ve been a dreamer. I couldn’t even get a novel accepted for publication and I was driving around in my car practicing my Newbery acceptance speech. In my head I have won every award in the world, I’ve been the only female President of the United States, I’ve been a network news anchor and I’ve sung with Tina Turner too. I’m used to dreaming big dreams. What I’m not used to is having them come true.

When the phone rang at 4:15 a.m. in the morning, it was the biggest shock I’ve ever had in my life. Because a good friend of mine was the author of a Caldecott Honor Book, I knew awards phone calls came early, but when the phone rang, I literally could not believe it. I lay in bed giving myself a little talking to. “Now you’re imagining the phone ringing. You are really going around the bend, girl.”

Eventually the phone stopped ringing. A minute later it began again. Whoever it was would not give up.

It was my husband who finally answered the phone. “It’s Susan Faust,” he told me. “Chairman of the Newbery Committee. She wants to talk to you.” I’d like to tell you that I was completely poised and had many erudite comments to make to the Chairman of the 2005 Newbery Committee at 4:19 that morning, but when she said Al Capone Does My Shirts won the Newbery Honor all I could say was “Oh my God” over and over again. It was very embarrassing, but the truth is: in the end I am always ready for disappointment. Until that morning I had very little experience with having my dreams come true. more ...

In the News

Julie Jersild Roth has a new book out in August. It's her first, but it's a doozy. Knitting Nell is about shyness and bullies and knitting ... an intriguing combination. Watch for an article about Julie in next month's Quercus.

It seems that Winding Oak has several clients for whom knitting is more than a hobby. Michelle Edwards will be featured in Vogue magazine's holiday issue, talking about knitting and her Jackson Friends series. Michelle is pleased with her prestigious Gryphon Award this year for Stinky Stern Forever.

Nikki Grimes is another knitter on our client list. Take a peek at her website to see some of her wonderful creations. Nikki's most recent book, Road to Paris, is getting starred reviews.

Karen Ritz and Susan Marie Swanson will be speaking at Minnesota State University Mankato to elementary education students about visual language, words, and poetry in their day-long presentation on "Words of Art."

Alexandria LaFaye has a brand new novel being published ... in the newspaper! Her story, Upriver, will be the fall feature in Breakfast Serials, a company that Avi began, which publishes children's novels in serial form in newspapers across the country. We think this is an exciting "old" wrinkle in publishing—and a welcome one. Congratulations, Alexandria!

Marsha Qualey is busy getting her classroom materials ready for teaching at Hamline University as one of the associate professors in their MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Marsha tells us classes begin January 2007. If you've been thinking about this educational path, check this out.

For more information on Winding Oak and our clients, please visit our website.




	Gennifer Choldenko, author

	Did You Know?

	The Newbery Award was the brainchild of Frederic Melcher, a former bookseller who was an editor at Publisher’s Weekly. The idea and name for the award came to him “spur of the moment” when he was attending the 1921 annual library association meeting in Swampscott, MA in order to work with librarians on ideas of how to promote children’s books. The librarians reacted to his idea with enthusiasm. The award honors John Newbery, an 18th century bookseller and publisher often credited with “inventing” children’s literature. The first Newbery Award was selected by secret ballot. All members of the Children’s Section of the ALA were eligible to vote. Results were tabulated and announced in March of 1922; The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem van Loon was the runaway winner. Runners-up on the list included two future Newbery winners: Charles Boardman Hawes (The Dark Frigate, 1924 winner) and Cornelia Meigs (Invincible Louisa, 1934). Setting the precedent that is observed today, the award was presented to the author at the summer annual convention. No copy of the first acceptance speech exists, but a record of the occasion states that upon receiving the award, “Dr. van Loon responded in merry vein.” For several years the presentation was done at an informal tea or social at the convention. The first formal award dinner was held in 1933 at the annual convention in Chicago. Dinners were skipped for a couple of years, and then reinstated in 1936. By 1937 interest in the award had grown so much that Eleanor Roosevelt attended the dinner, spoke, and mentioned the event in her syndicated newspaper column. The winner that year was Ruth Sawyer, for Roller Skates. In 1939 the event was first officially referred to as the Newbery Banquet.



	Historical material on the Newbery Award is from A History of the Newbery and Caldecott Medals by Irene Smith (The Viking Press, 1957) and Newbery Medal Books: 1922-1955, edited by Bertha Mahoney Miller and Elinor Whitney Field (Horn Book Incorporated, 1955). read more ...