2019 Caldecott Medal Acceptance Speech
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Caldecott MEDAL ACCEPTANCE SPEECH Hello, hello, hello! Members of the 2019 Caldecott com- mittee, my agents, my family, fellow authors and illustrators, publishers, li- brarians, beacons of the community— As the 2019 Caldecott committee gathered around a phone, early on a cold January morning in Seattle, I was having dinner in sultry Myan- mar, trying not to picture them. But I couldn’t help it. I liked the look of them all, in my mind, about to de- liver news to change a life. And then, like some kind of dream, my phone Sophie Blackall received the buzzed. 2019 (Randolph) Caldecott Medal for Hello Lighthouse (Little, My phone. This was not supposed to Brown/Hachette). She delivered happen. her acceptance remarks at the Newbery-Caldecott-Legacy From seven thousand miles away I Banquet on Sunday, June 23, heard the crackling committee and then I remembered how I felt when 2019, during the American the word medal, and the first thing my second child, Eggy, was born. I Library Association Annual out of my mouth was . didn’t, for a minute, offer to give my Conference. son back. His arrival was every bit as Oh no. miraculous and joyful and distinct as it had been with my first child, Olive. No. (Later, when Eggy was three, and I was trying to sound professional on No. the phone with my first editor, Vic- toria Rock, and Eggy was under my Followed by, Are you sure about this? desk in a cardboard-box bumper car, gleefully ramming my shins, then, I hate to tell you, but I tried to give for a split second, I considered giving the thing back. him back. But only for a second.) As the news of this second Caldecott I also realized with a thud how rude sank in, I kept thinking, No one de- it was to question the judgment of serves this much good fortune. And the committee. Mary Fellows and For more information about Sophie Blackall is an Australian-born illustrator based in New York. She has illus- the Caldecott Medal, visit trated over 45 books for children, including Finding Winnie: The True Story of the http://bit.ly/caldecott-medal. World’s Most Famous Bear, the 2016 Caldecott Medal winner, the bestselling Ivy and Bean series, and Ruby’s Wish, which won the Ezra Jack Keats Award. Her first book for adults, Missed Connections: Love, Lost & Found, was named one of the Best Art and Design Books of 2011 on brainpickings.org. Blackall lives in Brooklyn with her family. Caldecott MEDAL ACCEPTANCE SPEECH the fourteen other committee mem- people said, “Your cup runneth over,” 2019 CALDECOTT bers spent an entire year poring over it sounded the tiniest bit like a rep- HONOR BOOKS picture books. And what a year for rimand. As though I had chosen an picture books! And they chose Hello inappropriately sized cup, and now I Lighthouse for the medal. For which was making a mess on the floor. I am, after my initial shock, pro- foundly grateful. So I decided to look to my forebears to see how previous medalists man- It’s especially wonderful to be in aged their good fortune. Washington, DC, tonight, to cheer on Meg Medina, to celebrate the legacy I went right back to the beginning, to The Rough Patch of Walter Dean Myers, and to be hon- 1938 when the first Caldecott Medal Brian Lies ored alongside Brian Lies, Grace Lin, was awarded, and proceeded to Illus. by the author Juana Martinez-Neal, and Oge Mora. read all eighty-one speeches. (Well, Greenwillow/HarperCollins I couldn’t read Stephen Gammell’s, And yet, when someone says, “Hey! I the infamous speech that was never hear you won the Caldecott!” I wince written down, so eighty.) in response, as though they’ve said, “Hey! I hear you accidentally killed a Many winners wished they could horse!” skip the speech, or draw it instead, but besides that most were sur- Australians, as a rule, don’t like prised, pleased, and grateful. showoffs. When I told my mother that I had won the 2016 Caldecott for A few clearly thought it was long Finding Winnie, she chastised me for overdue . bragging. And then there were the women. Australians are trained to be self- * * * A Big Mooncake for Little Star deprecating. We save others the Grace Lin trouble of discovering our flaws by Hello, Dorothy P. Lathrop. Virginia Illus. by the author presenting them with a list when we Lee Burton. Elizabeth Orton Jones. Little, Brown/Hachette meet. Especially if we are women. * * * In 2013, when Susan Rich wrote to Eighteen solo women have won the me with the manuscript of Finding Caldecott Medal in eighty-two years. Winnie, before accepting I asked I was very interested in the women; whether she should perhaps con- and especially the working mothers; sider Brian Floca? Because Brian is and particularly the working, single really good at drawing trains. mothers; and most-particularly the working, single mother who won This year, the Caldecott attention two Caldecotts, my hero, Barbara made me uncomfortable. I was Cooney. But it was Marcia Brown, acutely aware of the many illustrators who writes so eloquently in each of who made beautiful, award-deserv- her three acceptance speeches about ing books in 2018, and I felt their dis- the challenge and responsibility, appointment. Also, I had it on good peril and heartache, of artistic pro- authority from Chris Raschka that cess, who stopped me in my tracks. nobody likes a two-time medalist. Al- She writes about the artist in the though he seems pretty likable. And third person, using the pronoun “he.” maybe I was imagining it, but when Caldecott MEDAL ACCEPTANCE SPEECH The Caldecott women had a way of * * * 2019 CALDECOTT distancing themselves from their Hello, Grace Lin. Oge Mora. Juana HONOR BOOKS achievements, which I found heart- Martinez-Neal. breaking—and familiar. Hello, Yuyi Morales. Melissa Sweet. Most lighthouse keepers were men. Cece Bell. But some of them were women. Women in lighthouses did all the * * * same work as the men. They tended In the past twenty years, only three the light, rescued sailors in storms, women have won Caldecott Medals. and scraped ice off the lantern-room And men have won nearly two-thirds windows. They also cleaned and of the Honors. This year the Calde- cooked and bore children. Alma and How She Got Her Name cott numbers are different. Also, this Juana Martinez-Neal year there are 131 women serving in Most Caldecott winners are men. Illus. by the author Congress. This past year, even though But some of them are women. Wom- Candlewick Wikipedia hadn’t previously thought en who make books do all the same her noteworthy enough for an entry, work as the men. They delve deep a woman, Donna Strickland, won into research, they paint through the Nobel Prize in Physics. There is the night, and they wrestle with revi- change in the air. It is time for wom- sions. They also clean and cook and en to allow themselves pride in their bear children. achievements, to talk about their work in the first person—and use And remember birthdays and booster whichever pronoun is right for them. shots, and to change the oil in the car. * * * * * * Hello, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Jacinda Hello, Margot Zemach. Trina Schart Ardern. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Hyman. Mary Azarian. * * * * * * Hello Lighthouse is dedicated to Su- In a Q&A at a recent school visit, a san Rich—editor, friend, beacon of student raised her hand and said, “I light. Before I had drawn a single line have something to say and a ques- of Finding Winnie, I was already talk- Thank You, Omu! tion: I didn’t know girls could be ing to Susan about Hello Lighthouse. Oge Mora authors; and also, how does it feel I thought, There is something special Illus. by the author to hold a medal in each of your own about this woman. She is brilliant Little, Brown/Hachette hands?” I thought of Marcia Brown and wise and wickedly funny—she il- and I looked this child in the eye luminates everything in her path. She without wincing and said, “Girls Can makes me a better writer, a better il- Do Anything. And I’ll let you know in lustrator, and a better person. I hope June.” we get to work together until our hands and minds and hearts give out. I’m crushed when I meet girls who are unaware of their potential or While it seemed at times as though when I’m told I’m the first female we were in our own world, discuss- picture-book author or illustrator to ing small things (like fog bell mecha- visit a school. We are in a golden age nisms and lighthouse tender sched- for picture books, and many of them ules) and big things (like love and are being made by women. Caldecott MEDAL ACCEPTANCE SPEECH loss and hope and change), no two ous, constructive criticism; loyal ca- the Virginia Children’s Book Festival people are an island. In our case we maraderie; whiskey and cake. in a county where one in five adults had the extraordinary design and can’t read. The children I met in Con- production team at Little, Brown A lighthouse is built on the same go who are hoping the measles virus behind us, supporting our uncom- dangerous rocks it is designed to doesn’t pass through their village mon trim size, gatefold, case cover; warn against. Half of the building is before the vaccine reaches them, finding the perfect combination of done under water.