ALA Midwinter in Boston

Don't call it Beantown. It's "America's Walking City" and it is our understanding that on Saturday, January 15th, you could walk around town quite comfortably during our January thaw. We wouldn't know. We were tucked away underground in the Boston Convention Center (the fairly new big boy of convention centers), enjoying the warmth of librarians.

While it may have been 40 degrees outside, it was hot in the aisles. And it was wicked hot ("wicked" is a popular word in New England that means "really, really"), at the Charlesbridge booth with authors like Mitali Perkins and Lynn Plourde signing.

At left is a photo of Mitali signing copies of the ARC of her upcoming novel, Bamboo People (July 2010). Notice Angus Killick and friends hovering Zelig-like for photo ops.

(Photo from American Libraries Photostream)



But the most exciting part of all -- as always -- was Monday morning and the awards announcements. This year Charlesbridge got to scream real loud (just like on Pee Wee's Playhouse). The Day-Glo Brothers by Chris Barton and illustrated by Tony Persiani, was named a Sibert Honor Book. Fantastic to be in our own backyard and to be able to have people in the hall to holler (despite the now-bad weather) because it's just sad when it's just the two of you. And what a great dollop of cream filling for a cupcake of a year for that most awesome of books.

Speaking of cupcakes... whenever anything remotely good happens at Charlesbridge -- a book wins a major award, someone has a baby, a brand new episode of Lost -- the staff at the Bridge tends to celebrate. Never met an office-full of people so ready to stop, drop, and gather in the conference room for some chips and dip. Or, in this case, Day-Glo cupcakes. With champagne (surprisingly not a bad combo). There was orange juice for mimosas for those that don't like their alcohol straight up first thing in the morning. We're "rock stars", not rock stars.
(Don't they look disgusting and possibly toxic? But, Duncan Hines! Don't mess with perfection)







Look at them all ogling those tasty cakes. Wait, now, everybody. You'll be told when you can dig in.








At left, the creative team, who put the "day" in Day-Glo. The uncreative team toddled off to seek out more cerebral pursuits.










And MORE good news! The Importance of Wingsby Robin Friedman is the WINNER of the Sydney Taylor Book Award. Congratulations, Robin! Well-deserved.

"Friedman does an exquisite job in bringing the two older girls to life" - Booklist

"[A] voice that is both sardonic and sincere..."
- Kirkus Reviews

"...middle school angst, first crushes, and the importance of finding one’s own wings." - School Library Journal

---

Find out more about The Day-Glo Brothers and The Importance of Wings at www.charlesbridge.com.

"I Didn't Know You Liked Wonder Woman"

For the longest time, I avoided writing about my family.

My husband, who knew all about my interesting childhood, couldn't fathom why I'd waste "such a gold mine."

He'd shrug, muttering about how "you can't make this stuff up."

I had written three novels for young readers, none about my life in particular, though my first came the closest. That one, How I Survived My Summer Vacation, is about a boy who wants to be an author.

The next two, The Girlfriend Project and Nothing, are, respectively, about a boy who wants a girlfriend and a boy who develops bulimia. (My family, startled by the subject matter of the latter, asked for several assurances that I was not, in fact, writing from experience. I was not.)

But I'd never written a novel about a girl.

Or, more specifically, a girl who was born in Israel, lives in immigrant poverty, and tries desperately to understand the American dream.

And I never thought I would, until I met the late Paul Zindel, renowned author of The Pigman, at a writing luncheon. Offhandedly he commented that all of his books are autobiographical.

"Doesn't your family get angry with you for writing about them?" someone asked.

"Yes," he replied casually. "But then they ask me who's playing them in the movie."

It got me thinking. More than thinking, it got me writing.

I started with the basics: A thirteen-year-old girl, born in Israel, growing up on Staten Island in the 1980s.

I added: She hates gym, watches too much TV, and, most distressingly, can't get her hair to do what everybody else's hair does, that is, feathering into a set of perfect wings.

I kept going, embracing all the cringe-worthy memories of adolescence that are probably best left forgotten, much less broadcast.

I'm talking about the most private, most embarrassing, most personal kinds of thoughts a thirteen-year-old girl could possibly confide to a nonjudgmental diary with a lock firmly around its middle.

Yes, that means observations on boys, body image, desire, and self-esteem, all tinged with a palpable current of longing that could exist only within the peculiar eccentricities of being an outsider, a foreigner in a strange land, with the attendant constant feelings of being excluded, different, and even unwelcome.

Then I added the fiction. Or, more to the point, I added what I would have liked to see in real life if I had been in charge of the story.

A seductive concept, to be sure. Maybe even literary therapy.

I had a finished draft all ready to go in 2004. Little did I know it would be five rewrites and five years before my draft became a published novel.

The responses from editors were surprising, to say the least.

"Not believable."

"This can't really have happened."

"The characters don't seem real."

More and more, I rewrote my autobiography, moving my story further and further away from reality. Finally, it sold.

The Importance of Wings was published in July, 2009.

It's still about a thirteen-year-old girl growing up on Staten Island in the 1980s, born in Israel, who watches too much TV and hates gym and her non-feathered, non-wings hair.

But mostly it's fiction, fiction I would have picked for my childhood story. After all, authors don't just "write what they know"; sometimes they write what they wish they knew.

As publication day drew nearer, I still had two hurdles left to clear: my sister and my mother. I stalled as long as I could, and knowing I was writing from experience, they were getting downright concerned. (My father was in the book too, but he'd always been easygoing about my writing, and not much of a reader, besides.)

I mailed my mother and sister advanced reading copies a few months ahead of publication and hoped for the best.

The verdict came back: Four thumbs up.

Along with indignant "how-come-you-never-told-me?" comments.

"I thought you really liked gym."

"Did you really hate your hair?"

"I didn't know you liked Wonder Woman."

"Were you that worried about fitting in?"

"Well," I replied, trying to shrug off the questions and trying to channel Paul Zindel, "You'll just have to wait for the movie."

Posted by Robin Friedman, author of The Imporatance of Wings.
Visit Robin online.