2002 Winner Speeches

SPEECH FROM LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON for Speak

A broader thank you goes out to the members of the committee, and to all of the young readers of Tennessee.  It’s very exciting to share this award with an author of Vivian’s caliber, so thanks for teaming us up!

The truly appropriate award speech would consist of me saying “thank you, thank you, thank you” for the next ten minutes, but my younger daughter assured me that would be very boring.  Instead, I’d like to give you a little background about the writing of Speak, and some of the astonishing response to it.

Speak was the book that I didn’t plan on writing and I almost didn’t finish.  By 1997, I had published a few picture books, but most days the mailbox held only rejection letters from publishers.  I had been working on a historical novel, Fever 1793, for a few years, but I was stuck with it – couldn’t figure out how to make it better.  My children were in fourth and sixth grades and I was beginning to think I was wasting my time pursuing this ridiculous dream of being an author.  I should be practical, I told myself.  I should get a real job, one with a regular paycheck and health insurance.

In the middle of the self-doubt and self-pity, I had a series of bad dreams in which a young, teenage girl was crying…. sobbing.  One night, the dreams were so vivid that I turned on my computer.  I hoped that if I wrote down the dream, it would leave me alone and I could get some much-needed sleep.  The pages I wrote that night, after lots of revision, became the opening pages of Speak.  I didn’t know who the girl was or why she was crying, but I had to write about her.

I spent the next six months waking up a couple of hours before my family so that I could write before I had to go to work.  By the time I was waist-deep in revisions, all my doubts came flooding back.  Why was I wasting my time writing this book that no one would ever read?  I should be practical… I should be planning for the future.

I was so desperate, I sent away for graduate school catalogs.

A friend of mine called the week that the catalogs came in the mail.  She wanted to get me on yet another committee at our church.  I spun out my tale of woe to her; my confusion, my writing dream, and this strange book called Speak that I wanted to throw away.  She did the nicest thing possible.  She did not put me on that church committee.  She encouraged my to postpone my decision to quit until the book was finished.

I think that’s testimony to the importance of friends.

I threw out the graduate school catalogs and finished writing Speak.  Needless to say, I was totally unprepared for the reaction to it.  The awards stunned me, the attention frightened me, and I’m still trying to make sense of the whole experience.  The book has been translated into 15 languages, and is becoming a part of many high school’s curriculum.  A small, independent film based on the book should be coming out next year.  This all from the book I wasn’t going to write, from the book I almost quit.

The most gratifying response I’ve had has been the letters I’ve received from readers.  There are two common threads that link these letters, threads that I’d like to share with you, because I think they provide us with some insight into teenagers today.

Kids from all over the country – Iowa, Oregon, Connecticut, Padukah, Kentucky, San Francisco, California… from suburban schools, urban schools, rural schools, tiny schools and mega-monster schools… they have all written to me and said that the school described in Speak, Merryweather High, is “just like their school.”  What they are talking about is the atmosphere, the common feeling that high school is a gauntlet to be survived, not a place of joy, education, and growth.

A disturbing number of letters tell me that Speak is the first book they finished reading for fun since sixth or fifth or fourth grade.  I think we do a very good job in America getting children excited about reading in elementary school.  I think we fall down on the job when the children move on to middle and high school.  Too many teenagers really think that the only books out there are Old Man and the Sea or Scarlet Letter.  Yuck.

You can change that.  Teachers and librarians change lives.  Teachers and librarians save lives.  I know, because I was the kid who struggled with all kinds of issues in high school.  The school library was my sanctuary and the adults in my high school who cared about me enough to hand me books quite literally kept me alive.

I began this afternoon by saying thank you and I’d like to end the same way.  Thank you for honoring my book with the Volunteer State Book Award.  Thank you for inviting me to join you with Vivian and with Helen for this lovely celebration.

But I reserve my deepest thanks for the very hard and crucially important work you do every day.  Somehow – in the midst of budget crises, policy debates, administrative memos and staff meetings, you find the energy and the integrity to connect children and teenagers with books everyday.  By forging this connection and strengthening it year after year, you are helping generations understand the rhythms of their own hearts, and the rules of human dignity. 

You are gatekeepers and guardians of our culture.  You are the acolytes of hope.  Thank you, thank you, for everything that you do.
 

Vivian Vande Velde’s speech for Smart Dog

At my session this morning I was talking about covers and there were some covers that I didn’t show you, starting with Smart Dog, and of course I forgot to tell the organizers here that I was going to be doing this.  I bet that’s why we’re doing this on the wall!   This is the hardcover copy of Smart Dog.  One of the things that I was saying at my session was that I do not get asked, “Who do you think the illustrator should be?”  and “What do you think about the pictures?”  They kind of worry about that at the publishing company & if they’re happy then they figure the world is happy & the person who wrote the words doesn’t make any difference.  So this is the Smart Dog hard cover.  I liked the positioning, the way the girl & the dog have their arms folded & they’re back to back.  They’re saying its you & me against the world & that’s exactly right.  The dog does not look the way I had pictured the dog.  The girl, for those of you who are closer, can see that she has about a twelve year old’s body & a forty rear old’s face.  They are sitting on a gigantic egg.  There is no gigantic egg in my story.  There is a class project to decorate Ukranian-style Easter eggs.  I described some of the patterns – this is not one of them.  To me, this kind of looks like an Azxtec sort of design, but I figured the Aztecs weren’t real famous for their Easter eggs.  The worst part, and you can’t see it real well, is with some of the minor characters around the egg & I’ve been trying over the years, since the book came out, to figure out who is supposed to be who in the story.  There’s one woman who is wearing what looks like a nun’s hat, so I figured that needs to be Sister Mary Grace, the teacher.  There’s a woman wearing what appears to be a white lab coat and she has glasses – she obviously is the scientist.  There’s a girl who has a tear running down the side of her nose & I figured that needs to be Kate, who is the class bully, because she’s the only one who has an opportunity to cry during the story.  But the thing about Kaitlyn is she’s supposed to be the most beautiful girl in the school & if this is the most beautiful girl, then the school is in serious trouble.  Lastly, there’s a guy who looks to me like a Columbian drug dealer so I figured he wandered in from somebody else’s story. 

Next we have the paperback – a totally different look.  Again, the dog does not look anything like I had pictured.  I pictured more of a mutt kind of dog.  This one looks a little bit too high bred.  What I like about this picture is that the dog is working on the computer.  In the story it is mentioned that he’s smart enough to talk & he even tells the girl that he likes to play computer games & he has to use a pencil because his paws are too big for the keys.  The illustrator went ahead & put on the computer monitor  some dog bones & dog treats so he has added that the dog goes to the internet to look up what he’s interested in, which is food.  This is one of those cases where the illustrator has brought something else to the story that I’m delighted that he did.

The story also came out in France.  This one has a lot of energy to it … with people chasing the girl & the dog.  The girl has very French hair.  The dog does not look too smart but finally he’s beginning to look a little bit more like a mutt & I do like that.  I know just enough French to be able to translate the title, which does not say Smart Dog.  It says “Dog Too Talkative.”  Anytime a dog is talkative, this kind of implies it’s smart.  I guess it’s not always the same with people….. 

But, I want to talk just very briefly about how I came to write the story, which by coincidence has to do with French again.  This is a picture of my family a couple of years ago.  This is me on this side.  I’m squinting because I was supposed to be wearing glasses and I always refused to wear glasses.  So, I couldn’t see anything … and that’s why I was squinting.  On that side is my brother.  He is squinting because he’s looking directly into the sun.  Obviously, the smartest looking one…  My parents could speak two languages.  My parents spoke not only English, but French.  They taught the dog to respond to commands in French.  You can tell.  We’re not the kind of kids who would speak French.  We only spoke English.  We taught the dog to respond to commands in English.  Therefore, the dog was bi-lingual.  So this dog was very smart.  I was convinced that not only could she understand things like ‘sit’ and ‘stay’ and ‘come’ but that she could understand pretty much everything I would say to her.  So, if I was having problems, I would sit down and I would tell them to the dog.  I’d say, “My brother was SO mean and my parents don’t see it.”  “My teachers give too much homework.”  And, I was just convinced that the dog could understand all of this because she was sitting there looking very patient and smart.  Beautiful brown eyes.  And I was convinced that if she could only speak, what she would say is, “Yes, you poor dear.  You have a terrible family.  You have a terrible life.  Everyone imposes on you so much.”  And I thought, “Wouldn’t it be neat if she could talk to wouldn’t tell anybody else, especially, you know, the evil brother over there.”  So, that idea of a dog smart enough to talk and of keeping if a s something that’s been rattling around in my head for ten years or so.

This morning we were treated to a couple of letters that were being read outloud from USA Today that were referring, I’m assuming, to an article I had read a couple of days ago in the USA Today about reading.  One of the things that was mentioned in that article was that they had done a study.  First graders, almost universally, were saying that they liked reading, but that a significant number of twelfth graders exiting twelfth grade would say that they had no intention of ever reading again after school.  This was pointed out as a bad thing, which it is.  One of the things that they pointed out was those children who like to read do better in reading and they do better in other subjects.  Wow, what a thought!  The trouble is that so many teachers are pulled iin all sorts of different directions including having to do a lot of preparation for testing.  So, that kind of leaves school librarians as the final line of defense here.

I’m just so pleased to see so many of you that are here.  You’re taking the time, you’re taking the money, you’re making the effort to be here – to network, to talk to each other about what works, how to entice kids into the library.  You’re trying always to find just the right books to give to your kid whether that book is a de-Disnified “Pocahantas”, or the story of Wodney Wat who gets teased because of his speech, or a boy who’s looking for his father, or a dog who’s smart, or a girl who is learning to develop the strength to speak when she needs to speak.

I think it is so ironic that Laurie Anderson and I are sharing this award.  This is apparently Volunteer State history that there has been a tie.  And, to have a book about a ninth grader who is dealing with acquaintance rape and a fifth grader who is dealing with a talking dog.  I mean just the resemblance is uncanny.

Thank you so much.
 

Acceptance Speech from Helen Lester for Hooway for Wodney Wat!

I would like to first like to thank Patty Williams and the Volunteer State Book Award committee for making it possible for the children of Tennessee to read and vote on my book.  After spending this week in Tennessee, I’ve discovered that Tennessee kids are above average.  And, I’m thrilled to be among Tennessee librarians as Librarians are my heroes.  You are the world’s greatest jugglers – you keep it alive!

I never intended to become a writer….. just a bride – it was the 50’s!  While I waited on the “bride” part, I became a teacher and taught for ten years during which I did marry my husband, Robin.  Those years of teaching second grade introduced me to wealth of characters now found in my books – tacky kids, pushy kids, clueless kids and worried kids.

Here are some dedications you might be interested in:  cause I always wonder who these people are – “Tacky and the Emperor” was dedicated to Delores Thornton, who is a counselor, was a counselor.  Unfortunately they moved her to a men’s prison, but she was a counselor at Bedford Hills Correctional facility, which is where my husband and I volunteer.  It is the only maximum security for women in the state of New York.  We go in there and work with the youngest inmates having them make children’s books, picture frames, and anything they can give to their families.  And Delores was just a wonderful counselor.  So she got “Emperor.”  “Tackylocks and the Three Bears” I dedicated to a teacher… to a teacher in my husband’s school …. Mary Ellen Bruce.  The reason for that is she was the music teacher and never got over being the mother of the Frog Prince.  She could just do magic with kids.  My thinly veiled anti-testing book, “Score one for the Sloths” is dedicated to teachers.

Now, let me just give you just a couple of little-known facts, because, I don’t know about you, but I know of a lot of other authors and I’d like to have the low down on them…you know the tidbits that I can take back, so I’ve got a little list of lowdowns.  One is how “Wodney” came about.  One of the reasons was I wanted to write about teasing, but also, my husband – when he was growing up on a farm in Nebraska – couldn’t say his ‘R’s or his ‘L’s, and if your name is Robin Lester, you’re in trouble.  So, that inspired that one.  He is home writing the great American novel as we speak.  We live in Pawling, New York, an hour and a half north of New York City…. Thirteen acres in the woods.  It’s the first time we haven’t  lived in the city and we just love it.  The dog makes us walk four miles a day.  So, it’s a nice outdoor place.

Okay.  Anaother tidbit of information.  I haven’t had a haircut for twenty years and neither has my husband.  You probably think, “Oh, that explains it.”  No, we chop each other’s hair, but the good news about that, you see, think of all the money we have left to buy books.

Okay.  Another bit of information.  I am wearing … I’m wearing the zircon of Amsterdam.  The stone fell out of my ring about a year ago.  So, we were going to Amsterdam in September, and that’s the City of Diamonds, so we thought “O.K., we better get a replacement.”  We got there and we looked at each other and we said, “This is really dumb, you know.”  So, we went to a place and got a zircon for twenty-nine bucks and think of all the books we can buy!

Okay.  I couple of things from my books – bits of information.  On “Author, a True Story”, on page eight, there’s a mistake.  Where I had to do mirror writing saying “My story’s about a pig.”  If you look closely, the ‘a’ is not done in mirror writing.  So, see if your kids can find that.  Another thing for them to look for is… there’s a mistake on page 26 of  “Listen Buddy.”  I got a letter from these two little special reading kids in Colorado and they said, “There’s a mistake on page 26.”  I said, “There can’t be a mistake on page 26.”  I’ve read this book a million times but, sure enough, I looked at it again.  You know this character of the villain is the ‘Scruffy’ Varmint and they had printed the ‘Scuffy’ Varmint.  So see if your students can find that.

And one more thing from my books… In “Author, a True Story”, I talked about having to autograph next to a very famous author.  Her line had no end and mine had no beginning.  That famous author was, Ta Da.. Jan Brett.  But later, at another conference, after “Tacky”, my line was as long as hers was.  It was excruciating.  Really, it was like being the eighth grader at the dance and no one invites you.

That was about all the … I don’t really have that much exciting low down.  My hobby is cooking.  I do love to cook … I mean, I’m just such a snob.  I make my own pasta and everything.  It’s really neat.

I’d like to close by reading you my fan mail because …  I like them.  These are gems I get from around the country.  And, by the way, my policy is if I’ve been to a school, I can’t write to individuals.  But, If I hear from a whole class and they make the effort to handwrite, I always write back to the whole class.  Well, here comes one from Killsville, VA, not too far from some or you, In think, and she says “Dear Helen Lester,” she begins, “I am writing to you because our teacher told us to.”  “Dear Helen Lester. It was great when you came to our school.  Well, of course, it was great for me.  I don’t know about anybody else.”  “Dear Helen Lester, I love your books.  I might be an author, or a scientist or an illustrator.  You’re my second favorite author.  My favorite is Roald Dahl.”

And then this one had a wonderful penguin picture on it.  But after I read it, I started holding it like this because it says, “Dear Helen Lester, How’s your new Tacky book going?  My cat got half of his hair shaved off because he has a disease called ringworm.  My whole family has it.  Have you met my sister.?”

Okay.  Moving right along.  This one didn’t get signed and I should preface it by saying when I talk to older kids one question they ask is am I rich?  So, I hold up a $15 book and I say, “O.K. Take three guesses.  What do you think the author gets off this?”  And of course the answer is $.75 or 5%.  And so that’s why he says, “Dear Helen, I like all your books but they’re all too expensive and you don’t get enough of the money.  That’s why I’ll never be an author.  I find my special ability’s in aggressive skating.”  Do you see why I love these?

Okay.  Then we got this from an operator in Indiana named Eric.  “Thank you for coming to my school.  I really enjoyed learning about you.  I’m a fast learner.  I’m making a chapter book called, “A Boy Who Wants a Girlfriend”  That brings me to my question….  Can you hook me up with some publisher?  My number is….”

Okay.  And then I get a lot of these.  You know with the hearts and stuff on them.  “I think your books are famous. I like all your books.  Your books are so excellent.  Your books are very, very great.  I think your books are creative.  Your books are the best.  I love your books.”

But lest that go to my head, I have this final one from Stephanie.  And this was after a visit at school.  “Dear Helen Lester, they say that old women and men just sit, but I guess they are wrong.”…. And she’s not done.  She says, “When I see an old girl or boy, I will think of you.”

Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for making me part of this wonderful conference.  Again, my highest admiration to librarians.  You do just such a wonderful job and I really, really appreciate you.  Keep that literature alive and thank you for this wonderful honor.