In our one-on-one interview, British author (and HarperCollins UK children’s book editor) Lake opens up to SLJ about his reaction to the YMA win, his inspirations for such a complex undertaking, the importance of staying true to oneself, and his next projects on the horizon.

What was your reaction to the Printz win? Are you familiar with that award?
I’m ashamed to confess that, though I knew of the Caldecott and the Newbery, I had only vaguely heard of the Printz and it wasn’t enormously on my radar. And anyway, I just assumed that The Fault in Our Stars or Code Name Verity  would win it… and I’m still living in fear of John Green fans turning up on my doorstep with pitchforks. [laughs] I assumed that the fact that [In Darkness] was obscure was why they had chosen it, that The Fault in Our Stars had enough of the purse, I guess.

Did you know that many in the audience at the YMAs were shocked Fault did not win?
I’m not surprised! I could kind of tell from Twitter as well, and because I work in publishing, I just thought it was an absolute lock for that award. I haven’t read Code Name Verity  yet but it is on my pile to read, and I read The Fault in Our Stars and I loved it. He is kind of an inspiration.

I think of anyone who writes young adult fiction, [John Green] changed what it was possible to do in a young adult book. When I started out at HarperCollins, Looking for Alaska was one of the first books I read, and I read all of his books. 

What inspired you to write this story?
It was two separate strands. The first: I did a Masters in linguistics and one of the nodules was on Creole and those kind of languages and so that got me interested in Haiti and reading about people like Toussaint L’Ouverture, and reading Wade Davis and Zora Neale Hurston. That was 10 years ago but that fascination with Toussaint L’Ouverture was kind of percolating at the back of my mind.

He is this absolutely extraordinary figure. He was 53 when the revolution started; he had, up until then, looked after horses. And he taught himself to read, taught himself to write, and ended up becoming a general very quickly and then rose to lead the revolutionary army. He was a very intelligent, driven man; he defeated not only the French army but also the British and the Spanish as well, and he ended up freeing the country. For a long time I just thought that was absolutely extraordinary that a man who is 53 could just completely reinvent himself in that way. So for ages I wanted to do something about him but I wasn’t quite sure what it would be, and I didn’t want to write a biography.

The second thing was the earthquake—and the utter horror that most people felt, that this terrible humanitarian tragedy happening to a country that had already had such a bad history. And particularly, it was when two or three days later, the news started doing stories on people who had dug out of the rubble. I saw one of them being interviewed on TV and they said ‘There was a point there where I couldn’t tell whether I was thinking thoughts or speaking aloud.” And I thought that was just the most extraordinary thing for someone to say. In fact, I stole it and used it for Shorty in the book.

How did the interwoven story start to flow for you?
I just became fascinated—or obsessed—with the idea of what that might be like and, since I couldn’t arrange for my house to fall down around me, I thought the only way that I could experience it was to write it down and explore it imaginatively. So I just started writing the story of Shorty and his voice came very quickly, and then I just had this unshakeable idea that was also the story of  Toussaint L’Ouverture. I just was convinced that there was something that linked these two characters.

Toussaint died in a French dungeon, so at a certain point in time this boy and this man are metaphorically and literally in the same place—they’re both trapped underground in the darkness.

The only thing that is dividing them is the mere fact of 200 years of time. I think time can sometimes be kind of porous and thin, so it was that idea of these two people who are in the same place. And then as well, I am very interested in voodoo—real voodoo as opposed to movie zombie voodoo, this whole notion of being ridden by spirits and being possessed.

It all just fit together then because I thought suddenly, that there’s an explanation for why, at the age of 53, he abruptly [became] this great military leader. So lots of things suddenly fit into place and in quite a satisfying way, and I just had to sit down and write furiously for about 6 weeks.

This book is so complex and so dark; were you surprised that it became a YA book?
I was more surprised that anyone wanted to publish it at all! With the “Blood Ninja” books, I approached it as someone who worked in publishing, and I was thinking that there are lots of books like Twilight but there isn’t as much for boys, and everything about it was very conscious and deliberate, trying to design something that might suit the market. Whereas with In Darkness I was writing it for me, really. I think, to be honest, that my agent didn’t really think anyone would want to publish it either. But Bloomsbury were hugely enthusiastic from the outset. Here I was completely ignoring what publishers might want and suddenly they very quickly wanted it. Maybe there’s a lesson in there.

In  Darkness  in the UK was published as an adult book and a young adult book. It’s the same book but with different jackets; it’s increasingly something that is done in publishing in the UK. Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner has young adult version and now it’s coming out as an adult edition, and they do that with people like Patrick Ness. I think people are still trying to work out this genre and where the boundary lies between young adult and adult. I didn’t really know who the book was for, and neither did my agent. So it was sent to adult lists and young adult lists. Essentially, I’ve always written for younger teenagers, and this was the first young adult [title].

Can you speak about the role of hope in the story?
I very consciously wanted it to be a hopeful book. I don’t know if I one hundred percent succeeded because a lot of reviews focused on how incredibly miserable and violent the book is—and it is in many ways—but I always saw it as a hopeful book, and it doesn’t have an unhopeful ending. So that was always very much the intention, and consciously the intention. Everyone has difficult things that they’ve gone through in their lives and, for several years before I wrote the books, there were several difficult things in my life and I’d moved beyond them.

And so I supposed I wanted to, without wanting to sound too evangelical, say something to teenagers about how you can move past bad things that happen. And yeah, I very much wanted it to be a message; we ended up using it as a strapline on the UK edition of the book, this idea that—on this planet anyway because we circle the sun—there’s always light on the other side of darkness and you don’t have to wait for very long for darkness  to be replaced by light.

What projects are you are most excited about working on next as author or editor?
Ooh…There are two actually, one that I’m editing for HarperCollins that’s coming out early 2014 is a YA, beautifully written book by a young, male British writer, who I kind of think could be the British John Green. And that’s amazing. It’s a debut, and it’s astonishing.

And the other thing is my book, which hasn’t come out in the states yet, called Hostage Three (Bloomsbury, fall 2013). That’s about a girl who lives in London; her father is a banker. He’s lost his job and he buys this super yacht and decides that they’re going to sail around the world with the girl’s stepmother. Her mother has died in uncertain circumstances not that long before; she hates the step mother so it’s kind of a fairytale element and then they get about 3 months into their journey and they’re kidnapped by Somali pirates. Then to add to all the complications she thinks she’s falling in love with the youngest pirate…and it all just then goes horribly wrong, obviously, as it would. It’s much more of a straight thriller than In Darkness but I’m proud of it, so hopefully people will like it!

And so I’m kind of two books on from In Darkness, weirdly, and the thing that I’m most excited about, that I’m writing now, is tentatively called Your Little Princess; it’s actually set in America. The entire story is constructed around a massive twist; the teenage protagonist gets hit by a car, this then triggers her mum discharging her from hospital, bundling her into the car with all their belongings and saying ‘we’re going on the run.” And the mystery is why they suddenly have to run.

So I’m sticking to the genre of thrillers with an emotional first-person core to them.

Has the experience of being an author changed you as an editor?
Yes, it has actually. Mostly in the sense that it has made me much, much more sensitive in the way that I couch what I’m saying, because I am hyper aware now how even the most softly phrased suggestions can feel devastating for an author. It’s made me express things very carefully, and as much as possible in conversation rather than in writing. It’s made me very, very aware. I can’t edit myself, and so I absolutely have to have someone else who reads it who can say ‘the shape of this isn’t quite right’ or ‘there’s something missing here.’ I genuinely think that all writers need an editor.

Since the YMAs, have you seen an increased interest from the U.S.? The awards are critically important to the library and publishing worlds.
So I terrifyingly gather! I [have] spent a lot of time on the phone to people, lots of sudden renewed interest and I gather that they’re reprinting it. It does make an impact in that way. I didn’t quite realize that at first, but it does seem that suddenly I’m spending a lot of time on the phone, which is nice!

LeVar Burton shows off his book-themed iPad case during our interview at the Essex House Hotel in NYC, February 6, 2013.

Thirty years after its debut, most of us can still remember every word of the theme song and hum its melody. That’s the legacy of, and the power behind, the Reading Rainbow brand, says LeVar Burton, host and executive producer of the original Peabody Award-winning PBS television series and now co-founder of its reiteration as a subscription-based tablet app. Burton’s RRKidz launched the app late last year exclusive to the iPad—but that’s only the very beginning of the brand’s rosy future, he tells School Library Journal.

We sat down one-on-one with Burton, Curator in Chief of RR Kidz, last week at New York City’s historic Essex House Hotel while he was in town to promote the miniseries-themed episode of the PBS series Pioneers of Television alongside fellow Roots actors Louis Gossett Jr., Leslie Uggams, and Ben Vareen.

Over a pot of green tea, Burton took time out of his busy schedule to give SLJ an interactive demo of the new app and to chat candidly about children’s literacy; what’s next for the Reading Rainbow brand as it eyes expansion to other platforms, devices, and the Web; his ongoing mission to create lifelong readers; and his efforts to advocate for access to books and technology for all kids.

You’ve said previously that Reading Rainbow was the hardest, most rewarding thing you’ve done in show business. Is that still true for you?
I had to learn a new business. I had to learn the technology business. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. When you think about reinventing a well-known and beloved brand, the thing that kept us up nights was the fear of failing to meet expectations. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done…and the most rewarding. I love that I am able to focus at this point in my life on the mission, the continuing mission, of getting kids excited about literature and reading.

After the show was cancelled, did you immediately know you wanted to re-launch the brand?
It was a result of the outcry. That’s when [business partner] Mark and I looked at each other and recognized, ‘Wait, there’s thirst out there for the brand.’ So we knew we were going to do something with the brand, and we knew it wasn’t television. We knew it was in the digital space, but we didn’t know what it was. We thought Web, we thought virtual world.  But when the iPad came out, it was like, ‘Holy moley! Now, we don’t have to search for a vertical, we have the vertical.’ Reading Rainbow is about the exploration of literature, quality literature for kids that is tied to the real world. Bingo.

So creating a new version of the TV show wasn’t considered?
Reading Rainbow, when we [started as] a television show, it was about using the prevailing technology of the day to steer kids back in the direction of the written word. That technology happened to be TV. In the 80s, that’s where kids were hanging out. Today? Not so much. Television is just one screen that they interact with during the course of the day.

What was your favorite episode of the show, or new video that you have filmed for the app?
Which is your favorite niece or nephew? We did so many cool things! I learned to fly a plane. I learned to scuba dive.

We are the only people ever to film the changing of the guard ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington, DC. They let us take our cameras into the old guard quarters underneath the tomb, where that special regiment of soldiers prepares. They let us into the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, where we make our nation’s money. They let me in with my camera! We’re Reading Rainbow! I think we have earned that kind of access because we earn that kind of respect.

Being the host of Reading Rainbow is the best job in the universe. And that comes from the man who was the chief engineer of the Enterprise.

Is there a book you featured on the show that was special, that you think all kids should read?
Amazing Grace [by Mary Hoffman, Penguin,1991]. Why? Because it is an opportunity to talk to kids about the value of your own unique identity.

Can you tell us about your experience with Jimmy Fallon (who once performed the theme song in the style of Jim Morrison, and interviewed Burton on air for the debut of the app)?
We made history! We debuted this app on the Jimmy Fallon show. No one has ever done that before—you promote your book, you promote your movie, your television series. It was the first for an app. Jimmy and his sister are huge fans.

PBS impacted my generation so much, but that’s not necessarily true of today’s generation of kids. Do you agree?
Exactly. I love that you brought up PBS. When we were growing up, our parents knew that they could put us in front of the TV and turn on PBS and walk out of the room, knowing that they didn’t have to know the name of the show, they just knew that it was good for you. My dream for our kids is that we become like a PBS for parents in the digital realm.

Can you tell us about the new app and what it offers kids?
At this point, we have over 250 books and over 30 videos, and we add three new books and one video every week, because it’s a subscription model and we have to continually refresh the content. And we also announced our partnership with National Geographic Kids. I narrate about 12 percent of the titles, and I have handpicked the rest of the storytelling team. They’re storytellers that I know.

We know the kids want the bells and whistles; that’s why these devices are so engaging, because they’re interactive. So we have spent an awful lot of time thinking about what way we wanted those interactions to be. When you are in the ‘read to me’ mode, you’ll see a prompt [to control movement of features on the screen] but in the ‘read by myself’ mode, you have access right away; you’re in control of the environment. So that’s something that’s really, really important.

The idea is that it is about adventuring, exploring, and finding books that you want to read.

The way each book is displayed and handled on the platform seems very carefully planned. Can you tell us more about the process of bringing books into the app?
[It’s] very, very purposeful. Every decision that you see reflected in the app has been incredibly—to the best of our ability—incredibly well thought out.

One of the challenges is the different format sizes of books and fitting them all in. The iPad is not letterboxed, so it’s an odd size, so there have been a gajillion (actual count, a gajillion) problems we have had to solve in putting this together.

We have a team now of 11. We built a tool to convert PDFs into books. We’re acquiring a tool now to inject new content—already made digital books—into our distribution platform which is, after all, what we are. We’re a distribution platform for books, videos, and games. There’s a game in every book, in that there’s a matching game at the end of every book using the book’s original art.

Have you tabled some books that you would really like to feature?
Yes! We’re waiting for our technology to improve. Absolutely. And guess what? It will.

Has it been difficult to get the book rights from the publishers for the new app?
It’s gotten a lot easier. We went to the publishing companies and I said, ‘Look, you know me. You know how I feel about children’s literature. I know this is all really new and scary for y’all. I’m here to help you in a couple of ways. Number one, we want to convert your book, and we want to test this out. Now you are our launch partners. Give us your book. We will treat them as if they were our own, with the same respect that we did on the television series. Also, we know that you or anyone who is producing a digital children’s book these days has a basic and fundamental problem of discovery. In a sea of millions of apps, how do you get your book, your app seen? We’ve got a pretty well-known brand featuring quality children’s literature and we have a brand ambassador, which is our unfair advantage.’ [laughs]

At the moment, the iPad is the only device that is widely accessible for those with disabilities.
For now. At this very now moment, yes. But that’s going to change, so rapidly.

So once other devices catch up, Reading Rainbow will expand to them?
We’re coming out on an Android platform very, very,  soon. We haven’t made the official announcement yet but the platform partner we will be announcing is a market leader.

As you know, our audience is librarians. Are you familiar with that group and the work they do getting books into the hands…
…of kids! And getting the right book into the hand of the right kid. Yes! See it’s the librarian who sees the kids on a regular basis and gets to know a little about the kid and can really point the child in the right direction, because a librarian is always trying to serve the needs of the reader. So that element of curation that is so important to us.

We feel like we are helping kids find the right books for them, and in that sense we have that same goal, that same mission in common with teachers and librarians.

You know, I want to speak to ALA, and we had a big meeting yesterday at the NY Public Library,  so we are looking at some initiatives that will move us in that direction.

Recent studies show that many kids are reading ebooks on desktop computers. Beyond Android devices, will the app be available on the Web?
Yes! Yes! We’re going to have a Web version. Sooner rather than later. This app is [only] our first product. We have a team of 11 so we’re stretched a little thin right now…please know that the Web version is very much on my mind.

What are your goals in terms of universal access and library access? Not necessarily what’s in the works already, but what would you like to see?
I want this app to be ubiquitously available. And I know in order for that to happen we need to be A. platform agnostic and B. there have to be more tablets in the marketplace at affordable price points.

Won’t these kinds of changes take an exceptionally long time?
That’s because there’s a larger issue, isn’t there? The larger issue is the public will—and the private will—to get it done. If we fail to put a tablet computer in the hands of every child on this planet, we will have failed our responsibilities as the elders of this generation. That means that everybody, all the stakeholders, have to come to the table. All of the stakeholders. I mean the Apples, and the Samsungs and everybody. And the U.S. [Department of Education].

Have you been working with teachers, the D.O.E, towards this goal?
Believe me, teachers are very much on my mind. I have regular conversations with [U.S. Secretary of Education] Arne Duncan. He is acutely aware of the government’s need to shift its priorities. I’ll say it, because he can’t: We’ve spent far too much money on the machinery of war over the last decade and a half. We have sacrificed at least one generation of American children because they have not been educated, according to a standard that America believes it should have. We have spent a lot of time, through No Child Left Behind, teaching to the test—as opposed to teaching to get kids turned on about learning. So there are some real significant challenges to universal access. And it’s not a question of which platform you’re on. It’s a question of, Do we have the will, the political will, to get it done?

So you are looking at the issue from a top-down approach?
I’m trying to do whatever I can to advance this cause. My mother was an English teacher. My older sister is a teacher. My son is in education, as are both of my nieces and my cousin. Education is the family business—and because I happen to have this platform, this bully pulpit, I’m going to use it.

Here’s the bottom line for me: I genuinely believe we have the ability to revolutionize the way we educate children. Seriously. It’s right there. And here’s how: Every culture on the planet has a tradition of storytelling. Take whatever information you want to disseminate, be it language, science, news, whatever. Embed it in storytelling, in the storytelling idioms that are native to the child. Put those interactive stories on tablet devices and we will revolutionize the way we teach children in this world.

Plush gorilla Ivan visits his book at the Indianapolis Public Library. Photo credit: John Schumacher.

“You know what’s interesting? I’m sort of a Luddite about technology, but I embraced Twitter this year,” Applegate tells SLJ, noting that immediately after the YMA announcements, she viewed “a scary amount of tweets” discussing her win.

It’s this interactive community of online librarian fans, both independent bloggers and Tweeters, that helped boost Ivan’s visibility, she says. “It’s helped tremendously.”

Leading the charge for The One and Only Ivan has been the Nerdy Book Club as well as popular book blogger and K–5 librarian John Schumacher, who has “a huge online presence,” Applegate says.

Once Applegate’s Newbery win was announced, “My students clapped and clapped and clapped. Incredible,” Schumacher tells SLJ. “Ivan will never be forgotten.”

Applegate says she was honored when she learned that Schumacher chose Ivan as the inspiration for his book-character-on-vacation trip in 2012, an annual event that he blogs about for the kids back home. “Every year he takes a plush character from a kid’s book around on adventures, and this year he selected Ivan!” Applegate says. “He took him to meet the actual Ivan at Zoo Atlanta. John was able to go in with a couple of friends and have Ivan sign his book with a green thumbprint. Isn’t that cool?”

(“You have no idea how hard it is to find a T-shirt for a stuffed gorilla,” Applegate adds.)

Looking ahead, Applegate says she hopes her Newbery recognition means even more children will now learn the story about the real silverback gorilla named Ivan. “It’s a chance to really connect with kids and that’s really wonderful. I’m really gratified,” she tells SLJ. “I wish I had been in Seattle. But it makes me very happy that this story could make it into the world in some way.”

Meanwhile, relative newcomer to kid lit Jon Klassen says he was surprised to learn, just in the past few years since the publication of his picture book I Want My Hat Back (Candlewick, 2011), how determined librarians are in their efforts to get a book out to readers. “It’s a big deal,” he tells SLJ.

So far, the illustrator, who began his career in animation, has been relying on children’s book collaborator Mac Barnett—who was also named, along with Klassen, winner of a Caldecott Honor this week for Extra Yarn (HarperCollins)—to help guide him through this “crazy” new world, he says.

“Librarians are very important!” Klassen adds. “It’s not a marketplace angle; librarians are looking for what’s best for kids, so they have different criteria. The opinions that they give out are really thought through. They’re very passionate.” Author events have been eye-opening in this regard, he tells SLJ. “(Librarians) are very organized and they’re quick and super sharp—and smarter than you.”

And as it turns out, the experience of being an author is much more expansive—and involves much more community-building in these areas—than he originally expected.

“I like making the books, but if you get lucky with one, you end up talking about it more than you thought you would,” he tells SLJ. “There’s a cycle that I’m slowly learning about.” However, Klassen says, “Being busy following these books around? That’s the best problem to have in the world.”

Future editions of Aristotle and Dante will display merit seals for the Pura Belpré Author Award for excellence in depicting and celebrating the Latino cultural experience, the Stonewall Book Award for literary excellence in depicting the LGBT experience, and a Michael L. Printz Honor for the best writing in teen literature. Likely, the novel’s cover will have to be slightly redesigned to incorporate these various honors, “a great problem to have” for an author, Sáenz jokes.

SLJ caught up with Sáenz in between his meetings as chair of the MFA bilingual creative writing department at the University of Texas at El Paso for a revealing chat about his reaction to the YMA wins, his personal inspirations for Aristotle and Dante, his writing process, and his next YA project.

How do you feel about being selected by three very different YMA committees?
It was like a mirror of me! It made me very happy in a profound way. It was all the communities that I claim: the gay community, the Latino community, and the mainstream community. I’m part of the mainstream. I was educated and integrated into America by going to school, and when I went to college in the 1970s there were no Mexican-Americans. But I didn’t feel left out; my friends loved me. I was integrated. So even though I’ve always claimed the Mexican/Chicano community, and I’ve been aware of racism, I have not lived a segregated life.

What inspired you to write Aristotle and Dante?
I was married for 15 years, but I really had to come to terms with my own sexuality at the age of 54. One of the things I had to come to terms with is that I was sexually abused as a boy. It’s not that I didn’t remember; it’s that I didn’t want to think about it. The thought of being with a man was unappealing, so it took me a lot of therapy and time to come to terms with my life, and me.

So I thought I wanted to write a gay-themed book, I thought that I wanted to write a book about a young boy who really didn’t know that he was gay. I mean Ari really doesn’t know it. That’s the theme—what does he know? So I created this situation, and I thought about what names I would give them, and I love the name Dante and I teach the Inferno a lot. And “Ari” is not uncommon among Latinos, or at least Mexican Nationals. So I just started to write this story and I wanted it to be set not in the present time, because I think it’s easier now for boys to admit they’re gay. In the 1980s I don’t think it was so easy, and I didn’t want to have all this texting stuff in the book.

And the first thing I wanted to write about was the relationship between Ari and his mother.

How have your experiences shaped the story?
I wanted to represent two very different Mexican-American families. These are families that I knew—there are working class families like Ari’s, and professional Mexican-American families and it’s not a phenomenon. There are professional families and they’re never portrayed; there’s lots of anti-Mexican rhetoric that says we’re all illegals, all recent immigrants. None of this is true. I just wanted to portray a normal Mexican-American family—and they’re very American. I wanted that contrast because I wanted my audience to know that there is a wide variety of Mexican-American experience in this country. But I also wanted to make it feel real. They are real people. I really fell in love with both the mothers. I always fall in love with my characters, but I know women like this. They love their sons and just because they aren’t always wise in the way they love you doesn’t mean they don’t love you. Ari’s mother is very loving but also very controlling—in a loving way, but controlling nonetheless.

Was it a conscious choice to include so many caring adults in the story?
I think that young men need father figures; one way or another they’re going to find them or get them, and (hopefully not) suffer for it. I’ve mentored a lot of young men that have had terrible relationships with their fathers and I’ve been a stand-in, albeit an academic one. But it’s been a privilege for me to be in their lives and I think that impacts my writing.

Maybe too much young adult fiction is about teens that are in a world apart from adults and that’s just not true for a lot of teens. And Mexican-American teens have good parents—it’s just not true that you are ostracized if you are gay. It’s true in a lot of Latino-American families but it’s also not  true in a lot of Latino-American families. My novels are so hard, all of them. I wanted to write something tender. I thought, “I don’t want to write something hard.” Part of it is that I’m such a sentimental man and you wouldn’t know it from my work. And I’m afraid of being sentimental and I was afraid of making this into a sentimental novel, but I thought I could do it. I could make it feel real and make the characters feel real. That was the hard part for me. I like to think I pulled it off.

What is your writing process like? As a college professor, how do you find the time?
I write on Fridays, and I get up early and I write in the mornings, because once office hours begin, I’m just busy busy. Luckily, where I live the walk literally takes 7 minutes. I like being department chair actually; I’ve grown into it. But I’m just a really old-fashioned teacher. I don’t teach online. I’m not against it—a lot of MFA programs have online classes—but it’s not something I do.

I love what I teach and I like young people. I know some writers feel that the teaching takes time away from their writing, but quite frankly it’s never hurt my writing. And my students read the books! And my nephews and nieces read them and analyze me. I get a big kick out of it.

What are you working on now?
The novel I’m writing is about a young man who is adopted (his dad is a Mexican-American gay artist) but he doesn’t feel adopted at all. One of my nephews is adopted, and he doesn’t wonder about his real family at all. So this kid is telling a story about how he came to be and the rest is how he watches this family as they go through this crisis; the matriarch of the family, his grandmother, is dying. He is in pain but he is a watcher, watching his father deal with this loss. We also learn how he came to be adopted in this family. In one of the opening chapters, his father asks him once if he ever thinks of his real father, and he says, “Yes. You’re my real father, and I think about you all the time.”

It’s going to be a painful novel in some ways with the automatic story line of the grandmother dying, but it’s the journey of him watching. Like Aristotle and Dante, it’s a love story between this young man and the family that he’s been adopted into, and how his love for them and their love for him is so profound. And of course I need to write that novel because my mother died a year ago.

I’m very excited about it. I love to write and I love to figure it out. It’s like you’re learning your craft all over again; each project is new and you learn something new. And I just sold a book of short stories for adults and those are not tender. Those are hard. That’s my world. I think I live between violence and tenderness. I think we all do. So I just try to incorporate that somehow into my art.

The audience erupted in cheers Monday morning after “Animorphs” (Scholastic) author Katherine Applegate was named the winner of the Newbery Medal for her heartfelt and unforgettable story The One and Only Ivan (HarperCollins), and Jon Klassen was awarded the Caldecott Medal for This Is Not My Hat (Candlewick) at the American Library Association’s Youth Media Awards for 2012, which were announced during ALA‘s annual Midwinter Meeting in Seattle, WA. Another Klassen project, Mac Barnett’s picture book Extra Yarn (HarperCollins), was named a Caldecott Honor book.

Katherine Applegate

The Newbery for The One and Only Ivan, Applegate’s uniquely creative, fictional take on the true story of a silverback gorilla who once lived in glass enclosure in a shopping mall, surprised many attendees who had not shortlisted it for the win. Nevertheless, the book had many enthusiastic fans among the crowd in Seattle, who agreed that it was—and would continue to be—a hugely popular choice with kids.

California resident Applegate was visiting relatives in Virginia when she was surprised by the call from the Newbery committee this morning, only an hour and a half before the YMAs presentation began, she tells SLJ. ”I was stunned, totally delighted but speechless,” she says. “The speechlessness went on for a while, then I screamed, and my family marched in at that, and there were a lot of screams! Then we watched the webcast and it was great. It was fun to watch with no anxiety, because they had called me already.”

Applegate credits her win in part to a large community of online fans, especially on Twitter, who have been championing the book and who have conducted huge amounts of outreach to middle readers, including John Schumacher and The Nerdy Book Club. “I have gotten so much support from different communities,” she says. “They have helped tremendously in how visible the book was to readers.”

Adds Applegate, “It’s just surreal! I know what a lottery it is because there were so many good books this year. It’s a huge honor but it could have been any one of them.”

Jon Klassen

And although This Is Not My Hat was a Caldecott favorite going into the awards, “I was actually very, very surprised,” Klassen tells SLJ. “I had done a pretty good job of convincing myself not to think about it, so it came out of the blue. It’s such a big thing to think that you were going to get mentioned at all, (the dual win) didn’t register. I’m still getting used to the idea that people are looking at these books, much less giving them the distinction.”

The crowd was also ecstatic to learn that the Margaret A. Edwards Award, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, will be presented to Tamora Pierce for her significant and lasting contributions to YA literature via her “Song of the Lioness” series. The award is sponsored by SLJ.

Other big winners of the day were Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon (Roaring Brook Press) by Steve Sheinkin, which scored the YALSA nonfiction award, the Sibert Informational Book Medal, and a Newbery Honor; and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Simon & Schuster) by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, which also was selected three times: for the Stonewall Award, the Belpré Author Award, and a Printz Honor.

Although Sheinkin knew Bomb was a strong contender for the YALSA nonfiction award, he was “really surprised by the other awards—happily so,” he tells SLJ.

In fact, after the YALSA committee informed him of his win for the nonfiction award on Saturday night, he turned off his phone before the Sibert committee was able to reach him. ”They tried to call me many times last night,” he says, “but then they left a message. But that was cool, too.” (Now he has the message saved, he says.)

Sheinkin hopes his cross-category wins might signal a trend of growing popularity for exciting young adult nonfiction overall among kids.

“It’s really cool to break out of just the nonfiction category,” he says. “That’s my biggest thing—I’m a big proponent of history for kids, of nonfiction, but also trying to win over people who just want to read a good book. To prove to young readers that this kind of book can be fun also is a really big thing. A lot of kids know it (some kids are into history) but some kids are scared of it.”

Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Meanwhile, Sáenz, after hearing of his three wins across categories “had a frantic and beautiful morning, was in class all afternoon and then quietly celebrated by taking a walk in the desert,” he tells SLJ, adding that the Stonewall award was a “complete surprise” and the Printz honor left him “stunned.”

He notes, “the Belpré people called me the night before and I was absolutely thrilled. They were all on speakerphone and I could hear them screaming. They were very sweet and I didn’t know what to say. I don’t know that we as authors should expect awards; they are gifts to us. I get really choked up. I’m just grateful for the gifts. I would hope my mother raised a gracious man, who knows how to say thank you.”

He also notes that the book’s cross-category recognition is a testament to how well it was marketed by Simon & Schuster as well as the word of mouth of reviewers and librarians who recommended it. “They felt that everybody should read this book, they put it into everybody’s hands,” he says. “It takes a village to take the book out into the world. We had a great village.”

The prolific author—who writes poetry, children’s books, and adult novels in addition to YA literature—somehow found the time to write Aristotle and Dante while teaching bilingual creative writing and acting as MFA department chair at the University of Texas at El Paso. He is already deep into his next project, another dramatic YA novel. “I’m always writing,” he says.

* * *

Here is the list of winners of the ALA’s Youth Media Awards:

(John) Newbery Medal
The One and Only Ivan. Katherine Applegate. HarperCollins.

Honors:
Splendors and Glooms. Laura Amy Schlitz. Candlewick.

Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon. Steve Sheinkin. Flash Point/Roaring Brook.

Three Times Lucky. Sheila Turnage. Dial/Penguin Young Readers.

(Randolph) Caldecott Medal
This Is Not My Hat. Jon Klassen. Candlewick Press.

Honors:
Creepy Carrots! Aaron Reynolds. Illus. by Peter Brown.
Simon & Schuster.

Extra Yarn. Mac Barnett. Illus. by Jon Klassen.
HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray.

Green. Laura Vaccaro Seeger. Neal Porter Books/Roaring Brook.

One Cool Friend. Toni Buzzeo. Illus. by David Small. Dial/Penguin Young Readers.

Sleep Like a Tiger. Mary Logue. Illus. by Pamela Zagarenski. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Theodore Seuss Geisel Award
Up, Tall and High. Ethan Long. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Honors:
Let’s Go for a Drive! Mo Willems. Hyperion/Disney.

Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons. Eric Litwin. Illus. by James Dean. HarperCollins.

Rabbit & Robot: The Sleepover. Cece Bell. Candlewick.

(Laura Ingalls) Wilder Award
Katherine Paterson

Andrew Carnegie Medal
Anna, Emma and the Condors. Produced by Katja Torneman.

Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal
Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon. Steve Sheinkin. Flash Point/Roaring Brook

Honors:
Electric Ben: The Amazing Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin. Robert Byrd. Dial/Penguin Young Readers.

Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95. Phillip M. Hoose. Farrar.

Titanic: Voices from the Disaster. Deborah Hopkinson. Scholastic.

Mildred L. Batchelder Award
My Family for the War. Anne C. Voorhoeve. Dial/Penguin Young Readers.

Honors:
A Game for Swallows: To Die, to Leave, to Return. Zeina Abirached.
Tr. by Edward Gauvin. Graphic Universe/Lerner.

Son of a Gun. Anne de Graaf. Eerdmans.

May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award
Andrea Davis Pinkney

Pura Belpré Awards
Author: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. Benjamin Alire Sáenz.
Simon & Schuster.

Honor: The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano. Sonia Manzano. Scholastic.

Illustrator: Martín de Porres: The Rose in the Desert. Gary D. Schmidt. Illus. by David Diaz. Clarion.

Michael L. Printz Award
In Darkness. Nick Lake. Bloomsbury. 

Honors:
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. Benjamin Alire Sáenz. Simon & Schuster.

Code Name Verity. Elizabeth Wein. Hyperion/Disney.

Dodger. Terry Pratchett. HarperCollins Children’s Books

The White Bicycle. Beverley Brenna. Red Deer Press.

Odyssey Award
The Fault in Our Stars. John Green. Narrated by Kate Rudd. Brilliance Audio.

Honors:
Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian. Eoin Colfer. Narrated by Nathaniel Parker. Listening Library.

Ghost Knight. Cornelia Funke. Narrated by Elliot Hill. Listening Library.

Monstrous Beauty. Elizabeth Fama. Narrated by Katherine Kellgren. Macmillian Audio.

YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults
Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon. Steve Sheinkin
Flash Point/Roaring Brook

Finalists:
Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different. Karen Blumenthal. Feiwel & Friends.

Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95. Phillip Hoose. Farrar

Titanic: Voices from the Disaster. Deborah Hopkinson. Scholastic.

We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March. Cynthia Levinson. Peachtree Publishers.

William C. Morris Award
Seraphina. Rachel Hartman. Random House.

Finalists:
Wonder Show. Hannah Barnaby. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books.

Love and Other Perishable Items. Laura Buzo. Knopf/Random House.

After the Snow. S. D. Crockett. Feiwel and Friends.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post. emily m. danforth. Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins

Margaret A. Edwards Award
Tamora Pierce for her “Song of the Lioness” series

Coretta Scott King Book Awards
Author: Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America. Andrea Davis Pinkney. Illus. by Brian Pinkney. Hyperion/Disney.

Honors: Each Kindness. Jacqueline Woodson. Illus. by E. B. Lewis.
Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin Young Readers.

No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller 
Vaunda Micheaux Nelson. Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. Carolrhoda Lab/Lerner.

Illustrator: I, Too, Am America. Langston Hughes. Illus. by Bryan Collier. Simon & Schuster.

Honors: H. O. R. S. E.. Christopher Myers. Egmont USA.

Ellen’s Broom. Kelly Starling Lyons. Illus. by Daniel Minter. Putnam/Penguin Young Readers.

I Have a Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr. Ilus. by Kadir Nelson. Schwartz & Wade/Random House.

Virginia Hamilton: Demetria Tucker
Practitioner Award for Lifetime achievement

Stonewall Book Award
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. Benjamin Alire Sáenz. Simon & Schuster.

Honors:
Drama. Raina Telgemeier. Graphix/Scholastic Inc.

Gone, Gone, Gone. Hannah Moskowitz. Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster.

October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard. Lesléa Newman. Candlewick.

Sparks: The Epic, Completely True Blue, (Almost) Holy Quest of Debbie. S. J. Adams. Flux.

Schneider Family Book Award
Teen: Somebody, Please Tell Me Who I Am. Harry Mazer and Peter Lerangis. Simon & Schuster.

Middle Grade: A Dog Called Homeless. Sarah Lean. HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Book.

Children: Back to Front and Upside Down! Claire Alexander. Eerdmans.