Facebook Users Demand Caldecott, Newbery Winners Appear On Today Show
RSSBy Lauren Barack
It worked for Betty White, so why not this year's Newbery and Caldecott winners. More than 1,300 Facebook users are hoping to get author Clare Vanderpool and illustrator Erin Stead on NBC's Today Show after the program decided not to book them last week-the first time in more than a decade that the winners of the highest honors in children's literature failed to get face time on the morning program. "I remembered the campaign to bring Betty White to SNL [Saturday Night Live] and thought it might be a fun way to protest NBC's bone-headed decision," says children's author Heather Vogel Frederick, who crafted the Facebook page and is best known for The Mother-Daughter Book Club series and other children's books, including Hide and Squeak (2011, both S & S). "This is our moment in the sun. It's our Oscars. And this was deeply disappointing and insulting." The Facebook fan page went live with its first post on January. 14, three days after the winners would have traditionally appeared on the Today Show. Both Vanderpool and Stead were in New York that day, with Vanderpool having pulled her children from school on Monday so they could all fly to New York and celebrate her win. She was in the middle of packing their bags when a call from her publicist came in Monday around 12:30 p.m. (CT) saying that the Today Show had cancelled the segment. "I was told it had more to do because of a lot of air time on the Arizona shooting, and that was understandable," she says. "At that point, when it was to be a quick turnaround trip, I just flew out myself." However, the Today Show has said that the author and illustrator were never officially booked-and that explanation alone doesn't sit well with many kid lit authors and fans. "Children's literature deserves public attention," says Mary Nethery, children's author of Nubs (Little, Brown, 2009), among other titles, and who also commented on the Facebook page. "It changes lives." Some viewers, including June Morgan, a retired educator who reviews books on her blog, chorkiereader, tuned back in last Thursday for Al Roker's weekly Book Club segment expecting he might interview Vanderpool and Stead. That did not happen either. "I was truly shocked that NBC chose not to air any kind of segment at all," says Morgan by email, who clicked on the Facebook page. "Yet, they run PSAs about getting children to read." Children's author Carmela Martino also posted on the Facebook page, concerned about the direction the show was taking. "The Today Show was the one place you could count on to see the winners reviewed," says Martino, who penned Rosa, Sola (Candlewick, 2005). "It's a shame it didn't run." While the numbers on the Facebook page have yet to reach the more than half a million fans who convinced NBC to allow White to host Saturday Night Live, those in children's publishing believe there's still hope. "If we can get to 100,000 people maybe the Today Show will do something since it's the same network," says Joy Chu, a children's book graphic designer and art director who interviews children's book illustrators online. "The community is outraged." I say forget the Today show. Get on a competitors show. I agree. It's not the Today show per se that's important here: It's the wide TV exposure. Let another show feature these award winners. That'll stick it to the Today show, whose interviews are pretty asinine anyway. Here's where to click your 'LIKE" vote in:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Campaign-to-bring-2011-Newbery-and-Caldecott-winners-to-the-Today-Show/190006294359946?v=wall
Here's a shortened version of the same link:
http://on.fb.me/hUZrcI
Please spread the word. Tweet it. Click it. Do it now...
http://on.fb.me/hUZrcI * = Required information
Author Heather Vogel Frederick
Reader Comments (11)
Posted by Barb on January 21, 2011 09:15:06AM
Posted by Carol Goldman on January 21, 2011 12:20:58PM
Posted by Joy Chu on January 21, 2011 12:12:02PM
Posted by Joy Chu on January 21, 2011 12:22:25PM
