I’m extremely honored to accept this award, but there’s another reason this book is incredibly important to me. Writing it saved me from a twelve-year obsession. I’ll give you the abridged version.

I visit schools a lot these days, and I always ask students what they know about Benedict Arnold. Invariably, one kid shouts out: “Traitor!”

In the late 1990s, that’s all I knew about Arnold, too—the traitor part. Then I picked up an old Arnold biography and suddenly found myself reading this amazing rise-and-fall epic. It’s an action-adventure story, a romance, a spy thriller. I was hooked, and I did two things that I think are very much in my nature. First, I tracked down and read everything ever written about Arnold. And second, instead of just enjoying the great story, I began telling myself: “I’ve got to do something with this.”

At the time I fancied myself a novelist, and at first I thought I would try some kind of comic novel, possibly comparing the lives of Arnold and Lancelot, the Arthurian knight. I’ll read you the very beginning:

Lancelot, the famous knight of King Arthur’s Round Table, grew up beneath the waters of an enchanted lake. Benedict Arnold grew up in Connecticut.

That’s as far as I got. (Actually, there are some very interesting parallels between Arnold and Lancelot, but that’s another lecture.)

The thing is, I was so intimidated by the quality of the raw material that I couldn’t write anything. I remember telling the idea to my friend George and moaning something like, “If I can’t write something great with this, I’m just gonna give up writing.” And he completely disagreed with my approach. He shook his head and said, “Man, it’s gotta be your bliss.”

I ignored that wise advice and spent years—literally years—reading, taking notes, outlining, sketching scenes that never got written. And all the while I was becoming more miserable, and the book was turning stranger, less funny, more pretentious.

Meanwhile, I was living in New York City, working as a history textbook writer. Our company was beginning work on a new fifth-grade U.S. history, and we told one another, “This won’t be the typical boring textbook. This time we’re going to make history come alive!” Part of my job was to come up with grabbers—quick, exciting stories that would draw kids into the action of each lesson. So I thought: here’s my big chance to use some of my Arnold material! I’ll work him in early, during the raucous, pre-Revolution tax protest days.

In the conference room at our office, I met with two very experienced editors and pitched a story that I have in my notes like this:

It is a cold, drizzly night in New Haven, Connecticut, in January 1766. Five young sailors hurry down a quiet street. They come to a dark house and begin banging on the front door. A twenty-five-year-old merchant named Benedict Arnold opens the door. The men start talking, all at once. Arnold appears to be growing angry. “What!” he cries. “He’s still in town?”

Moments later, Arnold is striding down the street, the young sailors falling in behind him. Arnold comes to Beecher’s Tavern, kicks in the door, enters, and takes a quick look around. There, sitting alone at a table, is the man he is looking for. The man jumps up and stumbles toward the back door, but Arnold pounces on him, drags him outside, ties him to a post, rips off his shirt, and begins whipping him. The sailors shout “Huzzah!” as each stroke cracks across the man’s back, wet now with blood and rain.

Who is Benedict Arnold? And why is he whipping this man? You will read that story next.

There was a long silence at the table. A very long silence. I explained that the man being whipped was a sailor who’d informed on Arnold for not paying British import duties. It was a perfect lead-in to the Stamp Act, Sam Adams, tax protests, the whole thing.

The editors were not convinced. Actually, they seemed to be in a small amount of physical pain.

“Benedict Arnold makes me…nervous,” one told me.

“Me, too,” said the other.

I thought, That’s the whole point! He made Congress nervous. He made George Washington nervous. He was America’s original loose-cannon action hero, a sort of brooding, cursing Bruce Willis character, two centuries before Hollywood. What I didn’t realize at the time was that for textbooks, this is not necessarily a good thing.

Later that day I went to the little library in our office and looked through all the U.S. history textbooks for Arnold coverage. I counted the number of Arnold-related lines in each book and calculated the average—it’s nine.

You can’t do anything with that, I thought. So I went back to thinking about my epic Arnold novel. Or possibly screenplay, I wasn’t sure. But I still wasn’t getting anywhere, and I decided that if I was really serious what I needed to do was make a major commitment to my writing—by becoming a hermit. In the Catskills. I would be a hermit in the Catskills who wrote textbooks. (I still needed the income.)

So I started taking weekend trips upstate, looking at beautiful crumbling farms, tilted fishing shacks beside trout streams. My mother has always been very supportive, and one day she came along, thinking it would be fun. And maybe, looking back, she was slightly concerned about me.

We were driving in the real estate agent’s SUV, and he was telling us all about the great local history. My mom said, “Oh, Stephen is very interested in history.” She turned to me and said, “Who’s that guy you like to read about?”

I said, “Benedict Arnold.”

Again, that long silence. The editors were right: he makes people nervous.

A few weeks later I found what I thought was the perfect property and made up my mind to buy it. Then later that night, back in the city, I went to a party—I thought of it as my farewell to New York. And that’s when I met my future wife, Rachel. I almost ruined it by talking about Arnold a lot, but it turned out she was a self-professed “history nerd.”

So we got married, and I didn’t become a hermit. Very lucky. But still, the Arnold obsession persisted, and in my free time I kept working on my novel, or graphic novel, or whatever it was that day.

About a year after Rachel and I got married, we were talking over ideas for vacations, and I said, “You know what we should do? Let’s take a two-week road trip to all the places Arnold lived and fought!”

I was half-joking, maybe fifty-one percent. But she surprised me by saying, “Sounds awesome.”

So we did it, and it was fascinating to see how Arnold is remembered, or not, in the places he lived. In his hometown, Norwich, Connecticut, there’s almost nothing. A local jeweler put up a sign near the spot of his long-gone boyhood house. But that’s it. There’s nothing in New Haven, where he spent his entire adult life up until the Revolution.

Then we followed the route of Arnold’s march to Quebec. In the fall of 1775, as a colonel in the Continental Army, Arnold led a one-thousand-man march through the Maine wilderness and into British-held Canada, for a surprise attack on Quebec. This is one of the great adventure stories of American history—it would be one of our most famous and celebrated stories, if not for the whole treason thing that came later.

Along the route in Maine, there are a few rusted road signs marked “Arnold Trail Highway.” And there’s the Arnold Expedition Historical Society, an amazing group of local historians and weekend archaeologists who keep the story alive by clearing trails, marking the route, even reenacting sections of the journey in period boats and clothes. Meeting these guys made me realize: I’m not the only one!

So that was nice. But the end result of this fantastic trip was that I collected still more Arnold material that I didn’t know what to do with.

Meanwhile, I was trying to make the transition from textbooks to the kinds of history books for kids I actually wanted to write, filled with all the stories textbooks never tell you. And I was unbelievably lucky that Simon Boughton of Roaring Brook took a liking to what I was doing and published a couple of books.

This takes us all the way up to 2008. I was in the Roaring Brook offices, talking with Deirdre Langeland, the great editor I’ve been working with from the start, and we were batting around ideas for the next book project. Suddenly, unprompted by me, she said: “Didn’t you want to do something about Benedict Arnold?”

I was stunned. That simple question broke the spell. I was being offered a chance to write a book about Arnold—as a job! All the crazy gimmicks in my notebooks vanished from my mind. I knew instantly that my Arnold book for young readers should be a no-nonsense, nonfiction page-turner; a straight-ahead action-thriller. And that’s what I tried to do with The Notorious Benedict Arnold.

Now, with a little perspective, I can look back on the obsession and ask: Why? What was it about Arnold?

The obvious part is the story. You start with this angry boy, watching his alcoholic father ruin the family business and reputation. Arnold becomes an apprentice, then strikes out on his own as a merchant and sea captain. He becomes a local Patriot leader, jumps into the war the moment it starts, leads the march to Quebec, then, the next year, builds a little fleet on Lake Champlain and stops the British navy.

Next he’s badly wounded as he helps win the Battle of Saratoga, which convinces the French to join the war on our side. All the while he’s making enemies in Congress, but Washington sticks by him, makes him military governor of Philadelphia. And here he falls in love with the beautiful Peggy Shippen, who just happens to know John André, a young British intelligence officer looking to make a big score. And it all speeds to a climax at West Point, with George Washington sitting in the trap.

A country only gets a few shots at a story this good. If the goal is proving to kids that history is actually cool, we can’t afford to waste Benedict Arnold.

But I realized there was more to Arnold’s appeal than the story, and it goes back to Arnold making people nervous. Why does he make people nervous? It’s not that Arnold is a bad guy—it’s that he’s a good guy and a bad guy. A hero and a traitor.

As a country, I don’t think we handle contradiction very well. When it comes to talking about the American Revolution and our Founders—essentially, our creation story—we seem most comfortable sticking to two-dimensional portraits. It’s hard for us to think of the United States as a nation built on grand and beautiful ideals but with deep moral flaws woven in from the start. I think we’re afraid that if we try to explain this complex mixture to young readers, they’ll be confused, and maybe less patriotic. I’m convinced it’s one of the main reasons kids think history is boring.

And that’s why I’m fascinated by Arnold—because he’s such an in-your-face, over-the-top symbol of contradiction. He leaves no doubt that a person, like a country, can do both great and terrible things.

But in the end, with Benedict Arnold it’s less about philosophy and more about story. I can honestly say I’m glad I became obsessed with the story, and very glad to be cured.

Robin Brenner, Reference and Teen Librarian from the Brookline Public Library, introduces Steve Sheinkin, who accepts a 2011 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Nonfiction for The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism, & Treachery, at the September 30th BGHB award ceremony at Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts.

The post The Notorious Benedict Arnold Acceptance Speech appeared first on The Horn Book.

It is a great thrill and honor to be here today—to be here, at Simmons, a biblioasis if ever there was one. I’d like to thank the wonderful people at the Horn Book for their support over the years and for being a beacon in the choppy waters of children’s literature. I’d also like to thank my fabulous peeps at Candlewick for all that they do and for flying me all the way back from the UK to be here today. I can’t think of a better way to have one’s unpaid sabbatical overseas interrupted. And I want to say how happy I am to look out and see so many wonderful friends, new and old. A man could get quite maudlin.

Winning an award is very gratifying, but it can also be a humbling experience. All I have to think about to be humbled is the manuscript I sent to Liz Bicknell at Candlewick on the last day of March 2009. It was called “Blink.” It was rather a slim manuscript: 170 pages, 49,000 words. More of a novella. In my cover letter, however, I mentioned a possible companion piece. Here’s what I wrote:

Were these two stories to be published together, maybe it could be one of those books, in which you read one story and then flip it over and read the other—a book with two covers. A novelty item. With a toy thrown in, maybe? Kidding…

But let’s go back a few months from the letter accompanying that slim manuscript. The part about being a writer I like best is the time between books. It’s when you allow yourself to imagine that the next book will really be good; the next book will be the one you were meant to write. No story is as full of promise as the one that’s in your head. You get over this heady sensation soon enough, once you actually start writing, but the time before writing is…well, it’s rather like being in love. Or I should say being in love with love. You are open to anything. Every idea that comes along is like a date! And you hate being single, you long to be married. So with each date—each story—you are saying to yourself, Can I imagine living with this one forever? Well, okay, not forever but a year or two? So maybe I should abandon the married part of the metaphor. Still…

When you are in the throes of writing, a story is Love; it eats you up, eats your every waking hour and plays havoc with your sleep. Your dreams are not your dreams anymore; their provenance is murky. You are living the multiple lives of your characters. Who is dreaming whom?

In the fall of 2008, two ideas wrestled for my attention. A story, tentatively entitled “Glide,” about a girl who steals her drug-dealer boyfriend’s money and tries to kick-start her life in a new city. But “Glide” was really about the famous “Gimli Glider” incident. On the 23rd of July, 1983, Air Canada flight 143, from Montreal to Edmonton, ran completely out of fuel at 41,000 feet over the boreal forests of northern Ontario. It was at the time that Canada was switching from imperial measurement to metric, and someone got mixed up in refueling. Miraculously, the pilot glided that Boeing 767 into a former Air Force base in the nowhere town of Gimli, Manitoba. There were sixty-one passengers aboard. I wanted my protagonist to be one of those passengers. I wanted her to be this bad girl en route from a bad life to an even “badder” life carrying the cash from a big dope deal. I wanted this aviation incident to be the turning point in her life. And, of course, I wanted that very bad boyfriend to come looking for her.

And then there was this other story about a street kid who just wants breakfast and ends up witnessing something that doesn’t make sense to him but fires what remains of his sense of curiosity, his sense of connection to the world. And which, subsequently, gets him way over his head in a fraudulent scheme.

So whom was I going to marry? Here’s my “Blink” journal entry for early February 2009, except the story wasn’t called “Blink” yet.

“Push” began life very early, around 3:00 a.m., last Thursday, January 29th. By the weekend I learned of the new movie called Push that has just come out, and I was blue all Sunday (Super Bowl Sunday) because I had been really happy with the idea of this street kid named Push and was not happy about having to give up the title. (I also wasn’t happy about the Cardinals losing to bloody Pittsburgh.) By Monday I’d changed the boy’s name to Shuck. I liked the connotations of that word: one shucks corn, stripping it down to its inner goodness and sweetness.

I love and am frightened by the quickening that occurs when you make the decision to go the distance with a story. When you choose. I can’t start from an outline. What I need is a vivid opening scene, one that will encourage me to go on. And so Blink blinked himself into existence. As for the girl on the Gimli Glider? She had no name. I couldn’t get her in focus. It was the plane I was in love with—the extraordinary heroism of the pilot and crew. And I couldn’t get 1983 in focus, anyway. I kind of missed the eighties.

“Blink” was ready to send out only a couple of months later. Pretty quick. Too quick, as it turned out. Here’s another excerpt from my journal:

It is June 17, 2009. Liz doesn’t like “Blink.” I think she likes the boy; she doesn’t like the book. But we talked for forty-five minutes on the phone, and I felt strangely elated afterwards. It’s partially relief; the shoe has fallen and you’re not dead. A headache will follow.

What Liz didn’t like, as I recall, was that there was no one on Blink’s side. In that earliest draft the character Alyson Niven turned on Blink, tricked him. Liz really didn’t like that, compassionate soul that she is—that no one was there to go into battle with the boy. Her anger exhilarated me.

I got off the phone thrilled at the prospect of giving Blink an ally. That girl I couldn’t get in focus from “Glide.” Suddenly, when I got rid of the aviation incident (and 1983), I could see her. And by June 24th, just one week after Liz’s phone call, she had a name: Caution Pettigrew. For she represented not a companion piece, not another story, really; she was part of the same story: the other strand of what would become a kind of double helix, the other necessary bit of DNA that the story needed in order to come to life.

If Blink and Caution are helical backbones coiling around each other, they are stabilized by forces of attraction, bonds of need and circumstance. Each of them is made stronger by reaching out to the other. And each of them, through this urgent coupling, is rescued, redeemed, given another chance. And speaking of urgent couplings, the very first scene I wrote with Caution in it was the awkward not-quite-a-love scene between Blink and Caution after they escaped the hunting lodge. Now all I had to do was get them to meet!

Because I have written for adults, I am often asked how it is different from a novel for young readers. I like to say that a book for kids is about getting a grip; a book for adults is about letting go. A book for kids says, “Live—go on. You can do it. I dare you.” A book for adults says, “Hey, you’re going to die. Make whatever minor adjustments you can that will add comfort and meaning to the process, but get over it.”

Blink is certainly a boy who needs to get a grip. And very early in the book, he does just that. Hiding in the ice-machine room across the hall from a hotel room where something very odd is going on, the narrator says to Blink:

You open the door of the little room and the door of 1616 clicks open like a mirror image directly across the hall. You step backward—fall backward—like you’ve been hit, fall into the low rumbling of the ice making, but you don’t quite let go of the door, because something in you says that letting go is going to make more noise than holding on.

I wrote that the very first morning I clambered out of bed at 3:00 a.m. and started this book. The sentence hasn’t changed in all of the rewrites.

…but you don’t quite let go of the door, because something in you says that letting go is going to make more noise than holding on.

I don’t ever consciously know what my theme is when I start a book; I often don’t know what it is until I read a review. But what the narrator says here is an overarching theme, for me. Letting go is not the answer. Hold fast. And if possible, hold the door open.

A moment’s thought will lead you to see that my little squib about getting a grip versus letting go doesn’t really hold up to intense scrutiny. Letting go is often a prerequisite to getting a grip. And certainly, Caution Pettigrew is someone who needs to let go.

Here is another quote: “Why was I so determined to hold on to life? I’ve so often wished I could stop breathing and let go.” No, it’s not from Blink & Caution, as at least one person in this room will recognize. It’s a line spoken by Briony Larkin in Franny Billingsley’s beautiful book Chime. Briony also says, “It’s strange how a person can have a distinct distaste for herself, but still she clutches on to life.” Like Briony, my Caution hates herself. In fact it’s a little eerie how many things these two characters have in common. Franny noticed it, too and wrote the following in an e-mail:

…girls who have burnt hands, girls who feel responsible for a sibling’s death/disability…

To which she added, as a fellow instructor at Vermont College of
Fine Arts:

What’s in the Vermont water?

Something in the water or something in the zeitgeist? I don’t know. And maybe getting a grip and letting go are not so dissimilar, when the holding on or the letting go is all part of moving on—getting on with it. Getting on with the difficult and dizzying business of living.

Jennifer M. Brabander, senior editor of The Horn Book Magazine, introduces Tim Wynne-Jones, who accepts the 2011 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction for Blink & Caution, at the September 30th BGHB award ceremony at Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts.

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I would like to thank the Boston Globe–Horn Book selection committee for choosing Pocketful of Posies as an award winner this year. It is a great honor to have my work recognized this way, especially because my fabric relief illustrations are so unusual. Since my first book, The Way Home, was published twenty years ago, I’ve felt outside of the mainstream of children’s books, that my style didn’t really fit and was more of a novelty. It’s as if I had been rowing upstream, paddling with my needle and thimble, in a river of watercolors. Now, I feel that I’m playfully floating down the stream of possibilities. I think I will even manage to stitch a few French knots along the way.

Throughout my career, I have had the good fortune to work with some wonderfully supportive people who understand my need for artistic freedom. My agency, Studio Goodwin Sturges, stood by me as I took time to experiment and worked on projects other than children’s books. With Pocketful of Posies, I felt the trust of Margaret Raymo, my editor at Houghton Mifflin, who was patient while I worked alone for long periods—sometimes a year at a time without showing her anything. At home, my husband Rob Goldsborough has encouraged my endeavors, never suggesting that I get a “real” job.

Lately, I’ve been describing my work as part of a Slow Art Movement. Yes, it is very time consuming and not very practical, but that is part of what attracts me to this way of working. I sew, wrap, embroider, carve, and embellish in as many ways as I can—all by hand. What I can’t really do is speed up the process, and machines are no help. In the past I used a sewing machine but now find that I can better achieve the look I want with hand-stitching. Through the repetitive, tactile process, I find a calm satisfaction that can help lead to effective problem solving. Each illustration requires figuring out something new, whether it is a way of constructing a driftwood house or making a tiny basket, so I need time to work things out.

It would be more straightforward and faster to paint or even use paper collage, but I discovered early on that it was easier for me to express my ideas in a sculptural form. As a child, crayons were never enough, and I had the urge to sew, staple, or glue real things to my pictures. My mother kept my first book: a twelve-page tour of the things in an eight-year-old’s life. The paper and fabric collage illustrations have held up well, including a cut-out pop-up of a play kitchen. Looking back, I have early memories of sewing and constructing things at home. My sister and I would spend hours stitching outfits and creating scenes for our dolls. I was especially interested in all things miniature and coming up with ways to decorate and furnish the dolls’ environment. I can remember making a tiny bathroom and looking around the house for shower curtain material. It had to be water repellent—regular cloth would not do!

I took a pair of scissors, went into our bathroom, and cut a small piece out of the 1960s-style polka-dotted vinyl shower curtain. It took awhile for my mother to discover that the corner was cut out, but she was quite open to sacrifice in the name of art. She was an artist herself and created an atmosphere in our home where art and making things by hand was important. In our family, learning how to make things was not only fun but there was an unspoken high regard for handwork and beauty. With this in mind, I’ve dedicated
Pocketful of Posies to the memory of my remarkable parents, Mary and Jim Mavor.

Later, at the Rhode Island School of Design, I rediscovered my childhood fascination with working in three dimensions. My teacher, Judy Sue Goodwin Sturges, recognized my interest in sewing and encouraged me to work outside of the yoke of traditional illustration mediums. David Macaulay’s class assignments were more like conceptual exercises, which forced me to stretch my imagination. He once brought in a box of pumpkins and had the students transform them into something else. By my junior year at RISD, I had stopped trying to translate the pictures in my mind’s eye through a brush or pen. I found that I was happy and energized while manipulating materials in my hands. I was no longer struggling to keep in step. With a needle and thread, I could dance. For some reason, I’d been under the impression that in art school one concentrates on serious fine art, and I’d kept my interest in handcrafts underground. I used this time in school to try different ways of working and taught myself embroidery.

I’ve never taken any classes in fiber art or sewing, except for a 4-H class in my childhood. I don’t think I would have made a very cooperative embroidery student, given my tendency to resist conformity and inability to follow patterns and instructions. I just figured out stitches by looking at diagrams and sewing obsessively.

I’ve spent years developing a technique I call fabric relief, which eventually led to illustrating children’s books. My early creations were more sculptural, with dolls set up in three-dimensional scenes. One of my first jobs was illustrating a story for an educational reader about a community of ecologically minded insects who made a town out of trash. I tested out the three-inch spider made of wire and fabric by hanging it inside the communal refrigerator in the house where I was living. The resulting scream from my roommate was proof that I was headed in the right direction. However, during the photo shoot for the story, I realized that I was unprepared for the complexities of setting up the 3-D scenes for the photographer. Making the bugs and their mushroom houses was the easy part.

Even though I wasn’t behind the camera, I had to direct the shots, keeping in mind how they would appear on the book’s pages. There were backgrounds to create, and lighting concerns, as well as how much depth of focus would work best—too much for me to handle with my lack of experience. After that, I lost interest in pursuing illustration work and focused on making dolls and designing sewing projects for women’s magazines. The experience of writing out directions would come in handy twenty years later, when I wrote my how-to book of projects, Felt Wee Folk. I worked continually, mass producing and selling hundreds of things at shops and craft cooperatives. But I had a nagging feeling that I wanted to do more with my skills as a fiber artist and was frustrated by the lack of respect given to needlework by the art world.

In an effort to make what I was doing fit into more conventional notions of art, I adapted my figures and environments to fit into the confines of a frame. I figured that if my work could hang on a wall, it would be recognized as art. Later on, I found that this change in presentation also made it easier to make pictures that could be photographed and used as illustrations. During the 1980s, I kept up a busy schedule in the evenings after my children went to bed, making individual pieces and working out new ways of combining materials in a relief format. My method of working progressed for about ten years before I was ready to make the jump from producing stand-alone pieces to illustrating my first thirty-two-page picture book in 1991. Throughout my thirty-year career, I’ve been involved in many design enterprises, all commonly expressing a world held together with a needle and thread. Since I continue to explore different creative areas, I prefer to call myself an artist who also illustrates children’s books.

I find primitive and folk art stimulating, with its blending of abstraction and untrained rendering of real life. Although my pictures are not realistic, I feel a compulsion to use real things in my artwork. Somehow, these objects force me to move in surprising directions, to go to places where I wouldn’t artistically venture otherwise. I also find that welcoming found objects into my work can become a trap. Some very interesting-looking things can seduce me into thinking they belong in a picture. Later, if it’s distracting or doesn’t contribute to the story, I’ll have to make the painful decision to kick it out. That’s hard, especially when I really like the object. Writer friends tell me that they encounter something similar in their writing. They have to get rid of clever characters, witty dialogue, or funny situations that seemed perfect earlier. We agree that it’s all part of the creative process, that every step is important along the way.

Pocketful of Posies is a culmination of decades of single-minded focus and motherhood, bringing together what I’ve learned about sewing, color, design, storytelling, and children. From the start, I was attracted by the idea of using nursery rhymes and squeezing the action into a series of very different pictures. I didn’t have to repeat characters and environments throughout the book, as illustrators usually have to do in a story book. This was an opportunity to include one-of-a-kind found objects that I wouldn’t normally be able to use because I didn’t have to replicate or change the scale of the object throughout the book. The variety of rhymes held my attention through the five-year duration of the project. Every page was completely different and fresh, making it possible to start over again and again, meeting and falling in love with a new cast of characters every few weeks. I’ve noticed that this book has broken through age- and gender barriers, appealing to young children as well as great-grandparents.

It’s a great responsibility to connect with children through picture books and create their first introduction to art. Communicating ideas and stimulating the imagination interests me more than technique. I want to show the reader something they can care about and attach to. Adults call attention to my labor-intensive and inventive approach to illustrating; children respond directly to the emotional gestalt of a story with pictures.

I’m inspired by the words of Lolly Robinson, who teaches children’s literature at Harvard. I printed out this quote before I found out that she also works at the Horn Book. She says, “The best picture books are more than text and art bound together. They are small movable sculptures: a combination of kinetic and performance art.”

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my ideas and life’s work. I hope that my book will encourage more illustrators, writers, art directors, publishers, and children to see the creative possibilities in even the smallest things around us.

Dean Schneider introduces Sally Mavor, who accepts the 2011 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Picture Book for Pocketful of Posies: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes, at the September 30th BGHB award ceremony at Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts.

The post Pocketful of Posies Acceptance Speech appeared first on The Horn Book.

Next Tuesday through Friday I’ll be down at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival, delivering the Ezra Jack Keats Lecture on Thursday. Hope to see some of you there. I last spoke there in 1998 and have gone to the Guide to find some very interesting differences in what publishing looked like then and what it looks like now. Short version: boy wizard.

The post >Come on down appeared first on The Horn Book.

Sixteen years ago, the pioneer spirit overtook my husband, Drew, and me. We packed our wagon (a U-Haul) and, with our cat riding shotgun, left Pittsburgh and set out for the Santa Fe Trail and Albuquerque, New Mexico. You know, the place where Bugs Bunny should have turned left? It’s been a grand adventure. We are still in awe of the big sky, the high desert landscape, and the fascinating history of the West. Writer that I am, it’s not surprising that I have found much wisdom and wit in the idiom of Western icons — that black-and-white, get-to-the-point, simple way of talking, from a time when folks helped each other and a handshake was enough.

As I give thanks for this award, I’d like to share some cowboy wisdom with you.

When you get to where you’re goin’, the first thing to do is take care of the horse you rode in on. I’m going to reverse the usual order of things and express my gratitude up front because I sure rode in on a whole herd of horses.

First, I thank my Lord for helping me through this past year and giving me hope for the future. I lost my brother to cancer and my mom to Alzheimer’s in 2009. Amid all the sadness, Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal was released and received terrific reviews. Bad News kept me from digging myself into a hole. A cowboy saying goes — You can just about always stand more’n you think you can. Still, when the year ended, I told my husband, “I just want 2010 to be a straight line.” Well, that didn’t happen! The 2010 Coretta Scott King Book Awards jury saw to that. I am now happily taking back my wish for a straight line.

It was Martin Luther King Day at ALA Midwinter in Boston when I got the news. I was entering a program honoring Dr. King and reaching to turn off my phone when it rang. The caller said, “This is Carole McCollough.” Being a youth services librarian, I knew Carole was chair of the CSK jury; that it was Youth Media Awards day; and that winners are phoned right before the press conference. The moment she said her name, all these details connected. My heart started pounding, and I got choked up even before I heard why she called. I would have been pretty embarrassed if she’d said, “Let’s do lunch.” I’d love to have lunch with Carole, but I’m glad that isn’t what she said.

Having served on ALA awards committees, I know how difficult it is to select one from so many worthy titles. I know the odds. To start the new year with this firm nod of approval from my library colleagues, this amazing gesture that says, “You’re doing great, Vaun!” is a blessing. Thank you, dear, marvelous members of my CSK jury — Carole McCollough, Eunice Anderson, Alan R. Bailey, Brenda Hunter, Jonda C. McNair, Martha Ruff, Robin Smith. Thank you for appreciating the work and for helping to bring Bass’s story to readers. You have filled my heart with so much happiness. I will love you all my life.

I’m much obliged to my husband, Drew — my best editor, best critic, best friend; my protector and biggest fan. Drew believes in me more than I do. Although Bad News is finished, I’m not done with the West, being married to a man who is a cowboy at heart. At the end of my story, there’s nothing I want more than to ride off into the sunset . . . with him.

I love and fear words — their potential to uplift or tear down. My father taught me to respect that potential. Dad, a man of few words, wrote poetry and sketched. My mother made me love stories. She’d sit at the top of the stairs every night and create magic with a book. It was reader’s theater. If Mommy couldn’t be there, she assigned the reading to whomever she’d deputized to watch us that night. But no one could do it like her. So much of the writer in me is my parents’ doing. I got really lucky with them.

My siblings, Renee, Regina (who taught me to read), Billie, and Eddie teased me, bossed me, taught me, fought me, protected and loved me. I thank them for all of it, and for providing me with a deep well from which to draw my stories. I thank them and my huge extended family for being the net beneath my tightrope.

Thanks to Tracey and Josh of Adams Literary for allowing me to focus on the writing while they take such good care of the business.

A heap of thanks to Art T. Burton for his invaluable assistance. The true Bass Reeves expert, he generously shared his knowledge and passion. His commitment to Bass’s story is unmatched.

Thanks to my editors, Shannon Barefield and Mary Rodgers, for their patient understanding of my maternal concern over every word. And to Adam Lerner and everyone at Carolrhoda and Lerner — Danielle, Zach, Lois, Lindsay, Kathleen, Brad, Elizabeth, Terri, Julie, David, and Andrew, for their kindness to me and their respect for Bass.

Thanks to the masterful R. Gregory Christie for bringing Bass’s story to life through his amazing paintings. I think Bass would be proud of how Greg portrayed him.

I’m grateful to my writing group — Stephanie Farrow, Lucy Hampson, Katherine Hauth, Uma Krishnaswami, Jean Whitehouse Peterson — for never complaining when, for the umpteenth time, I brought yet another revision of the manuscript for just one more read. This award is partly theirs.

Special thanks to my pard Lori Snyder for her friendship. And to everyone back home at Rio Rancho Public Library. Thanks to all my friends in Pittsburgh and elsewhere, especially Christyl and Justin Brown, for their encouragement and caring.

Thank you, friends and colleagues in the library, writing, and publishing communities, for cheering me on over the years. I can hardly believe I’m standing up here. I’m used to being out there with you, looking in this direction. Thanks to my posse from the 2002 Newbery committee, the committee that refuses to let go. Most were seated with me when the announcement came and, in wild fashion, swarmed me in a mass embrace. It was a moment I will never forget.

Thanks to G. P. Putnam’s Sons for taking a chance on a brand-new author back in 1986, and to Random House for helping to keep that writer moving forward.

And many thanks to Deb Taylor and the CSK committee for their labor of love promoting books for youth by African Americans, and for allowing me to be part of this good work.

My love affair with Bass Reeves began in 2003. Drew wasn’t jealous. He, in fact, introduced us. Drew had already won my heart and knew, like it or not, he’d be stuck with me to the end of the trail. Besides, Bass had been dead since 1910, so Drew had no fears of finding us together except through the written word.

My research for Bad News began in 2003, but the project didn’t become real until 2005. My then editor, Shannon Barefield, told me Lerner was hoping to publish more picture book biographies and wondered if there was anyone I might be interested in doing. I immediately thought of Bass, but just said, “Maybe.”

I wasn’t sure of my ability to tell Bass’s remarkable story for a picture book audience. Could I do it justice with such limited text? There was so much captivating and complex stuff to consider . . . the keeping of slaves by Indians, the emergence of black towns, the culture of Indian Territory, not to mention the violent times in which Bass lived and the guns and killing that I couldn’t avoid. Though he took no pleasure in using deadly force, this was part of Bass’s job as a peace officer. I recalled my own childhood and how we loved the Old West, the shootouts, the horses, the grubby life of cowboys. And I realized I was falling victim to adult worries about children and violence. I decided if I told Bass’s story well, kids could handle the violence, and they’d eat him up as we did our Western heroes. I do want adults to love my work (and I’m thrilled the CSK jury did), but I write for kids and, selfishly, myself.

Here’s another bit of cowboy wisdom:

You don’t need decorated words to make your meanin’ clear. Say it plain and save some breath for breathin’. Working with Western language was a delightful challenge. I liked the touch of humor and flavor of the times this language added to the telling. My challenge was using it gently, finding a balance. I didn’t want to diminish the serious nature of Bass’s accomplishments.

There is much to admire about Bass — his strength, fearlessness, and skill with weapons, his clever use of disguises, phenomenal memory, and sense of duty and honor. Some believe he was the inspiration for the Lone Ranger. When we pretended to be cowboys, my siblings and I argued over who got to play Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger, Wyatt Earp, Roy Rogers, and other favorites, most of whom were fictional. I don’t recall spending a lot of time thinking about race during my childhood, but I wonder how I might have felt if among our heroes stood Bass Reeves — a black man who was not a minor character or a bad guy. A black man who was a hero — a real hero.

Old West lawmen like Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok were peace officers for less than a decade. They couldn’t hold a candle to Bass, who worked as a deputy U.S. marshal for thirty-two years in what was arguably the most dangerous area of the country. Imagine, a slave who rose to become the most feared and respected lawman of his time! Bass deserved so much better than he got. I am proud that Bad News is playing a small part in giving him his due.

Well, I can’t be jawin’ all morning. My moment is about over. I reckon it’s gettin’ time for me to mosey. So let me end with more cowboy wisdom, which comes from a fine book by Texas Bix Bender called Don’t Squat with Yer Spurs On!: A Cowboy’s Guide to Life, published by Gibbs M. Smith.

Here goes:

Makin’ it in life is kinda like
bustin’ broncos: you’re gonna get
thrown a lot.The simple secret
is to keep gettin’ back on.

Think the best of people, but it don’t
hurt to count your change.

Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a
whole lot easier’n puttin’ it back.

Don’t worry about bitin’ off
more than you can chew.

Your mouth is probably a whole
lot bigger’n you think.

The quickest way to double your
money is to fold it over and put it
back in your pocket.

Don’t never interfere with something
that ain’t botherin’ you none.

Comin’ as close to the
truth as a man can come without
gettin’ there is comin’ pretty close,
but it still ain’t the truth.

Don’t let so much reality
into your life that there’s no
room left for dreamin’.

There’s one more, but before I share it, I again want to express my thanks to everyone who played a part in my being here today. I’m beholden to you all. And we all owe a debt of gratitude to Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves for his service to our country. He was, indeed, someone to ride the river with.

Okay, here’s the final piece of cowboy wisdom:

Never miss a good
chance to shut up.

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The first is on Thursday, February 18th, where I’ll be at Pomona College in Claremont, speaking on “Children’s Literature and Adults: Where do we get off?” It’s at 4:15 PM, Ena Thompson Room, Crookshank Hall. I hear there will be snacks.

On Friday the 19th, I’ll be speaking at my alma mater Pitzer College, also in Claremont, with fellow alum Susan Patron on “What Makes a Good Banned Book?: How Children’s Literature Gets Into Trouble.” That will be from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM, reception to follow, Broad Performance Space. Those with testicular fortitude are welcome to join us.

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By Kadir Nelson

It is such a thrill to be here in Chicago with you. This distinguished group of librarians, teachers, booksellers, and book lovers revere books for young people so passionately that every year you gather to celebrate your favorites with this early-morning and immensely heartwarming ceremony. I am deeply honored to be among those you have anointed, especially in a year with such historical significance as this fortieth anniversary of the Coretta Scott King Book Awards.

I was surprised and pleased to receive a call from the jury on that very early January morning with the news that I had been awarded the CSK Author Award (and an Illustrator Honor). Being primarily a painter, I was inclined to ask the jury, “Really? Are you sure?” I do not mean to say that I don’t think that I’m any good at writing. I mean, I got a solid B in my advanced English course in high school, and, believe me, I worked hard for that B. My teacher, Ms. Visconti, was tough — really tough. Some might even say she was mean. I can’t rightly say that I think she was mean as much as she was a stickler for quality. She merely demanded, above all, the best from her students — as every teacher should. So I was proud of myself for even being among those selected to be in her class. That is, until she handed out the first assignment and then the subsequent grades.

Up until that year, I had always been in standard English classes. Nothing special. I’d become accustomed to receiving a B for my most minimal efforts. But now I had been placed in a class where that would not do. I’d always thought of myself as a smart kid with a tendency to need a push every now and then to do my best work. Ms. Visconti would provide that push. My first effort at writing in her class was met with, shall I say, less than desirable results. The assigned essay I turned in wasn’t even worthy of a grade from Ms. Visconti. At the top of my paper she had written in bold red ink: “Not an essay.” Ouch. I was quite embarrassed. This was much too much for the young man to accept, so I approached Ms. Visconti and asked her to teach me how to write an essay, which she very kindly did — thus preparing me for successful careers in high school, college, and beyond. I’m thankful to Ms. Visconti because the skill of essay writing was what I built upon to write We Are the Ship, a book that would occupy almost eight years of my life.

I’ve often been asked why I chose to write the book both in the vernacular of a former baseball player and in a collective voice. The answer to this is simple: of all the historical literature I’d read in my life, the most compelling was written by those who had made and witnessed history firsthand. Now, anyone who has spoken to an African American elder about the past, particularly when it comes to slavery or segregation, knows how tight-lipped many of them can be. However, when it came to interviewing former Negro League ballplayers, it seemed as if there wasn’t enough time or enough words for them to describe what it was like to play baseball for a living during a time when the norm for most African American men was to work in a factory or in a field. It’s no big mystery as to why they were so inclined to share their stories. Those fellows made history and had a lot of fun doing it. They paved the way for so many who would in turn make their own history. Theirs is a great story, one that I felt compelled to share with others through my work. It’s a great story of perseverance, pride, determination, passion, and integrity.

For those who may not know, the Negro Leagues were born from the Jim Crow era in America, which grew out of the failed efforts of Reconstruction at the end of the Civil War. Every aspect of public American life was segregated, from restaurants to public transportation to libraries to, of course, major league baseball. Although there was no written rule that prohibited African Americans from playing in the major leagues, they were nonetheless barred as a result of a secret agreement among the team owners. So African Americans formed their own leagues — the Negro Leagues. The leagues would be home to great players and owners and would ultimately become one of the most successful African American–owned businesses in history up until that point. The Negro Leagues would also serve as a precursor to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. A great story indeed.

The story ignited in me a spark, an inspiration to tell the story in a series of large paintings that could adorn gallery and museum walls. I painted one, then two, then six, then almost a dozen scenes from the Negro Leagues. I painted these works for the sheer joy of painting them and had no further plans for them. By mere chance, however, a few of the paintings landed in the pages of Sports Illustrated, and soon I was asked if I’d ever thought of publishing the images in a book. I thought it was a great idea and began to think about who could potentially write the manuscript. Surely it wouldn’t be me. I was a painter, not an author, and quite frankly I hadn’t any interest in writing a book. I thought I’d find a great writer like Walter Dean Myers or Julius Lester to pen the text. I was absolutely certain they’d have time for me in their schedules. However, Andrea Pinkney, my editor, was quick to share with me the fact that in all reality it might be a bit of a wait to get on their calendars, should they even be interested. At the time, I had but two books to my credit, and being young I didn’t really have the patience to wait several years for a writer to start on my book. I had a pretty good idea of the story that needed to be told and how I wanted to tell it. On a whim, I asked Andrea if perhaps I might try my hand at writing the manuscript. After all, the worst she could do was say no, which is honestly what I expected. To my great surprise she immediately accepted my offer to write the book. I was both flattered and petrified. How was I going to do this? Well, the only real feather I had in my cap was the skill of essay writing, and a well-earned B from Ms. Visconti. It was time to put that B to work.

A wonderful writer by the name of Nikki Giovanni once shared with me that there is no such thing as writer’s block, only a lack of information. Keeping this in mind, I read plenty of books about the Negro Leagues, interviewed former Negro League players, and consulted baseball museums and baseball historians, all in an attempt to gather as much information as I could. With both oil paints and the written word I wanted to paint a picture of the life of a Negro League baseball player, both on and off the field. I wanted to take readers on a journey to Kansas City, Missouri, during the roaring twenties; to the backcountry roads and welcoming small community barbecues of the deep South; to the expansive and red-hot baseball fields of Latin America; to the barbershops and small streets of Pittsburgh, recently hit by the Great Depression; to the crowded buses that would travel along unpaved roads throughout the American landscape. To do this I would need the help of a great many historians, curators, writers, and filmmakers as well as a very select group of fine gentlemen who were among those who made history on baseball diamonds all over our great country, and indeed the world. It was a journey that I began at the tender age of twenty-one as a single college student working in my cramped Pratt Institute dorm room in 1995 and completed thirteen years later at the not-so-tender age of thirty-four, now a husband and a father of two, in my cramped one-room studio in January 2007. It’s a journey that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

I would like to take a minute to acknowledge a few of the people who would both knowingly and unknowingly contribute to this journey. Former Negro Leaguers Frank Evans, my chief consultant Walter McCoy, and the late Buck O’Neil. Authors John B. Holway, Phil Dixon, and Robert Peterson; my hero of a filmmaker Ken Burns; and a tremendous patron and supporter, John Moores, former owner of the San Diego Padres.

I was also very fortunate to have the patience and good advice of several editors, notably Andrea Pinkney, Garen Thomas, Jaira Placide, and Donna Bray. I would like to thank you all for your tact and expertise in making me feel like I, too, could be an author, and for making this book one that I am remarkably proud of. I’d like to extend a special thank you to Andrea, who signed me up for this book way back in 2000. It’s so wonderful to come full circle and share this day with you.

I’d also like to thank all of my Disney family who put their hearts, minds, and muscle behind We Are the Ship, getting it into the hands of those who needed to see and share this book. Thank you to Jeanne Mosure, Jonathan Yaged, Deborah Bass, RasShahn Johnson-Baker, Lynn Waggoner, Scottie Bowditch, and Angus Killick. I would especially like to thank my brilliant art director, Anne Diebel, who designed the pants off of this book! Thank you for being so patient, so talented, so forgiving, and so delightful. Because of you, I never tire of looking at We Are the Ship. And a special thank you to my wife for putting up with all of the large canvases that sat in our living room for months on end while I finished the book, and my children for not damaging them. And lastly, I would like to thank the Coretta Scott King committee for recognizing a book that I put so much of my heart into. It’s so wonderful to see your two beautiful shiny stickers on the cover, because it would have been all too sad if it had instead read at the top of the cover, “Not a book.”

Thank you.

Kadir Nelson is the winner of the 2009 Coretta Scott King Author Award for We Are the Ship, published by Disney/Hyperion Books. His acceptance speech was delivered at the annual ALA conference in Chicago on July 14, 2009.

Originally published in the July/August 2009 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

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In the afternoon I hammered yet again at my favorite theme, that reading is ultimately a private exercise of the imagination and not a group activity, and that as librarians we have to remember to select books whose effects we will never know–it can’t all be surefire story hour fare. For this point I chose to contrast Rachel Isadora’s new edition of The Twelve Dancing Princesses (Putnam) with Jonathan Bean’s At Night (FSG). Both books are great, but the first is a simply told, visually bold book that is perfect for sharing with a group while the second has its best audience in a group no larger than two.

Richard and I ended the day with a visit to Horn Book stalwart Joanna Rudge Long and her husband Norwood, who live in a Vermont-red house surrounded by mountains, the Appalachian Trail, and a maple-sugaring operation that looked nothing like the hole-in-a-tree-with-a-bucket I remembered from the picture books of my youth. The technology, scenery, company (including two smart and sweet dogs), conversation, and food could not have been better. While walking in the Longg’ backyard–otherwise known as the AT–we endured a brief shower but were rewarded at its end with a full-on rainbow.

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978-0385516297
978-0399154300
978-0670038664
978-0061231728
978-0871139603
978-0452288522
978-1400043958

Richard, on the other hand, is only bringing 978-0385721790 and 978-1400032914, which is far more sensible (and they’re both excellent) but I always worry that if I bring only two, it will be the wrong two. And then where are you?

Miss Pod is coming with us too, and she’s fully loaded with Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising series, which I’m rereading-hearing in preparation for our chat in November. It’s always good to have a book along you already know you love.

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Cathy Mercier swears I once gave a one hour talk at Simmons from three words written on an index card but I know I’ll never be that good (or nervy) again. I find in my twilight years that I really need to have the whole damn thing in front of me. What methods do you-all use? Full text, cards, outline? Do you wing it? And how do we feel about PowerPoint?

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