In Honor of National Library Week

Checking out books at the Berkeley Public Library in California with my little sister, Meg. (Yes, that's me in the geeky-girl glasses. You can't tell in this black and white photo, but they are red.) And the librarian in the really cool glasses? Any Berkeley librarians know her name?

With thanks to librarians in cool glasses everywhere. Believe me, you've cheered me up, and given me info and made me laugh and brought whole new worlds to me, and you never even knew. So thank you, from me and millions of kids like me.

And the geeky glasses? They came in very handy. Still do.

Marching wins Battle of the Books!

Amazing -- in the final, Big Kahuna round, Marching won the Battle of the Books.

I am thrilled. And I want to give a great big shout-out to all the young adults who marched and sang and were jailed in the spring of 1965, and decades later told me in vivid detail about their experiences.

Joanne Blackmon Bland, Charles Bonner, Lynda Blackmon Lowery, Charles Mauldin and Bobby Simmons, I mean you.

And my thanks also to all the photographers who hung around for long church meetings, and stood in the tear gas and photographed, and bunked out at night on people's floors.

Matt Herron and Bruce Davidson, I mean you. And in memory of James Karales, Spider Martin, Charles Moore, and John F. Phillips.

Because what we got from all these brave people was public support for the Voting Rights Bill signed into law by President Johnson on August 6, 1965. One person, one vote. This is exactly what makes a strong democracy.

And exactly what makes me proud to be an American.

Battle of the Books final round

It's almost over.

Fast, furious, contested, cranky, and apologetic, the judges on Battle of the Books have almost all had their say. It's been a wonderful glimpse into the minds of how people pick one book over another to "win."

A few days ago, my book, Marching for Freedom, beat out Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan. Judge Walter Dean Myers put it this way.

Shannon Hale, who had judged Tales in an earlier round, had a completely different take on the book, and blogged about how her opinion was so different from Walter Dean Myers.

I've judged several award contests myself -- last year, I was a judge for the Battle of the Books (Chains vs. Washington at Valley Forge), and have also served on the LA Times Book Prize and National Book Award for Young Adults committees. I wonder if contests judged by authors are more subjective than those judged by librarians or book reviewers. American Library Association, for example, has very stringent guidelines for judges. From what I've heard about those quiet, well-behaved librarians picking winners (not that people are allowed to say much) there can be a lot of thumping on the table and shouting out the guidelines to defend choices and knock out others.

Thoughts, anyone? The bottom line for me is that contests create energy and excitement around books, and this is a good thing.

There's a new twist on this year's Battle, which is the Undead Poll. The Frog Scientist has made a run away Zombie comeback, and is up against Marching and The Lost Conspiracy.

Fascinating. Two illustrated nonfiction and one incredibly detailed fantasy novel. Results posted tomorrow- being judged by Katherine Paterson, this year's National Ambassador for Young People's Literature.

Christopher Paul Curtis is my hero.

Let me begin by saying I adore Richard Peck, almost as much as I adore Christopher Paul Curtis. But Marching for Freedom just beat out Peck's latest book, A Season of Gifts, in today's round of the Battle of the Books. I have to admit.... (sorry Mr. Peck) I'm thrilled!

In case you haven't been following the Battle, we're in Round Two. In Round One, Marching beat out Marcelo in the Real World. I love reading the judge's posts every day -- they are quirky and apologetic (after all, it is authors in the kid's world judging their peers) and give me new ways to look at some of the latest, most interesting, and oft-buzzed books of the last year.

I also raise my boxing-gloved fist in victory each time for non-fiction. We don't often make it this far! Deborah Heiligman and I are hoping we get put up against each other so we can take pictures of ourselves in the ring, ready to duke it out.... but first her book, Charles and Emma, has to win another round, and so does Marching.

Scroll through the posts following the judge's ruling for some interesting comments. What did you think of the honest post by Your Neighborhood Librarian?

"I spend some time scratching my head about how to get great nonfiction like Marching to Freedom into the hands of kids I know will enjoy it. Looking at these two books side by side it occurs to me that maybe format plays a part. Grownup trade nonfiction is published in the same format as novels – Glass Castle slots in next to Kite Runner and people tend to forget which book they’re reading ‘for fun’ and which is the nonfiction.

Maybe the wider flatter shape of books like Marching for Freedom and Truce and everything by Russell Freedman is what signals to kids ‘this is a book for school/work’. I don’t know. All I know is that Season of Gifts will be read til it falls apart on my shelves, and circ on Marching to Freedom will be a fraction of that, and I’ll still be scratching my head."

Dr. King's arc of the moral universe: 45th anniversary

Forty-five years ago today, 30,000 marchers poured into Montgomery, Alabama to demonstrate for voting rights. John Lewis, then Chairman of SNCC, now a Congressman from Georgia, was granted time on the podium that afternoon, and Martin Luther King Jr. gave his powerful “How Long, Not Long” speech.

March 25th wasn’t the protestors’ first attempt to reach the state capitol. Two weeks earlier, Lewis had been at the head of a line of solemn marchers who’d walked anxiously out of Selma. In what became known as Bloody Sunday, the marchers were stopped at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge by mounted deputies and state troopers. Acting under the orders from Governor George Wallace, they attacked the marchers with tear gas, clubs and cattle prods.

Lining the sides of the road were whites who’d come out to watch for sport, their taunts and threats caught by network news. What they said was ugly, and generously spiked with the N-word.

One of the first protestors clubbed down was Lewis. Scores of others were injured as well, among them fourteen year old Lynda (Blackmon) Lowery. Determined to show Governor Wallace he couldn’t stop her, she marched again two weeks later, the black threads of her stitches dangling on her forehead.

Along the route, hostile whites came to watch and jeer. Overhead, a small government surveillance plane circled, scanning the nearby woods for hidden sharpshooters. “I was not brave,” Lowery said. “I was not courageous. I was determined. That’s how I got to Montgomery.”

Just last Saturday, Representative Lewis along with several other members of Congress had racist Americans slinging the N word at him again. It went further than the congressional halls as Tweets urging the assassination of the president went out on two Twitter sites.

Forty-five years on, and we’ve got hate talk, hate Tweets. Hate radio’s been popping with an “us against them” mentality since the House passed the Health Bill on Sunday. The racism, implied and overt, is both frightening and depressing. We’re all going to need fourteen year old Lowery’s determination. That arc of the moral universe Dr. King was counting on has still got a long ways to go as it bends towards justice.

Izumi Shikibu poem spreads the old-fashioned way

Many years ago I ran across this poem -- I don't even remember where. I was so taken with it, I copied it onto a scrap of paper and taped it to the wall where I could see it from my desk.

A few years ago Jenna Ross (reporter for the Star Tribune and friend of our son Will) stayed at our house. Taken with the quote, she jotted it down. Just recently she was taking a printmaking class and made this gorgeous print:


I love this way a poem from a thousand years ago found its way into her hands and heart.

Bookshop Santa Cruz and the Gateway School Freedom Singers

Usually as I get ready to speak, I look out and see people expectantly waiting, like this:

But this time, Bookshop Santa Cruz and I did something a little different.

Because I love the Freedom Songs that fueled the civil rights march, I asked if we could have a group of kids come and sing at my presentation. In addition to Bookshop Santa Cruz making Marching for Freedom their community book of the month, they arranged for the enthusiastic participation of the second and fifth graders from Gateway School. The kids were amazing!

Not only did they sing three Freedom Songs, but they sang This Land is Your Land. As a special surprise for me, they even included a song they had written. (I suspect it was their incredible music teacher who actually wrote it, seen in the video below playing ukulele as she directs them.)

So music from the streets of Selma, accompanied by hand clapping and feet marching, made its way to Bookshop Santa Cruz, accompanied by the ukulele, originally from Hawaii. Not to be too over-the-top patriotic, but I love so many things about our interesting, constantly-evolving beautiful country. And bright, earnest kids are the best of all. Here they are, singing.