Monday morning, after the Youth Media Awards, I attended the YALSA Award Ceremony for Excellence in Nonfiction and the Morris Awards for books by a first-time author.<\/p>\n
I love that YALSA announces the Finalists for these awards ahead of time — so they can get speeches from everyone and do an awards ceremony the same day that the winner is announced.<\/p>\n
Here are my notes from the speeches:<\/p>\n
YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award<\/p>\n
Shane Burcaw – Laughing at my Nightmare<\/p>\n
(Video speech) He’s 22 years old. Blown away when he found out he was a finalist.
\nHas Spinal muscular atrophy.
\nHumor and positivity are keys to dealing with his disease.
\nLaughing is the best way to overcome.<\/p>\n
Candace Fleming – The Family Romanov<\/p>\n
\nShe was worried about the story – might as well be another planet for her readers.
\nConflict: 3 separate revolutions, each extremely complicated.
\nHad planned to focus on Anastasia – decided she was boring, so expanded her focus to the other children – they also weren’t that interesting. They were naive and cloistered.
\nNicholas and Alexandra were more interesting, but they were adults.
\nThen expanded focus again to revolutionaries.
\nShe saw a movie where the characters kept asking, “But who is interested in Russian History?”
\nThis award tells her, “You are.”<\/p>\n
Emily Arnold McCully – Ida M. Tarbell: The Woman Who Challenged Big Business – and Won!<\/p>\n
\nWhy Ida Tarbell? She was a defender of democratic values when they were challenged.
\nShe was the only woman muckraker.
\nThe author tried to squish it into 32 pages, but the story was too big.
\nIda Tarbell saw the cost of the oil rush to ordinary people and the environment.
\nScience taught her to always look beneath the surface of things and verify.
\nThe issues that led to muckraking are back.
\nShe went after the story and told it true.<\/p>\n
Steve Sheinkin – The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights<\/p>\n
\nHis brother-in-law loves conspiracy theories – told him first atomic bomb was tested in Port Chicago – but that led him to the true story.
\nHeard from a man whose father was in the mutiny. Loves getting this story out.<\/p>\n
Winner: Maya Van Wagenen
\nPopular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek<\/p>\n
\nShe’s the child of a historian, so knows the power of truth and primary sources.
\nAlways wanted to be a writer.
\nFound the book before 8th grade — Her mother’s idea was to try the ideas and write about it.
\nLearned the kind of popularity Betty Cornell talked about was based on being a good friend and reaching out with compassion and understanding.
\nGreeting the world with your head held high will never go out of style.
\nNone of this would have been possible without books and librarians.
\nMiddle School Librarian was a light to the students there.
\nHas turned to reading nonfiction because it tells teenagers that their story is part of a much bigger fabric of history, and each one plays a unique part.<\/p>\n
Morris Award, Honor Books:<\/p>\n
Jessie Ann Foley, The Carnival at Bray<\/p>\n
She’s a high school English teacher, here in Chicago. She loved librarians before she was nominated for this award, and now even more so!
\nLibrarians help teens find books that speak to them.
\n“That is part of the beauty of literature: You discover that your longings are universal longings… You are not alone.” (A quote she read while writing this.)
\nShe kept in tough scenes so girls who have gone through that would not feel alone.<\/p>\n
E. K. Johnston – The Story of Owen: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim
\ndue to weather, she isn’t here.<\/p>\n
Len Vlahos – The Scar Boys<\/p>\n
Central theme: The power of music can give anyone confidence, friends, even save a life.
\nMusic can be an intensely personal experience, but is more appropriately a shared experience.
\nMusic, like math or physics, is a universal language.
\nMath and physics are the foundation for music.
\nMusic makes us feel something viscerally
\nMagic dust sprinkled on math and physics
\nResonance – sound or vibration in one object produced from sound or vibration in another.
\nPerfect metaphor for librarians
\nImmensely skilled at finding the right book and putting it in the right hands.
\nFinding the perfect book to resonate with that reader and amplify the content.
\n“School librarians are my heroes.”
\nWriting is a solitary process, publishing is not.
\nLibrarians help the work of writers resonate far beyond the walls of our institutions.<\/p>\n
Leslye Walton – The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender<\/p>\n
She’s a teacher.
\nWrote it with little hope than anyone would actually read it.
\nDidn’t write it as a YA book. She might have wanted to protect them.
\nWhen she was a teen, she experienced isolating grief, and hung out in the local library to find people (in fiction) who were grieving like she was.
\nThere is beauty in sorrow.
\nI hope it makes someone feel less alone and more alive.
\nAnd that there is life beyond that sorrow.
\nLibrarians, you are saving the lives of readers everywhere.<\/p>\n
Winner: Isabel Quintero – Gabi, a Girl in Pieces<\/p>\n
“To quote someone very dear to me, ‘Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!'”
\nStarted by reading “I Too Sing America” by Langston Hughes
\nOffended by someone who asked if her laborer parents were surprised that she is an intellectual.
\nNow she’s a professor of composition.
\nShe thinks about her parents who had tough jobs when they came to America and worked to make sure their children had a different life.
\nShe thinks about fat girls, pregnant girls, and gay teens.
\nThe only option for a daughter of laborers is to think — because that’s what her parents have taught her to do.
\nIt helps when you have a community of people doing the solitary thing together. (Her creative writing group)
\n“An honor and a privilege to be here, but that was to be expected, given who my parents are.”<\/p>\n
***
\nInspiring and lovely speeches! I always love the Morris Awards, because the authors are happy to be published, let alone to receive recognition. Makes me want to go home and Write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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