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Fiction
and Poetry Honor Awards Sara Pennypacker
| Marla Frazee | Tim Wynne-Jones Clementine
written by Sara Pennypacker, illustrated by Marla Frazee, Mahalo. All my life I’ve had a chronic case of language lovesickness; I just returned from Hawaii, where I had a bit of a relapse. The Hawaiian language is beautiful, but it was more than that: Hawaiians believe words have spiritual power, that they can enhance and even transform lives. In this, I think everyone in this room tonight is Hawaiian. My favorite of the words I learned there was mahalo. The literal translation is “may you be in divine breath” and it’s the word for “thank you” but it encompasses much more: praise, respect, gratitude, admiration. It’s exactly the word I need tonight. I am so filled with respect for the Horn Book staff and judges, who are dedicated to championing excellence in children’s literature, and so filled with gratitude that you’ve honored Clementine. I’m especially appreciative that the Horn Book recognizes funny books; to many, humorous fiction is literature “lite” if it’s considered literature at all. Mahalo for disagreeing with that. I do, too. Here’s why. Of all the art forms, books most encourage empathy from their audiences. Even the visual arts don’t come close . . . a film may elicit emotion by allowing its viewer to watch and listen to another life, but only a book asks her to step into that life and feel it. That’s the magic of books for me . . . that through empathy, a book connects the individual reader to the rest of his tribe, all of humanity through time and space. The first time this happens for a child, the first time he reads a book and recognizes himself in a character and cares, can be a life-changing event. The special gift of humorous fiction is that it’s always about human frailties: we don’t laugh at where we get things right, but about where we get them wrong. And when we’re laughing, our guard is down — that’s when it’s easiest to say, about these human frailties, “Me, too. There I am. Me, too.” In fact, my favorite letters from readers are the ones that say, “Until I read Clementine, I thought I was the only one.” Because they aren’t: there are legions of kids who on the one hand are impulsive, distractible and sometimes a little too active, but on the other hand tend, as a group, to be highly empathetic, artistically gifted, and innovative. Legions more who mess up and then say, with amazing courage and good cheer, “Okay, fine,” and get on with it. It is a privilege to shine the light on these kids. Nobody ever writes a book alone, and it would be impossible to thank all the people who helped me in the time I have. But there are a few I have to tell you about: First, my kids, who open their hearts so that Clementine’s will beat. Steven Malk, my agent, and Donna Bray, my editor, who knew Clementine even before I did, I think, and who always believed in me. Everyone at Hyperion — sometimes I think the whole staff goes around stopping perfect strangers to say, “Let me tell you about this book.” Most of all, Marla Frazee has my back with her tender and funny illustrations that carry so much of the emotional and humorous narrative of the Clementine stories. I can’t possibly tell you how happy I am to be up here tonight, how much this means to me. So instead: to everyone here who makes fine books, to everyone here who searches for, and reviews, and showcases fine books, and to everyone here who puts those fine books into the hands of children, mahalo. — Sara Pennypacker
Thank you so much for including me in this honor. If I hadn’t already committed to being at a conference in Michigan, I would so be here in Boston. When I was around six years old, I fell in love with Little Sal, the blueberry-picking, bear-following protagonist in Robert McCloskey’s Blueberries for Sal. I loved her messy hair, the overall strap that kept falling off her shoulder, her sandals. I stared at those drawings of Little Sal for hours. Actually, I wanted to be Little Sal. I begged my mother to buy me the same T-strap sandals, but she never did. A few years later, I fell in love with Beverly Cleary’s Ramona, as manifested by Louis Darling in his masterful pen-and-ink drawings. I loved Ramona’s knobby knees and slouchy socks, her sticky-out hair, her candor. I had grown up a bit and so I understood that I couldn’t be Ramona. But I did really wish that I could draw as well as Louis Darling. How did he do it? How could you draw someone who seemed so . . . alive? Now all these years later, I’ve been given a shot at this Little Sal/Ramona breed of girl with Sara Pennypacker’s wholly original character of Clementine. And lucky for me, there is a family of support — Sara, whose writing makes me laugh and cry at the same time; Donna Bray, whose editorial guidance is delivered with a light touch and an expert eye; and Steve Malk, my agent, who showed amazing vision in bringing us all together. One last thing — there is a bookshelf
behind my drawing table that houses every single Horn Book
from 1982 to the present, which is how long I’ve been a subscriber.
My educational path to becoming a children’s book illustrator
didn’t end when I graduated from Art Center College of Design.
I got my real creds from reading the Horn Book cover to
cover for the last twenty-five years. — Marla Frazee
Rex
Zero and the End of the World written by Tim
Wynne-Jones, An escaped panther runs loose in the park, nuns work as spies, everyone is building bomb shelters, and the world very well may end on October 23rd. It is the summer of 1962, at the height of the Cold War, and as Rex's sister says, "Everything is all wrong." In his first-person present-tense narrative, Rex describes that summer he turns eleven and moves from Vancouver to Ottawa — a summer when everyone is afraid. Wynne-Jones perfectly captures an atmosphere as eerily askew as one of Rex's wacky paint-by-numbers interpretations. Full of irony and humor, this timely piece of historical fiction also casts a haunting light on kids growing up in a world filled with fear. J.R. It's awful to hear something being called historical fiction when it's your own life. It is a great honor and a wonderful joy to be here today, and the greater part of that honor and joy is to share the podium in any capacity whatsoever with my good friend, Tobin Anderson. Coming second to M. T. Anderson should be reward enough to any mortal. I did want to ask the jury about Rex Zero being runner-up to Octavian Nothing. Is this the beginning of the new nihilism? I'd like to thank the Boston Globe for supporting children's literature in this important way. And I'd like to thank my beloved Horn Book people for spreading the gospel. I want to thank the jury very much. I also want to thank Melanie Kroupa, who, along with my Canadian editor, Shelley Tanaka, has been so important to me over the last thirteen, fourteen years. We've had this ménage a trois going since Some of the Kinder Planets, which was the last time I had the thrill of standing before this esteemed gathering. I remember being a wee bit frightened of Anita Silvey, but it might just have been her hat, and her hat isn't anywhere near as big now as it was then. But we have since become fast friends through her longtime support of and association with Vermont College. And that brings me to my final thank you. I want to say an especial thank you to my colleagues, past and present, at Vermont College, as well as to all of the students. It was one of the students who inspired this book. Although it's about my life, it took a lecture by one of our graduate students to suddenly make me realize that I was ready to tell this story. — Tim Wynne-Jones
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