TEASER TUESDAY (WITH A TWIST): A True and Faithful Narrative

TEASER TUESDAY WITH A TWIST
(rules for myself)

• Grab a history book.
• Find a passage I love
• Share a few teaser sentences

Back in December, Jonathan Hunt at the School Library Journal Heavy Medal blog asked readers to share which books they feel have been robbed of a Newbery Medal in the past.

One that came up repeatedly is A True and Faithful Narrative by Kit Sturtevant. I love this book for a lot of reasons, one of them being that it serves as a beacon for me as a writer of history. For one thing, there is some seriously good research behind this book. And in addition, there is a philosophy of storytelling that I harken back to - the call to be true to the story I'm telling - not simply to tell my narrative as I might wish it to be.

From the first page, I give you.

"Later, when we heard what befell him, I remembered certain things: the colors of his clothes, the way the spring air had chilled his nose to brightness, how the sea-coal glowed in the grate, and the scents of turpentine and lavender wafting up from my apron. I remembered too, the softness of his fingers as he put his shillings upon my palm, and the way he let his hand linger on mine."

AWARDS DAY 2009

The American Library Association announced it's children's book awards today. I am not going to share all of them here because I don't remember them all. You can watch it here, however. I watched it in real time, which was fun!

I will comment on several things:
Yay for Kadier Nelson who won several awards for We Are The Ship! I was pulling for a Newbery for him. Alas! Auwe! It did not happen. But hey, this man is fantastic and will continue to excel!
To be honest, I'm way behind in my reading and not qualified to choose. I did not read the winner which is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaimen. You can watch a book trailer of The Graveyard Book here. Let me know what you think. Especially if you've already read it.

We authors do fantasize about winning the award but I knew I wasn't going to win because:
A. Although Healing Water has gotten consistently strong reviews, there was no award buzz around it at all!
B. I did not get an early morning phone call shocking the socks off my bare feet!

But it was still an exciting morning, especially when Ashley Bryan won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award. It's for "writers or illustrators of children's books published in the U.S. who have made substantial and lasting contributions to children's literature". Woo Hoo ! Go Ashley.

Ashley Bryan with my hubby at International Reading Association in Toronto.

I met this man twice and both times he gave me a private reading of a portion of his book, How God Fix Jonah. His West African dialect is so beautiful. This man is the heart of soul of gentle, generous, and gifted. You can read about one of my meetings with him here.

My biggest thrill during the awards announcement this morning was when he won his award!