Many of the books in this issue of Notes implicitly enjoin us to look up from the page and head out into nature (or, as my mother would say, “put down that book and go out and play!”). As I write this, we’re just coming off of Screen-Free Week, an annual effort in which young people and adults alike are encouraged to turn off their TVs, computers, and game consoles in favor of non-virtual recreation. “Read a book instead!” has always been at the top of the list of approved alternatives — but what if your book is on a screen? As digital editions take an increasing piece of the publishing pie, we are all being challenged to rethink what we mean by “book” and “reading.” I can now go outside and take an entire library along with me in my pocket. I wonder what Screen-Free Week — not to mention my mother — would think about that?

Roger Sutton
Editor in Chief

The post From the editor — May 2013 appeared first on The Horn Book.

Get outside
Peep and Ducky by David Martin, illus. by David Walker, Candlewick, 1–4 years.
Phoebe and Digger by Tricia Springstubb, Candlewick, 3–6 years.
Everyone Can Learn to Ride a Bicycle by Chris Raschka, Schwartz & Wade/Random, 3–6 years.
It’s Our Garden by George Ancona, Candlewick, 5–8 years.

Get moving
Becoming Babe Ruth by Matt Tavares, Candlewick, 4–7 years.
You Never Heard of Willie Mays?! by Jonah Winter,  Schwartz & Wade/Random, 4–7 years.
Hoop Genius: How a Desperate Teacher and a Rowdy Gym Class Invented Basketball by John Coy, illus. by Joe Morse, Carolrhoda, 4–7 years.
Daredevil: The Daring Life of Betty Skelton by Meghan McCarthy, Wiseman/Simon, 4–7 years.

Historical fiction starring girls
Sugar by Jewell Parker Rhodes, Little, Brown, 8–12 years.
Bo at Ballard Creek by Kirkpatrick Hill, illus. by LeUyen Pham, Holt, 8–12 years.
Hattie Ever After by Kirby Larson, Delacorte, 10–14 years.
One Came Home by Amy Timberlake, Knopf, 10–14 years.

Teen audiobooks
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, read by Morven Christie and Lucy Gaskell, Bolinda/Brilliance, 14–17 years.
Eve & Adam by Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate, read by Jenna Lamia and Holter Graham, Macmillan Audio, 14–17 years.
Pandemonium [Delirium trilogy] by Lauren Oliver, read by Sarah Drew, Listening Library, 14–17 years.
A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix, read by Michael Goldstrom, Listening Library, 14–17 years.

These titles were featured in the May 2013 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.

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The Edward Gorey House’s 2013 special exhibit “Edward Gorey’s Vinegar Works” opened for their 2013 season on April 18th. The exhibit covers the “three volumes of moral instruction” in Gorey’s Vinegar Works boxed set: The Insect God, The West Wing, and his best-known work, The Gashlycrumb Tinies.

Renowned author/illustrator Peter Sís will give the 2013 Barbara Elleman Research Library Lecture (titled “Walls and Bridges…Books With Wings”) on Saturday, May 4th, at the Carle Museum at 2:30 pm. This annual lecture series is “designed to feature the country’s preeminent scholars, book collectors, researchers, editors, authors, and illustrators in the field of children’s literature.” The event is free with museum admission and will be followed by a reception and book signing. A luncheon with Mr. Sís prior to the lecture is sold out, but the museum is accepting names for a waiting list; call 413-658-1126 to be added.

On Tuesday, May 7th, children’s literature critic and former Horn Book editor in chief Anita Silvey will host an in-store book fair at Porter Square Books. The event, a benefit for the Foundation for Children’s Books, begins at 6:00 pm.

Author Mac Barnett and illustrator Jon Klassen will discuss their Caldecott Honor book (and BGHB 2012 Picture Book Award winner) Extra Yarn at the Carle Museum on Saturday, May 11th. The event begins at 2:00 pm and will include a book signing; it’s free with museum admission.

Annual national Children’s Book Week takes place May 13th through May 19th. For a nationwide event schedule, Children’s Choice Book Award voting, and the gorgeous promotional poster (illustrated by Brian Selznick) and bookmark (illustrated by Grace Lin), see the official Book Week website.

On Monday, May 13th, YA author Sara Zarr will speak and sign books at the Brookline Public Library main branch at 3:00 pm. The free event celebrates her latest novel, The Lucy Variations.

Wellesley Booksmith’s baseball-themed “double header” book event at 4:00 pm on Tuesday, May 14th, will feature Matt Tavares (Becoming Babe Ruth) and David Kelly (The Ballpark Mysteries). Ballpark snacks will be provided, and kids who come dressed in baseball uniforms or memorabilia will be entered to win a baseball signed by the authors.

On Thursday, May 16th, Ayanna Coleman will moderate a panel on “Diversity on the Page, Behind the Pencil, and in the Office,” co-hosted by Charlesbridge and Children’s Book Council Diversity Committee. Panelists include author Mitali Perkins, illustrator London Ladd, and editors from Boston-based publishers Charlesbridge, Candlewick, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The event will be held at 6:00 at Charlesbridge’s Illustration Gallery in Watertown. The panel is free, but space is limited, so please pre-register online.

Barbara Elleman will lead a gallery tour of the exhibit “The Caldecott Medal: 75 Years of Distinguished Illustration” at the Carle Museum on Saturday, May 18th, at 8:00 pm. The exhibit features “high quality prints drawn from more than 30 Caldecott Medal books.” Following the tour, author Lawrence Webster will discuss and sign her book Under the North Light: The Life and Work of Maud and Miska Petersham, a biography of the Caldecott-winning couple. The tour and presentation are free with museum admission.

Illustrator Raúl Colón will give a lecture entitled “Art is a Mind Game” at the Carle Museum on Saturday, May 18th, at 12:00 pm. The lecture will be followed by a book signing and is free with museum admission.

Authors Cal Armistead, Scott Blagden, Jack D. Ferraiolo, and Joe Lawlor will present a panel called “So You Want to Write a Book…” for young writers in grades K–12 at Wellesley Booksmith on Saturday, May 18th, at 4:00 pm. Attendees can bring a single double-spaced page of original writing to receive feedback from one of the panelists. The panel is free; please RSVP to kidevents@wellesleybooks.com.

On Wednesday, May 29th, at 7:00 pm at the Brookline Booksmith, Michelle Tea will have a book launch event for her first YA novel, the “modern-day fairy tale” A Mermaid in Chelsea Creek. Ali Liebegott, author of adult book Cha-Ching!, will join her.

Attending or hosting another children’s lit–related event in the greater Boston area this month? Please let us know in the comments!

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It’s a special honor to speak with adults who are as committed as I am to bringing books and children together. I am a mother and have been a daycare provider and a middle-school teacher…and I can tell you that the most magical moments I have experienced with children have been with books.

We all know how critical books are to the development of reading in a child. A good book and the joy it provides is often the reason a child is motivated to become a reader in the first place. Language is fun. Imagination is fun. And when a child experiences the joy of reading with a childcare provider or teacher, he or she is encouraged to take that next step and become a reader. And we all know that readers thrive, while non-readers fall behind in this world of the written word.

However, what I really want to remind you of is this: when you read with a child, you are doing so much more than teaching him to read or instilling in her a love of language. You are doing a much more powerful thing, and it is something that we are losing, as a culture. By reading with a child, you are teaching that child to be human. When you open a book, and share your voice and imagination with a child, that child learns to see the world through someone else’s eyes. I will go further and say that that child learns to feel the world more deeply, and the child becomes more aware of himself and others in a way that he simply cannot experience except in your lap, or in your classroom, or in your reading circle.

When we read books with children, we share other worlds, yes, but more importantly, we share ourselves. Reading with children makes an intimate, human connection that teaches that child what it means to be alive as one of many live beings on the planet. We are teaching empathy. We are naming feelings, expressing experience, and demonstrating love and understanding…all in a safe environment. When we read a book with children, then children – no matter how stressed, no matter how challenged – are drawn out of themselves to bond with other human beings, and to see and feel the experiences of others.

I believe it is that moment that makes us human. In this sense, reading makes us human.

The world can be a scary place. It can be a scary place for adults, but it is often worse for children. Children experience homelessness, hunger, abuse, and neglect. They can’t get in a car and leave a situation that they find challenging or displeasing. They can’t choose their own lifestyles. Children have very little control over their own lives. Children have to go where they are told and do what they are told to do, often with no apparent justification. They feel powerless. And the truth is, they often are powerless.

So, how do we help those small, often powerless people to grow up to feel strong and confident in this crazy world? How are our children going to feel safe? This happens when we teach children to love themselves, and to understand that there are other people who love them, too. Children need to feel that they are part of a loving, empathetic unit.

A child with a strong emotional center doesn’t hurt other children. It is the damaged child, the wounded child, who lashes out. And a damaged, wounded child grows to be a damaged, wounded adult unless he learns to soothe himself and feel safe in this world.

There are people on the planet who are incapable of empathy. But for most of us, empathy is learned. We learn it as children. Empathy is what keeps us from hurting each other on the playground, from cutting each other off on the highway, and from committing acts of terror and horror on other human beings. When we understand what makes us function, we can understand other people. When we understand that no matter how badly we feel, someone else may be feeling badly, too, we are able to step back and care for others. That is what living in a society is all about.

So, you are saying to yourselves: that’s a big job! And yes, it is. We teachers and caregivers can’t do all of it; parents have to do it, too. Society must also do it. But we can do our part, and here’s a really good way to go about it:

Sit down, put a child on your lap, and read a story. Have fun. Read in character. Use funny voices. Ask questions. Laugh and cry. Be human and be strong, and that will allow the children in your care to be human and be strong. And, they will also learn how to read.

Thank you.

This speech was delivered at the Fostering Lifelong Learners conference held on April 25, 2013 at the Cambridge Public Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For more from the conference, click here.

The post Anna Dewdney’s Fostering Lifelong Learners conference speech appeared first on The Horn Book.

Roger Sutton welcomes participants to the Fostering Lifelong Learners conference

The Doctors Panel: Dr. Robert Needlman, Dr. Lisa Dobberteen, Dr. Marilyn Augustyn

The Publishers Panel: Kathryn Bhirud (Penguin), Nancy Tran (DK), Megan Quinn (Charlesbridge)

The Critics Panel: The Horn Book’s Kitty Flynn, Lolly Robinson, Martha V. Parravano

Kitty Flynn perusing Gideon & Otto

Julie Roach, Cambridge Public Library Youth Services Manager, performing a read-aloud

Cambridge children’s librarian Beth McIntyre

Roger and company engage in small-group work

The Educators Panel: Anne MacKay, BB&N School, and Jim St. Claire, Amigos School

Dr. Kathy Modigliani, Family Childcare Project

Anna Dewdney, the Llama Lady

Author Anna Dewdney (left) and two Llama Llama fans

Author Stuart J. Murphy and a fan

Dr. Robert Needlman and Jackie Miller from Reach Out and Read

Two readers in action

Pictures from the Fostering Lifelong Learners conference. Photos by Shara Hardeson. For more on the day-long event, click here.

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I met Elaine several times, first when she gave a dynamite speech about censorship at the University of Chicago when I was a student, and last when she gave another dynamite speech upon receiving the University of Southern Mississippi Medallion in 1998. An acute critic, she was one of the few writers for children  who I thought could do an equally good job on our side of the fence. She had a big Carol Burnett smile and was always the most stylishly dressed person in the room. That goes for her prose, too.

Elissa has collected some of Konigsburg’s Horn Book moments.

The post Remembering Elaine Konigsburg appeared first on The Horn Book.

There was a long newspaper strike the first winter we moved into metropolitan New York. Saturday used to be my day off, and I used that day for taking art lessons in the morning and for exploring Manhattan in the afternoon. Our suburbs were New Jersey suburbs then, and my last piece of walking involved a cross-town journey toward the Port Authority Bus Terminal. On one of those Saturdays, as I was in the heart of the theater district, a volley of teen-age girls came larruping down the street bellowing, “The Rolling Stones! The Rolling Stones!” Up ahead, a small bunch of long-haired boys broke into a run and ducked into an alley, Shubert Alley. The girls pursued, and the Rolling Stones gathered; they pushed their collective hair out of their collective eyes and signed autographs.

I told my family about this small happening when I came home, but that was not enough. The next day I wanted to show them an account of it in the paper. But there was no Sunday paper then. It didn’t get written down. I had seen it happen, and still I missed its not being written down. Even now, I miss its never having been written down. I need to see the words to make more real that which I have experienced. And that is the first way I need words. A quotation from my old world of science explains it: ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Each animal in its individual development passes through stages in which it resembles its remote ancestors. I spread words on paper for the same reasons that Cro-Magnon man spread pictures on the walls of caves. I need to see it put down: the Rolling Stones and the squealing girls. Thus, first of all, writing it down adds another dimension to reality and satisfies an atavistic need.

And I need words for a second reason. I need them for the reasons that Jane Austen probably did. She told about the dailiness of living. She presented a picture that only someone both involved with his times and detached from them could present. Just like me. I am involved in the everyday, corn-flakes, worn-out-sneakers way of life of my children; yet I am detached from it by several decades. And I give words to the supermarket shopping and to the laundromat just as Jane Austen gave words to afternoon visiting and worry about drafts from open windows.

Just as she stood in a corridor, sheltered by roof and walls from the larger world of her century, just as she stood there and described what was happening in the cubicles of civilization, I stand in my corridor. My corridor is my generation, a hallway away from the children that I breed and need and write about. I peek into homes sitting on quarter-acre lots and into apartments with two bedrooms and two baths. So I need words for this reason: to make record of a place, suburban America, and a time, early autumn of the twentieth century.

My phylogenetic need, adding another dimension to reality, and my class and order need, making record, are certainly the wind at my back, but a family need is the directed, strong gust that pushes me to my desk. And here I don’t mean family in the taxonomic sense. I mean family that I lived in when I was growing up and family that I live in now.

Read Mary Poppins, and you get a good glimpse of upper-middle-class family life in England a quarter of a century ago, a family that had basis in fact. Besides Mary there were Cook and Robertson Ay, and Ellen to lay the table. The outside of the Banks’ house needed paint. Would such a household exist in a middle-class neighborhood in a Shaker Heights, Ohio, or a Paramus, New Jersey? Hardly. There would be no cook; mother would be subscribing to Gourmet magazine. Robertson Ay’s salary would easily buy the paint, and Mr. Banks would be cleaning the leaves out of his gutters on a Sunday afternoon. No one in the Scarsdales of this country allows the house to get run down. It is not in the order of things to purchase services instead of paint.

Read The Secret Garden, and you find another world that I know about only in words. Here is a family living on a large estate staffed by servants who are devoted to the two generations living there. Here is a father who has no visible source of income. He neither reaps nor sows; he doesn’t even commute. He apparently never heard of permissiveness in raising children. He travels around Europe in search of himself, and no one resents his leaving his family to do it. Families of this kind had a basis in fact, but fact remote from me.

I have such faith in words that when I read about such families as a child, I thought that they were the norm and that the way I lived was subnormal, waiting for normal.

Where were the stories then about growing up in a small mill town where there was no one named Jones in your class? Where were the stories that made having a class full of Radasevitches and Gabellas and Zaharious normal? There were stories about the crowd meeting at the corner drugstore after school. Where were the stories that told about the store owner closing his place from 3:1 5 until 4:00 P.M. because he found that what he gained in sales of Coca-Cola he lost in stolen Hershey Bars? How come that druggist never seemed normal to me? He was supposed to be grumpy but lovable; the stories of my time all said so.

Where are the stories now about fathers who come home from work grouchy? Not mean. Not mad. Just nicely, mildly grouchy. Where are the words that tell about mothers who are just slightly hungover on the morning after New Year’s Eve? Not drunkard mothers. Just headachey ones. Where are the stories that tell about the pushy ladies? Not real social climbers. Just moderately pushy. Where are all the parents who are experts on schools? They are all around me in the suburbs of New Jersey and New York, in Pennsylvania and Florida, too. Where are they in books? Some of them are in my books.

And I put them there for my kids. To excuse myself to my kids. Because I have this foolish faith in words. Because I want to show it happening. Because for some atavistic, artistic, inexplicable reason, I believe that the writing of it makes normal of it.

Some of the words come from another family part of me. From being a mother. From the part of me that urges, “Say something else, too. Describe, sure, describe what life is like in these suburbs. Tell how it is normal to be very comfortable on the outside but very uncomfortable on the inside. Tell how funny it all is. But tell a little something else, too. What can it hurt? Tell a little something else — about how you can be a nonconformist and about how you can be an outsider. And tell how you are entitled to a little privacy. But for goodness’ sake, say all that very softly. Let the telling be like fudge-ripple ice cream. You keep licking vanilla, but every now and then you come to something darker and deeper and with a stronger flavor. Let the something-else words be the chocolate.”

The illustrations probably come from the kindergartener who lives inside, somewhere inside me, who says, “Silly, don’t you know that it is called show and tell? Hold up and show and then tell.” I have to show how Mrs. Frankweiler looks and how Jennifer looks. Besides, I like to draw, and I like to complete things, and doing the illustrations answers these simple needs.

And that is my metamorphosis; I guess it was really that and not a conversion at all. The egg that gives form to the caterpillar and then to the chrysalis was really meant to be a butterfly in the first place. Chemistry was my larval stage, and those nine years at home doing diaper service were my cocoon. And you see standing before you today the moth I was always meant to be. (Well, I hardly qualify as a butterfly.) A moth who lives on words. On January 13, after I had finished doing my Zorba Dance and after I had cried over the phone to Mae Durham and to Jean Karl, after I had said all the I can’t believe it’s and all the Oh, no, not really’s, I turned to my husband and asked a typical-wife question, “Did you ever think fifteen years ago when you married a li’l ole organic chemist from Farrell, Pennsylvania, that you were marrying a future Newbery winner and runner-up?” And my husband answered in typical-David fashion, “No, but I knew it would be a nice day when it happened.” And it was a nice day. It’s been a whole row of wonderful days since it happened. Thank you, Jean Karl, for helping to give Jennifer and Elizabeth and Claudia and Jamie that all important extra dimension, print on paper. Thank you, Mae Durham and all the members of the committee, for deciding that my words were special. And thank you, Mr. Melcher, for the medal that stamps them special. All of you, thank you, for giving me something that allows me to go home like Claudia — different on the inside where it counts.

Given at the meeting of the American Library Association in Kansas City, Missouri, on June 25, 1968. The Newbery Medal “for the most distinguished contribution to American Literature for children” was awarded to Mrs. Konigsburg for From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (Atheneum). From the August 1968 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

The post Newbery Award Acceptance by Elaine L. Konigsburg appeared first on The Horn Book.

She also wrote many other books — several of which were on the Horn Book’s Fanfare list — and was an illustrator. Above is her groovy cover for the May/June 2002 Horn Book Magazine. Also from our archive, you can read her Newbery acceptance speech for Mixed-Up Files, along with a profile written by her husband, David, for the occasion, and one written by Laurie Konigsburg Todd after her mother won the Newbery for The View from Saturday. We also had some fun with her during the 2012 election season. (Jamie Kincaid for Republican VP!)

Konigsburg never wrote down to her readers. Many of her characters are sophisticated, intelligent, witty, unique, and savvy. She wrote about wannabe-witches (Jennifer), restless suburban kids (Mixed-Up Files), Jewish boys playing baseball (About the B’nai Bagels), historical women (A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, The Second Mrs. Giaconda), possibly-con-artist women (Father’s Arcane Daughter), outcasts, smarty-pantses, heroes — the list goes on.

Roger, whose own thoughts about Konigsburg are here, was quoted in her New York Times obituary. He also remembers leaving his warm bed at 4 am because of one of her stories.

She was truly a star and a Great Lady in the field of children’s literature.

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*Paper read at the meeting of the American Library Association, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 22, 1954.

My deep gratitude to the members of the American Library Association for the Caldecott Medal.

Now we shall talk about art.

There is one life that is more difficult than that of the policeman’s and that is the life of the artist.

I have repeatedly said two things that no one takes seriously, and they are that first of all I am not a writer but a painter, and secondly that I have no imagination. It is very curious that, with my lack of these important essentials, the character of Madeline came to be. It accounts perhaps for her strength; she insisted on being born. Before she came into the world, I painted. That is, I placed canvas or paper on an easel before me and made pictures. I found in this complete happiness and satisfaction.

The unfortunate thing about painting is that the artist must exhibit, and at exhibitions, along with his work, exhibit himself; that he has to see his work, which is as his children, sold; see it wrapped up and taken away. I felt sorry for many of my pictures and those of other painters. I wish that there were a way of acquiring dogs or paintings other than by walking into a store and paying for them. The art market, then, the faces of the people who come and look at pictures, the methods of arriving at success, which entail self-advertisement and the kissing of hands, were not my dish.

I looked for another way of painting, for privacy; for a fresh audience, vast and critical and remote, to whom I could address myself with complete freedom. I wanted to do what seemed self-evident — to avoid sweet pictures, the eternal still lifes, the pretty portraits that sell well, arty abstractions, pastoral fireplace pictures, calendar art, and surrealist nightmares.

I wanted to paint purely that which gave me pleasure, scenes that interested me; and one day I found that the audience for that kind of painting was a vast reservoir of impressionists who did very good work themselves, who were very clear-eyed and capable of enthusiasm. I addressed myself to children.

You will notice in Madeline that there is very little text and there is a lot of picture. The text allows me the most varied type of illustration: there is the use of flowers, of the night, of all of Paris, and such varied detail as the cemetery of Père la Chaise and the restaurant of the Deux Magots. All this was there waiting to be used, but as yet Madeline herself hovered about as an unborn spirit.

Her beginnings can be traced to stories my mother told me of her life as a little girl in the convent of Altoetting in Bavaria. I visited this convent with her and saw the little beds in straight rows, and the long table with the washbasins at which the girls had brushed their teeth. I myself, as a small boy, had been sent to a boarding school in Rothenburg. We walked through that ancient town in two straight lines. I was the smallest one, but our arrangement was reversed. I walked ahead in the first row, not on the hand of Mademoiselle Clavel at the end of the column.

All this, as I said, for many years hung in the air and was at the back of my mind. Madeline finally began to take shape in France, where I had gone to paint. My daughter Barbara was about Madeline’s age when we went to the Isle d’Yeu for a summer vacation. This was then an island without any pretensions, and has since become famous as the place of detainment of Marshal Pétain. There was the usual Hôtel des Voyageurs and the Café de la Marine. The house we rented was twenty-five dollars for the season. It had its own private beach and the beds were always full of sand. A few miles away lived a man who owned a few lobsterpots and a fishing boat, and I bicycled there regularly to buy the makings of a bouillabaisse or a fish stew.

One day, pedaling along the road home with the sack of seafood over my shoulder, both hands in my pockets, and tracing fancy curves in the roadbed, I came to a bend which was hidden by some pine trees. Around this turn, coming the other way, raced the island’s only automobile — a four horsepower Super Rosengart belonging to the baker of Saint Sauveur, the capital village on the island. This car was a fragrant, flour-covered breadbasket on wheels. I collided with it, and it threw me in a wide curve off the bicycle into a bramble bush. I had taken the car’s doorhandle off with my arm and I was bleeding. I asked the baker to take me to the hospital in Saint Sauveur, but he said that according to French law, a car that has been involved in an accident has to remain exactly where it was when the crash occurred so that the gendarmes can make their proper deductions and see who was on the wrong side of the road. I tried to change his mind, but he said: “Permit me alors, Monsieur; if you use language like that it is no use at all to go on with this conversation.”

Having spoken, he went to pick up his pain de ménage and some croissants that were scattered on the road, and then he spread the branches of the thicket to look for the handle of his Super Rosengart. I took my lobsters and went to the hospital on foot.

After I had waited for a time, an old doctor came, with a cigarette stub sticking to his lower lip. He examined my wound, cleaned it, and then with a blunt needle he wobbled into my arm. “Excusez moi,” he said, “but your skin is very, very tough.” I was put into a small, white, carbolicky bed, and it took a while for my arm to heal. Here were the stout sister that you see bringing the tray to Madeline, and the crank on the bed. In the room across the hall was a little girl who had had an appendix operation, and, standing up in bed, with great pride she showed her scar to me. Over my bed was the crack in the ceiling “That had the habit, of sometimes looking like a rabbit.” It all began to arrange itself. And after I got back to Paris I started to paint the scenery for the book. I looked up telephone numbers to rhyme with appendix. One day I had a meeting with Léon Blum, and if you take a look at the book, you will see that the doctor who runs to Madeline’s bed is the great patriot and humanitarian Léon Blum.

And so Madeline was born, or rather appeared by her own decision.

Now we come to the sequel, which is the bearer of this medal and the reason why I am here tonight…

In this story Madeline shares the pages with a dog. This dog came about in a strange way. My wife’s parents live in Larchmont, and in a house next door to them is a family of outwardly respectable folk — that is, no one in that solid community would suspect that this quiet and respectable suburban house was occupied by a poet. Her name is Phyllis McGinley and she writes for The New Yorker.

She has two little girls, and they said, “Why don’t you write another Madeline?” So I offered them fifty cents apiece if they would give me an Idea, for I was paralyzed with lack of imagination. The children did not even go out of the room. They came with hands held out, and after I paid them they stated the plot:

“There’s a dog, see — Madeline has a dog. And then the dog is taken away but it comes back again, maybe with puppies so all the girls can have dogs.”

That was tight and clever dramatic construction, and now there remained the dog to find. I said, “What kind of a dog?”

“Oh, any kind of a dog.”

I went back to Paris and started to look for any kind of a dog. And of that breed Genevieve is a member.

I had a studio at the time in a house on the Seine at number one Git de Coeur, and I walked down to the quay and promenaded along there. Under one of the bridges there lived an old man with his dog. He loved it very much and he combed its fur with the same comb he did his own hair, and they sat together watching the fishermen and the passing boats. I started to draw that dog, and observed it. It loved to swim.

I now had the dog and I sat along the Seine, and thought about the new book. But as yet there wasn’t a plot I could use, and the little girls who might have done it for me were in America.

Then one day something happened. An object was floating down the Seine, and little boys ran along the quay, and as the object came near it turned out to be an artificial leg. One of the little boys pointed at it and said, “Ah, la jambe de mon Grandpère!”

At that same moment a long line of little girls passed over the bridge des Arts, followed by their teacher. They stopped and looked, holding onto the iron rails with their white-gloved hands. The leg was now very close, and the dog jumped into the Seine and retrieved it, struggling ashore and pulling it from the water by backing up the stones.

There suddenly was a great vision before me. The plot was perfect.

There are many problems ahead. Who are Madeline’s parents? Who are the other girls, what are their names, what new disaster shall Mademoiselle Clavel rush to? The next Madeline on which I have been working for two years concerns a boy called Pepito, the son of the Spanish Ambassador who lives next door to the little girls and is a very bad hat.

I’m looking for him now. That is, I’ve been to Spain three times and searched for him and for his house. As yet, nothing has come up, but with patience it always does, for somewhere he is, lives and breathes. The portrait of life is the most important work of the artist and it is good only when you’ve seen it, when you’ve touched it, when you know it. Then you can breathe life onto canvas and paper.

This article, originally published in the August 1954 issue of The Horn Book Magazine, is part of our Caldecott at 75 celebration. Click here for more archival Horn Book material on Ludwig Bemelmans and Madeline’s Rescue.

The post Caldecott Award Acceptance* appeared first on The Horn Book.

Roger Sutton
Editor in Chief

From the April 2013 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.

The post From the editor – April 2013 appeared first on The Horn Book.