Selznick, Schlitz Rock ALA Annual in Anaheim
By SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 6/30/2008 2:27:00 PM
For those lucky enough to attend Sunday’s dinner at the Anaheim Hilton in California honoring this year’s Newbery and Caldecott winners, it was clear that everyone had one word in mind to describe the acceptance speeches: electrifying.
“Both were unique people and astonishing storytellers,” says Barbara Genco, director of collection development at Brooklyn Public Library, referring to Laura Amy Schlitz, winner of the Newbery Medal for Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village (Candlewick) and illustrator Brian Selznick, who nabbed the Caldecott Medal for The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic). “We were blown away by both of them!”
Selznick—whose 550-page novel uses words and pictures to tell the story of Hugo, a 12-year-old orphan who lives in the walls of a Paris train station at the turn of the 20th century—dazzled an audience of more than 1,000 librarians, reviewers, publishers, and fans of children’s literature. And it wasn’t just the glittery black shirt under his suit—it was his riveting speech and presentation.
While Selznick spoke about the creative crossroads he’d reached before writing Hugo Cabret, attendees watched a series of large screen illustrations depicting the young orphan receiving news about winning the Newbery award. The dramatic music delighted viewers as they watched Cabret hop on an Air France flight to attend the acceptance dinner as part of the American Library Association’s annual conference in Anaheim, from June 26 to July 2.
The audience had no idea what to expect when Schlitz, a school librarian and author, stood by the edge of the stage to give a spellbinding, funny and dramatic tale involving a kite, the removal of several moles from her forehead, and her experience overseeing recess duty as a media specialist.
“We wondered if she would be a disaster coming after [Selznick],” says Genco. “But she was absolutely transcendent. It was extraordinary. We were utterly in the palm of her hands, as if we were in her second grade class.”
Meanwhile, conference-goers attended interesting sessions, including “Making it New: Innovation in Children’s Book Publishing Past, Present, and Future,” in which children’s literature experts discussed the history of American children’s book publishing, focusing on pivotal times of innovation, uncertainty, and change. Historian Leonard Marcus talked about the important role of 19th-century children’s magazines for writers and artists, and the symbiotic relationship between public libraries and publishers that helped guide the growth of children’s literature over the last century. Prominent children's book agent George Nicholson spoke about the impact of paperbacks, and Random House’s Tim Ditlow discussed future formats and media for children’s books.
A packed Saturday panel with four science fiction and fantasy writers addressed copyright protection. One speaker Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother (Tor, 2008), said too much emphasis on copyright protection could lead to a suppression of information and less creativity. He even favored placing full-text versions of his books online, calling the Internet “a perfect copying machine” and a generator of communities interested in information sharing.
Sally Ride, the first woman and youngest astronaut to go into space, along with Tam O’Shaughnessy, CEO of Sally Ride Science, spoke at Sunday morning’s “You Go, Girl! Girls (and Boys) Can Make a Difference for our Planet” about their book Mission: Planet Earth: OUR World, Its Climate — and How Humans are Changing It, to be published in March 2009. The book describes ways kids can understand “how living things influence the air and how the climate affects the oceans.”
The Spokane Moms—Denette Hill, Lisa Layera-Brunkan, and Susan McBurney—who launched a successful grass-roots campaign this year to gain school library funding at the state level—were on hand to accept the American Association of School Librarians’ Crystal Apple Award for their “significant impact on school library media programs and students.”
“A year ago, none of us would guess we’d be here,” said Hill. “A year from now, what we accomplished in Washington will happen all over. We look forward to saying we’re not unique.”
This year’s attendance at the ALA annual conference was slightly more than 20,000, down from last year’s attendance of 26,000 in Washington, D.C. Part of the reason was due to the high travels costs to get to Anaheim, says Macey Morales, an ALA spokeswoman.
Don’t forget to check out School Library Journal’s bloggers for up-to-date information about the goings-on at ALA annual.
A Fuse #8 Production by Elizabeth Bird, children's librarian at the Donnell Central Children's Room in New York.
Practically Paradise by Diane Chen, a librarian at Hickman Elementary School in Nashville, TN.
Nonfiction Matters by Marc Aronson, an author, editor and speaker.
