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Newbery Award winning author Avi discusses the merits of historical fiction, the complexity of truth, and teases some upcoming books.

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Katherine Paterson, who won Newbery Medal for Bridge to Terabithia and Jacob Have I Loved, speaks about the impact of the prestigious award on her writing process and what book makes her most proud.

Katherine Paterson won her first Newbery Medal in 1978 for Bridge to Terabithia, followed by a Newbery Honor in 1979 for The Great Gilly Hopkins. Her second Newbery Medal was awarded in 1981 for Jacob Have I Loved (all Crowell). Over the course of her career, Paterson has been honored with many major award for children's book authors. Today, as the book world celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Newbery, she is one of only six writers to have received that prestigious medal twice.

Bridge to Terabithia was not your first major award. The Master Puppeteer won the National Book Award the same year that Bridge was published. Was the Newbery special in some way?
Yes, it was. When [my family] came from China to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, I was a very weird eight-year-old and very unhappy. My sanctuary was the library at Calvin H. Wiley School. It was the only place I was comfortable. I was surrounded by books, and a wonderful librarian worked there.

That was also the first place I saw Newbery gold on a book. I didn't know anything about the medal, but when I spotted that seal on other book covers, I realized I would be able to find stories that I would like.

I think the first Newbery Medal winner author I read was Robert Lawson, including his wonderful Ben and Me, about Benjamin Franklin and a mouse. And then there was [Rachel Field's] Hitty. Her First Hundred Years. I remember those stories with such delight. I never dreamed I would have a Newbery seal on one of my novels. When it actually happened, it was like that childhood thrill of finding a book with the gold.

In Stories of My Life, you wrote that when you won the Newbery, you decided that you could now buy fresh milk for your family rather than mixing dried milk and that, when you won your second Newbery, you could call friends long-distance whenever you pleased. Can you say a bit more about the effect of these awards on your life?
The first Newbery medal sort of did me in. It was overwhelming. I couldn't sleep. When I won the second one, I thought, "I'm not going to have any friends left. Why me, God?" It was like Job in reverse. I told myself, "It's too much for one person." When I got the call, I said to [former Cooperative Children's Book Center director] Ginny Moore Kruse, "You've got to be kidding." She answered, "I wouldn't kid about something like that."

After the first Newbery, the first person I met who had also won the medal said to me, "You know what comes with the medal, don't you? A divorce." And I didn't want a divorce. So when I won a second Newbery, I thought, "I really don't want a divorce."

In your Newbery acceptance speech for Bridge to Terabithia, you commented that Jess Aarons was more like you than any other character you had yet written. Can you say why you felt that way, and what was your connection with him?
He was a weird little kid, which I certainly was [growing up]. And he was afraid of death. As a child, I was terrified of death. I worried when I went to sleep at night that I would die [in my sleep]. I wrote Bridge to Terabithia the same year I was diagnosed with cancer. My children thought I was going to die; I didn't know if I was going to live or die. That was in the spring, and that summer [my son] David's friend was killed by lightning. So it was a year of death, and it all went into the book.

I've always been struck by the great act of generosity with which Bridge to Terabithia ends. Jess could easily have wanted to preserve the privacy, the secrecy, of Terabithia as a memorial to his friend Leslie, but instead he welcomes his little sister, May Belle. Can you say something about your decision to have your character do that?
I don't remember when I made that decision, but I think it was in the original, terrible version of the book that I sent to my editor, Virginia Buckley.

There's something about the gift of Terabithia that Leslie had given Jess that was not complete until he gave it away. I don't think I even knew at the time why that was the ending. So much of writing is subconscious. You look back and you wonder where that came from. I can't think of anything in my experience as a child or even as an adult that would be the seed of that scene.

You were already working on Jacob Have I loved when the Newbery for Bridge to Terabithia was announced. Did that announcement have an effect on your writing? Did it make it easier or harder to write?
I stopped writing. Jacob was the hardest book to write up to that point. It was just terrible-the first draft is always terrible. You have to recognize that. I thought, "[this book is] probably going to be published whether or not it's terrible and the only way I can prevent that is to send it anonymously to Virginia." I absolutely stopped writing after the second National Book Award [for The Great Gilly Hopkins]. How could this book stand up against three award winners in a row?

I think it was grief over my mother's death...that made it possible for me to start writing again. I had to have something to alleviate that pain. I thought, "Even if [this book] is not good, I need it for myself. Even if it's never published, that's all right." Virginia had never before asked me if I was working on anything. When she did, I said that I was but that I didn't know if it was any good. "Just promise me that you won't send it anonymously," she responded, which was just what I had determined I was going to do!

People always ask me which book is my favorite, and they always want me to say Bridge to Terabithia. It's very hard to choose. Whichever book I'm working on at the moment gets all my love and attention, and then it grows up and moves on. I can't tell you which book is my favorite, but I can tell you the one I'm proudest of, and that's Jacob Have I Loved. It was the most difficult to write and the most satisfying.

Rita Auerbach twice served on the Newbery Award Committee and has chaired ALA's Caldecott and Legacy Award Committees. She is currently a member of the Ezra Jack Keats Award Committee.

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Katherine Paterson on the Triumphs and Terrors of the Newbery The Newbery at 100

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Katherine Paterson, who won Newbery Medal for Bridge to Terabithia and Jacob Have I Loved, speaks about the impact of the prestigious award on her writing process and what book makes her most proud. Katherine Paterson won her first Newbery Medal in 1978 for Bridge to Terabithia, followed by a Newbery Honor in 1979 for The Great Gilly Hopkins.

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Christopher Paul Curtis reflects on his post-Newbery life, censorship attempts, and why his books, centering of African American history, are necessary, especially today.

Christopher Paul Curtis has been recognized by the Newbery committee three times. He was the recipient of a Newbery Honor in 1996 for The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 (Delecorte), and in 2008 for Elijah of Buxton (Scholastic). He received the Newbery Medal in 2000 for Bud, Not Buddy (Delacorte).

Curtis's award-winning fiction featuring African American families and children provides insight into the importance of history and its relationship to the present. In this interview, Curtis reflects on his post-Newbery life and offers insight into why his books, and their centering of African American history, are necessary, especially today.

What were some ways your life changed (if it did) after you won the Newbery Medal and the Newbery Honor? Did winning enable you to do things that you wouldn't have been able to do otherwise?
I don't know if other authors do this, but I approach life in much the same way I approach writing a novel. I'll come up with a scene or a scenario and start to imagine possible outcomes. When writing, I ask myself, "What would happen if this character did X?" Then I play through the consequences of that action.
I do the same thing with life events. In 1996, when The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 won a Newbery Honor, I played this game and went through all of the possibilities this momentous event could trigger.
I went from the lows (I'd be tooling around Flint, MI, stopping strangers on the street to say, "Psst, I wrote a book. I've got some copies in the trunk. Wanna buy one?") to the highs ("I'm gonna have to brush up on my Swedish and rent a tux for the Nobel Prize for Literature ceremony"). The hope, of course, being that reality would end up closer to the Scandinavian end of the scale.
And it was!
I was 42 years old and suddenly began traveling. I'd never been west of Chicago or south of Columbus or north of Saginaw, and I was now going all over the country. And when I looked up my name in the card catalog, there it was next to another Christopher Curtis, who wrote a book called How to Be Your Own Chimney Sweep!
When my next book, Bud Not Buddy, won the Newbery Medal, the changes were even greater. For the first time in my life, I wasn't living paycheck to paycheck and would shamelessly answer the phone not fearing bill collectors.
I was able to quit my "real" job and become a full-time writer!

What advice do you have for educators and families who might be facing challenges for teaching The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 or any of your books?
I feel as though I'm preaching to the choir, because I bet anyone who is reading this interview in School Library Journal is already well aware of the dire situation we're in. All I can say is keep fighting, be just as vigilant and assertive as the people who seem bound and determined to drag the whole country back into the 1950s. Oppose them at every opportunity. These are particularly scary times, and these are particularly scary people, but we can't allow ourselves to be bullied or intimidated. I believe it's a good sign when a book makes certain people uncomfortable.

Why do children need to read your books, especially now?
My loftiest ambition as a writer is to be a catalyst to get young people to feel even a tenth of what I feel when I'm reading a book that touches me. The fact that a reader is contributing to the story from their perspective makes a book personal and can light a flame in that person. I want to light that fire in someone.
When I'm speaking to a group of students and see the occasional examples of yawns and restlessness, I tell myself, that's okay, you might not be reaching that person, but if there's one student in the whole auditorium who my words reach, then my job is done. I feel the same way about my writing. All I need is that one [person].

You have pushed forward African American historical fiction for children quite powerfully. What opportunities do you still see for the genre? What still needs to be addressed? What hopes do you have for the genre?
Thank you! Historical fiction is indeed a powerful way to entice readers into worlds they probably otherwise wouldn't examine or know about. By placing a relatable character in an historical context, my goal is to have readers, young or not, come along for the ride. If done properly, this leads them to empathize with the characters, and a connection is formed. And these connections can open minds and expand points of view. Historical fiction serves as a perfect framework for telling countless stories.

Are there any books you think all children and young adults should be required to read?
At the top of my list would be Monster by Walter Dean Myers. Not only is this masterpiece a great read, but it is also a tool for those trying to understand how to write a great book. In an unconventional format, Myers builds suspense, asks relevant questions, and proves how deceptively simple language can grab hold of a reader.

Is there anyone currently writing for children and young adults, especially Black children and young adults, who excites you? If so, who are they, and why?
There are, of course, far too many writers doing beautiful work to name even a fraction of them. My advice would be to talk to a librarian-they are experts on this subject, and compared to theirs, my suggestions would not be so well-informed.
So as not to completely dodge the question, though, a few authors I have been enjoying lately are Sundee T. Frazier, Nic Stone, two Jerrys (Mr. Craft and Mr. Spinelli), Varian Johnson, and Laurie Halse Anderson. And, yes, I realize not all of them are African American, but cross-cultural reading is important for all children. After all is said and done, good writing is good writing.
Dr. Kimberly N. Parker is the Director of Crimson Summer Academy at Harvard University (MA)
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 the newbery at 100

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Christopher Paul Curtis: "Keep Fighting" | The Newbery at 100

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Christopher Paul Curtis reflects on his post-Newbery life, censorship attempts, and why his books, centering of African American history, are necessary, especially today. Christopher Paul Curtis has been recognized by the Newbery committee three times. He was the recipient of a Newbery Honor in 1996 for The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 (Delecorte), and in 2008 for Elijah of Buxton (Scholastic).

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Robin McKinley, who won a Newbery Honor for The Blue Sword in 1983 and the Newbery Medal in 1985 for The Hero and the Crown, discusses her introduction to the fantasy genre and her dedication to centering complex female characters.

Robin McKinley won a Newbery Honor for The Blue Sword in 1983 and the Newbery Medal in 1985 for The Hero and the Crown (both Greenwillow/HarperCollins). She has published 10 additional novels, several picture books, and a handful of short story collections. Whether she's reworking fairy tales and legends or writing original high fantasy, her writing is characterized by sensory imagery, vivid settings, and memorable female characters. Her work has impacted not just the Newbery canon, but the fantasy genre, too.
The Newbery Medal spoiled high fantasy readers with The High King (1969), The Grey King (1976), and The Hero and the Crown (1985), but it would be more than three decades before The Girl Who Drank the Moon (2017) would represent the genre again. What draws young readers to the fantasy genre and to high fantasy, in particular?
I am gleefully in the process of becoming a hermit and I haven't been a young reader in well over half a century; I can't generalize. When I was first looking for books to read I was drawn to fairy and folk tales-Oz and Dr. Dolittle, Edith Nesbit and Edward Eager.

When I was a kid, what we think of now as high fantasy hadn't been invented yet. And then I found Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings -ahead of the curve, I might add. This was in the early 1960s when American college students were about to turn LOTR into an international phenomenon. One of them was the elder brother of my best friend in junior high, and he sent her LOTR one volume at a time over Christmas, birthday, and Christmas again. No, the local library didn't have it. Yes, we had to wait a year and a half to find out how it ended.

The simple answer to what was, and still is, so attractive about fantasy is the otherness of it-the otherness and the bigness. The variety. The possibility. Kids are naturally wild imaginative dreamers, yearners after greatness, even if they're not sure what sort they're yearning after.

My view may be exaggerated by the sort of child I was, the sorts of friends I had, and the kids-and grown-ups-who talk to me now as the author of fantasy stories they have enjoyed (or, in a few cases, not enjoyed).

Ordinary real life, with the laundry and bills to pay and taking the trash out-or the homework and the mean teachers and the cliquey school politics-can feel stifling. Fantasy is one way to take flight out of the ordinary. It's not the only way, but it's a very good one for those of us with minds and imaginations built on those lines. LOTR undoubtedly changed my life. It is far from perfect-it is, for example, one of the places where my burning need for capable, interesting, active women characters in the books I read came from-but when I was 11, it gave me wings.

The audience for the Newbery goes up to-and includes-the age of 14. Some people might argue that your books push up against that boundary, but fantasy readers tend to be ambivalent about such age recommendations with adults reading children's books and children reading adult books. What's your take on this phenomenon?
I don't like hard boundaries. I'm afraid I think the idea that Newbery books are only for readers up to the age of 14 is nonsense, and I would hazard that all the real readers out there-including hard-working librarians trying to get the right books into the right hands-agree with me. It doesn't even seem to me a very useful guideline. I appreciate that not every teacher or YA librarian can read every book, but a thus far and no farther is a door slamming shut.

I do think that kids should have the chance to be kids for as long as their age says they're kids (I realize many children do not have this chance), and this does require some adult direction. Most of my books can be and are read by precocious preteens, but I really don't want kids that young reading Sunshine or Deerskin.

While your debut novel, Beauty, did not receive Newbery recognition it is arguably your most popular book and has become a seminal influence on the fantasy subgenre of novel-length fairy tale retellings (which you further contributed to with Deerskin, Rose Daughter, and Spindle's End). What is the enduring appeal of fairy tales? And what is gained in telling familiar stories in new ways?
There's been a lot of twaddle written about fairy tales (get thee behind me, Bruno Bettelheim, thou patriarchal git). I will add a little of my own, saying that while fantasy takes you out, fairy tales take you in. Fairy tales tell you things about human nature and the human condition that mere reality can't reach. That bears a lot of retelling.

However, both my book mail and my sales figures disagree with you that Beauty is my most popular book. I am happy (and relieved) to say that I get book mail for everything I've written-the huge majority of it positive, but with the occasional grumble or snarl-and from readers of all ages. What might have been interesting, 40-plus years ago, if I'd thought of it, was to keep a tally of how much mail I get for the fairy tale retellings & how much for the more straightforward fantasy. Too late now.

Your other books continue to demonstrate great range within the fantasy genre, from Sunshine to Chalice to Pegasus,each of which has passionately devoted fans. You are also an accomplished writer of short stories, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention that your collections with your late husband Peter Dickinson-Water and Fire-are personal favorites of mine. Do you have a particular fondness for any of your books? And would you care to share anything that may be in the works?
The usual response to which of one's own books is or are favorites is that it's like asking which of one's children one prefers. I'd take it in a different direction. It's like asking which you like better, zebras or wallpaper? Having just been through a monster house renovation, I never want to think about wallpaper again, although I'm extremely pleased with what I chose and the gloriously precision-minded wallpaperer put on my walls. But that's the mood I'm in. Wallpaper is good. So are zebras.

The years since my husband died have been a bit rough, and now there's a global pandemic to oppress all of us. But at least one private thing is sorting itself out. I don't know how long the novel I'm writing is going to take me; it's very much a departure and is very demanding in all sorts of new ways. But I'm very glad to be storytelling again.
Jonathan Hunt is a coordinator of library media services at the San Diego County Office of Education. He served on the 2006 Newbery committee. You can follow him on Twitter @jhunt24.

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Robin McKinley Seeks to Create Boundary-Breaking Fantasy | The Newbery at 100

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Robin McKinley, who won a Newbery Honor for The Blue Sword in 1983 and the Newbery Medal in 1985 for The Hero and the Crown, discusses her introduction to the fantasy genre and her dedication to centering complex female characters.

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Linda Sue Park: Children Love Books with Fierce Adoration | The Newbery at 100

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Linda Sue Park on the Newbery’s gifts, learning what it means to be Korean American, and that fan who read her book 62 times.

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The Crossover author on growing up with poetry, winning the Newbery, and the five Black contemporary poets every young person should read.

My career changed. Perhaps a week before I got that call about The Crossover, I was looking on different job sites.I'd been laid off probably about a year before. When The Crossover came out, I began to get a lot more interest in school visits. Prior to that, I'd done five to 10 [visits] per year. Afterwards, I began to get a lot more interest in visiting schools

(Sept. 2022, Little, Brown), the first book in a trilogy. I cannot wait for readers to go on that journey. It was the hardest thing I've ever written. It's the saga of an African family told through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy. I'm sick of people writing about the middle of our story as if that's the beginning. We all are familiar with the American part of African Americans, but we ain't as up on the African part. My job is to tell that story.

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Kwame Alexander Newbery at 100 Newbery The Crossover The Undefeated

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Kwame Alexander My Purpose and Passion Is Creating Community Newbery at 100

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The Crossover author on growing up with poetry, winning the Newbery, and the five Black contemporary poets every young person should read. My career changed. Perhaps a week before I got that call about The Crossover, I was looking on different job sites.I'd been laid off probably about a year before.

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Jack Gantos has made elementary and middle grade readers, along with their parents, teachers, and librarians, laugh out loud for decades. Whether writing picture books, beginner readers, or middle grade fiction, Gantos knows how to calibrate character and circumstance to craft protagonists readers recognize and relish. Since 1978, the author has taught and mentored generations of writers while achieving critical acclaim: a Michael L. Printz Honor, a Robert F. Sibert Honor, a National Book Award Finalist, and a 2001 Newbery Honor for Joey Pigza Loses Control. Gantos's autobiographical historical novel Dead End in Norvelt (both Farrar, Straus and Giroux)received the 2012 Newbery Medal.

In what ways did winning the Newbery change how you view your body of work (or "corpus," to quote your Newbery acceptance speech) and the content of your work?
Who would not like all of their books to be medal winners? But I am very fortunate: I have written the "Rotten Ralph" picture books and they are still in print and being read. The "Jack Henry" five volumes of short stories are still in print and being read. Writing Radar is used as a guide to writing in schools across the country. My drug smuggling/prison memoir, Hole in My Life, won awards and is widely read and takes me into high schools and prisons all over the country. The "Joey Pigza" series of books has won awards and is still in print and being read by some pretty lively readers! (I get a lot of letters from those readers). I think the answer to that question is always the same: Have I written the best book I can? Will readers be moved by it?
What is "real" in the Norvelt of Dead End in Norvelt? Where does your real life end and the world building begin?
"If you don't know your history, anyone can lie to you and call it the truth."Miss Walker

The community of Norvelt (named for Eleanor Roosevelt) as I wrote about it was shaped by my childhood memories of living there-mostly with my grandparents. After my first grade year in Norvelt, my parents moved the family to Barbados and St. Lucia and then to Florida, but we often returned for Christmas and summers to spend time with my mother's family, who lived in the house where Dead End in Norvelt is set.

In 1962 I was 11 years old, and the world was living in peril-history was in the making. The Cuban Missile Crisis was immense in my world. At the time, we were living in Florida, roughly 100 miles away from nuclear missiles aimed at us. I recall my teacher pointing at the classroom clock and saying, "The nuclear war begins at noon." We were terrified. My father had been in World War II, so I was well aware of the destruction of war from his stories of battles in the South Pacific. Fortunately, JFK managed to win the game of "nuclear chicken" with Khrushchev and Castro.

Miss Volker was based on a great woman, Miss Walker. She was a nurse, retired, feisty, and well educated and had arthritic hands. My mother would make me visit her to help her out around the house. She was a big reader of history and was always fond of saying, "If you don't know your history, anyone can lie to you and call it the truth." And my mother was always lecturing me on the importance of being truthful. Which is why I read a lot of history, and still do.

Miss Volker's insistence that everyone needs to know the truths and lessons of history foresaw what is happening in our own time, where lies are systematically passed off as truths-and the "news" is distorted for political gains. She was insistent about parsing facts with "primary sources." She had a big influence on me. And she did warm her arthritic hands in hot wax to relieve some of the pain, and to give her fingers some temporary flexibility. My memory of her, and respect for her values and intellect, really impressed me then and continue to guide me.
Miss Walker's wisdom certainly does ring true today, in ways that perhaps couldn't be imagined in 1962 or even as recently as 2012, when Dead End in Norvelt won the Newbery. Whilethe novel is a work of autobiographical historical fiction set in 1962 during the Cold War, readers absorb a lot of additional information about the Great Depression and World War II a generation earlier. The novel is also peppered with facts about other places and times, thanks to Jack's reading and Miss Volker's obituaries. What are some of the connections today's readers of the novel, likely not born when the book was published, might make between past and present?
"The facts nourish free will."Miss Volker

When planning to write Dead End in Norvelt, I looked over the time frame for the book from beginning to end, and the calendar of historic events I might be able to include. As you know, Miss Volker linked her passionate "This Day in History" editorials onto the dignified obituaries of the old ladies who mysteriously died in Norvelt. I had a long list of historic events that I wanted to include, but often I could not fit them in because the dates would overlap and ruin the pacing of the novel-plus, I could only fit in so many dead old ladies, and I had to concern myself with selecting a wide variety of history bits in order to sustain the reader's interest.

When the community of Norvelt was built during the Great Depression of the 1930s, it was a "helping hands" community, with a communal farm, and factory, schools, and houses. The government got into the business of helping impoverished folks who were out of work. Social, religious, and other non-governmental agencies were also involved. There may have been a hundred "Norvelt-type" towns across the country. But the United States was no social utopia. Despite a rancorous Civil War, the bloodiest war in our history of wars, African Americans and Native Americans-and many other immigrant minorities, including the poor-were not provided an equal "Norvelt" safety net.

Miss Volker saw both the positive side of good government and the negative side. She saw the positives in balancing capitalism and socialism. She saw the deep goodness in people helping people, and the negative in people hurting people. And she believed that equality for all, opportunity for all, education for all, would provide self-respect for all, and harmony among people. Plus, she also believed that it was the individual's responsibility to check their own facts-to read books, to think for themselves, to separate out truth and good intentions from propaganda, lies, and the devious consequences of manipulative narratives, like those in some of the radio broadcasts in her time and the vile and viral "fake news" broadcasts in ours.

Today, the propaganda wars are fought non-stop by big-mouth influencers who may or may not be honest. In response to those who distort honesty for their own gain, the greatest individual liberty Americans can achieve is best expressed in seeking the truth and pursuing values that are healthy for themselves and for their community.

I hope that readers of Dead End in Norvelt seek out the positive connections between the good work they find people achieving in the world today, and the best intentions of individuals and governments in our past. When I was gathering day-by-day research for tragic historic events, there was no day on the calendar where there was not an equal example of the best of humanity. As Miss Volker would say, "Good things do happen all day long, but they don't always make the news."
Mary Ann Cappiello is a professor of language and literacy at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, an author, and a blogger at "The Classroom Bookshelf." Follow her on Twitter @MA_Cappiello.

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Jack Gantos on the Real Norvelt, Propaganda, and Good News | The Newbery at 100

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Jack Gantos has made elementary and middle grade readers, along with their parents, teachers, and librarians, laugh out loud for decades. Whether writing picture books, beginner readers, or middle grade fiction, Gantos knows how to calibrate character and circumstance to craft protagonists readers recognize and relish.

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Susan Cooper: Writing Fantasy Is a “Voyage Fed by My Unconscious” | The Newbey at 100

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Cooper, author of the 1974 Newbery Honor novel The Dark Is Rising and 1976 medalist The Grey King, talks about how her World War II childhood shaped her witing and why

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Spinelli, known for spot-on portrayals of early adolescence, talks about unexpected rewards of the Newbery Medal, "star people," and creating harmony with characters and story elements.
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Jerry Spinelli won the Newbery Medal in 1991 for Maniac Magee (Little, Brown) and a Newbery Honor in 1998 for Wringer (HarperCollins). He has published 36 books for young readers, and his middle grade fiction is widely praised for its depiction of early adolescence.
It's been several decades now since Maniac Magee won the 1991 Newbery Medal. Looking back on that experience, how has it shaped your career as a writer? What has been the greatest good fortune to come from the experience of writing Maniac Magee, the Newbery Medal, and the subsequent reader responses?
I've never again looked at want ads for a job. It made my ultimate dream possiblethat is, not just to get published, but to make a living writing stories. I've come also to cherish unexpected developments that few ever hear of. Hundreds of copies of Maniac Magee, for example, were distributed throughout South Africa as part of the effort to dismantle Apartheid.
Few authors win Newbery recognition, and fewer still are recognized multiple times. But later in the same decade that Maniac Magee won, Wringer scored a 1998 Newbery Honor. What does it feel like to belong to such an exclusive group of authors? And how did this Newbery experience compare with your first recognition?
The Newbery Honor experience is special in its own lower-key way. You're almost leading the parade; you're perched on the backseat of the second convertible.
The 90s were a good decade for the Newbery- lots of middle grade fiction with tremendously broad child appeal. That description just as easily applies to the entire Jerry Spinelli canon, particularly with books like Crash, Loser, Milkweed, and Eggs, among others. What are the necessary ingredients for a Jerry Spinelli book? And how come they so consistently resonate with young readers?
I thought once that if I had to describe my novels in one word, I would choose "harmony." Harmony among characters and among story elements. Consistently resonate? I guess the readers could best answer that. I just try to write a good story. They must recognize themselves and their lives. I remember a reader once wrote to me: "How do you know what it's like to be me?"

Despite a lack of Newbery recognition, Stargirl has had incredible staying power. In fact, it may be your most enduringly popular book. How do you explain the strong affection for this title? Are there other books that seem to have struck a chord with readers - or that are a little closer to your own heart?

In 1966 I began writing notes for a story about a boy who lives underground (subway, tunnels). Thirty-four years later it emerged as a novel called Stargirl. It strikes a chord because there are a lot of star people out there. Loser seems to be another favorite about a distinctive kid.
Your most recent book, Dead Wednesday (Knopf, 2021), has received some great buzz from fans and critics alike, perhaps placing you once again on the Newbery radar. It's been praised for your trademark humor, sensitivity, and character development- with an interesting premise. Can you tell us how this book came about? And what can we look forward to in the future?
The idea came out of a letter from a teacher, whose school has a "Dead Wednesday" every year [where 8th grade students are assigned the identity of a teen "who died a preventable death" the year before]. I just followed the idea where it wanted to go...and to this day regret that I lost the letter and so cannot thank that angel teacher by name.

Jonathan Hunt is a coordinator of library media services at the San Diego County Office of Education. He served on the 2006 Newbery committee. Follow him on Twitter .

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Jerry Spinelli I Just Try to Write a Good Story The Newbery at 100

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Spinelli, known for spot-on portrayals of early adolescence, talks about unexpected rewards of the Newbery Medal, "star people," and creating harmony with characters and story elements. ​​ Jerry Spinelli won the Newbery Medal in 1991 for Maniac Magee (Little, Brown) and a Newbery Honor in 1998 for Wringer (HarperCollins).

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Kadohata reflects on winning the Newbery, writing longhand, and how her work has enriched her connection to her Japanese American parents and their experience.

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The marvelously versatile Lois Lowry is the author of more than 40 books for children and young adults. She has written picture books, humorous contemporary stories, historical fiction, and realistic and futuristic novels. No matter the genre, her books tend to feature kids trying to make sense of a complicated world. Lowry has said that all of her books are fundamentally about "the importance of human connections."

Lowry was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1990 for Number the Stars and again in 1994 for The Giver (both HMH). Her latest books, On the Horizon: World War II Reflections and The Willoughbys Return were both published by Clarion in 2020. She recently published in response to discussions about including books with "opposing views" of events, including the Holocaust, in a Texas school district.

Having written two Newbery Award-winning titles that have been widely embraced in schools throughout the country (and the wider world, for that matter), did you even have an inkling that you'd also be spending decades as a freedom of speech advocate, justifying the presentation of the books' important themes in the emotional and intellectual development of young people? How has the reception of these titles in other countries differed from those in the United States?

I began to respond that although both of these Newbery titles have been translated into 30-plus languages, I've never been aware of any attempts at censorship or banning in any other country, even as that phenomenon has become so pervasive in the USA. Then I remembered that there was a time some years ago when I was notified that government officials in Turkey had entered a school, gone to the school library, and removed Number the Stars from its shelves. Turkey at that time had installed a very conservative, increasingly authoritarian, and anti-Semitic government. I remember feeling that that was a chilling reminder of 1933, when in Germany books were publicly burned while bands played in celebration. Just last week, though, happily, I did a Zoom presentation with a classroom in Istanbul. My books seem to be alive and well in Turkey these days, despite that unnerving earlier experience.

Two months ago, amazingly, I zoomed with a school in Tehran. Recently I got a letter from a man in Russia who described reading The Giver with his son. So at the moment it seems to be only in this country that freedom of expression is threatened. I'd like to say that I could not have imagined this-but of course I had, when I wrote a book in 1993 that described a future world where there was no literature anymore.

Some writers actually see being included on a "most frequently challenged" list as a badge of honor. Are you among them? If not, what do you think is going on with the huge jump in the numbers of challenges and bannings here at home in the past year? Do you have any advice for beleaguered school librarians, assuming, of course, that there are librarians in these places?

Badge of honor? No, I don't experience it that way at all. I read those lists, and my name often on them, with enormous sadness. I read them with a feeling that our children may be losing something very precious as the world of the imagination is increasingly endangered. Of course the jump in bannings and challenges coincides with, and is symptomatic of, the much larger danger as democracy itself wobbles and is threatened.

Librarians, in my opinion, are the heroes and heroines in this battle. Me, I sit alone in my house, replying to the letters and emails that accuse me of child abuse, or immorality-and once even of being the Anti-Christ. I yawn or chuckle or sigh or groan while I do so. But librarians have no such luxury; they're out there on the front lines, addressing school boards, splinter groups, and misinformed parents, and doing so with intelligence and wisdom and information, even when their very jobs are at stake. Such courage. Such heartbreak!

I think it's really rare for books to have even more relevance and impact on young readers 30 years after they were written. Number the Stars was set during World War II, and The Giver in "a somewhat distant future," but they both have vitally important things to say about personal freedoms, security, and our perceptions of the past. Were you already thinking about the explosion of misinformation in the late 80's and early 90's?
No, I hadn't a clue that we would find ourselves in such a quagmire. In 1991-four years after I had written Number the Stars and with The Giver two years in the future-my older son, a U.S. Air Force pilot, wrote to me from Saudi Arabia, where he was based during the first Gulf War. He asked me to send some paperback books and videos, because the pilots needed ways to spend their time between missions. But he reminded me that anything I sent would have to pass through very strict censors. Though I did round up a batch of bland material to send, I pondered how sadly limited it was, how un-thought-provoking. Yet I never for one second thought that in this country we would begin to move toward such repression. Even when I wrote The Giver, I didn't realize how woefully prophetic it would come to be.

At least one of your books, The Giver, has been made into a major motion picture. It has also been adapted for theatrical pieces, graphic novels, and the opera. Have you enjoyed these interpretations? Can you talk a bit about how the experience of reading the book is different from other formats.
And a ballet as well! I've always enjoyed watching the process (of course sometimes I've been more privy to behind-the-scenes stuff than others). But I learned early on not to wed myself to verisimilitude. A different genre-drama, musical theater, dance, film, opera-is just that: different. It simply can't be the same as a book, which always has the advantage of being able to enter the character, to feel what the protagonist feels, understand his/her thoughts. So over the years I have learned to appreciate the fine moments...and there have been many...in the adaptations, but to let go of any yearning that they try to replicate the book.

The Giver was filmed in South Africa, and they kindly invited me there to watch some of the filming. It was a very special time, the same time in 2013 that Nelson Mandela died. Later, when I watched the finished film, there is a scene when The Giver gives the boy visions and memories of strength and courage. And then! There was Nelson Mandela, newly released from prison, dancing with joy in the streets of Cape Town. It was an immensely powerful moment for me, seeing that, and it was something that I could never have portrayed in words on a page.

I do cringe, I confess, when something goes way too far. I remember reading a review of a stage production of The Giver and the reviewer mentioned how much the audience had loved the dancing hamburgers. Oh my, I'm so glad I didn't go to see that one.

Do you have a favorite Newbery winner? I'm sure our readers would love to know what it is.
I go way back! And I had a mother who had been a teacher before she married. So my childhood was filled with books, and she knew how to choose them-she knew what Newbery meant. As a young child I adored the Eleanor Estes books about the Moffetts-two of those were Newbery Honors. Then, in 1946, when I was nine: Strawberry Girl. And the author, Lois Lenski, shared my name! That did it for me. Maybe that's not a purely literary reason for loving a book. But I still smile when I get an email, as I do occasionally, from a child who says, "I love your book Strawberry Girl ...and I have to write back and explain: "That wasn't me. I wish it were."

Luann Toth is a former longtime reviews editor at School Library Journal. She recently chaired the 2021 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award committee.

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The marvelously versatile Lois Lowry is the author of more than 40 books for children and young adults. She has written picture books, humorous contemporary stories, historical fiction, and realistic and futuristic novels. No matter the genre, her books tend to feature kids trying to make sense of a complicated world.