A Chat With Newbery, Caldecott Winners
Soon after writer Jack Gantos and author-illustrator Chris Raschka heard they had won the coveted Newbery and Caldecott Medals, SLJ caught up with them to ask how they hope the awards will affect their work-and what readers might expect from them next.
RSSBy Lauren Barack
Soon after writer Jack Gantos and author-illustrator Chris Raschka heard they had won the coveted Newbery and Caldecott Medals, SLJ caught up with them to ask how they hope the awards will affect their workâand what readers might expect from them next. Jack Gantos, Newbery winner for Dead End in Norvelt (Farrar). Where were you when you first heard the news that you'd won the Newbery? I was in the kitchen, feeding my cat snacks so that she would not attack the bowl of yogurt I was trying to eat. Man versus the beast. We were both trying to get some food. And the phone call came. I was prepared like every other day. I had my bag packed to go to the library and I knew exactly what my job was with the book I'm working on. My thought was just stick with the plan. No expectations then, that you might win this year? My 15-year-old daughter did catch me looking out the window and I must have looked completely addled. I was just staring out the window and she said, "What are you doing?" and I said, "Sometimes when you stare out the window it's like watching the movies in your mind." And I was thinking about this. I did have a few fantasy moments. But the book had won the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction for 2011 a week ago. And that begins to make you think. How do you hope the Newbery will affect the book? I think people will look at Dead End in Norvelt, and read it very thoroughly, which is great for any writer. The book will also get around to my audience because I write intentionally for young readers. I don't do that by accident. They are the best readers, and they have the most flexible minds. You can influence their minds. You know that a book can really change them. Career-wise I've been doing this for a long time and it allows people to look at what I've been doing and also look over my shoulder, and what's behind me: the Rotten Ralph books, the young adult books I've written. They can see my oeuvre. What do you hope young readers will take away from the story? With this book you have a great combination of humor and history. And so what we've done is allowed history to be launched on this great raft of humor. I don't think history should be looked at as a project covered in dust on the back shelf. I want young readers to read that book, and not only look at history but also question it. Look at that landmark. Take a look at that and at American history and also community history and the history of individuals, which is what all those obituaries [in the book] were. Which is what Miss Volker was doing connecting those obituaries to the immediacy of history itself. What's up ahead for you? Can readers expect more of Miss Volker? There will be a companion book, with Miss Volker and Jack Gantos, the fictional manifestation. And a whole new set of history, of course, and a lot of talking points. And of course it will be crazy, wicked funny. Did you always know you would write? I knew I wanted to be published when I was a kid. I talked a lot about it then. In high school it was very confusing about writing books, and then I was supposed to go to University of Florida, and that didn't seem to be the right place. I ended up in Boston [at Emerson College] with a BFA in creative writing. I sold the first Rotten Ralph book my second year in college. Then I started with picture books and so my career was entrenched. I became a professor in creative writing and literature and ran a master's degree program in children's literature and writing at Emerson College. But that program got a little bloated, they wanted me to run the whole department, and you reach a part in your career where you ask, "Am I going to be a career administrator in Education", which is perfectly fine, "Or are you going to write books?" So I took a flying leap, and after two years, I figured it out. Do you think you'll make it to the library today? I'll probably not get to the library today because I have a long interview list. The [press relations] and marketing department has a grip on my day. And I already have 150 emails. They're coming in even as we're talking. It's a nice thing having had a nice career. I seem to know a lot of people. Chris Raschka, Caldecott winner for A Ball for Daisy (Schwartz & Wade). Where were you when you first heard you had won the Caldecott? I thought I had lost my cell phone and I thought maybe I had left it at the studio. I walked there, 14 blocks from my apartment, and I found it. And 30 seconds after I walked in the studio, the cell phone rang. I was quite unprepared. I was blissfully ignorant. Sometimes I'm aware of when all this is going on. This year I completely missed it, which is always nice. Sometimes being unaware is a good thing. How does winning the Caldecott for A Ball for Daisy, differ from winning it for The Hello, Goodbye Window in 2006? I'm totally amazed. It is kind of nice to be honored for something that is completely my own, that has a storyline that I wrote. What's up next? I hope the next is pretty much what's already been happening. I've been able to work and write and illustrate my own books and occasionally illustrate other people. It's still a great joy for me to do that. I'm thrilled every time I can start a new book. Of course, two weeks ago I felt I couldn't paint and draw anymore and that kind of comes and go. I had just finished two sets of paintings for two different books and before I even sent them to my art director, I scrapped them. Now I'm re-doing them happily. Are you overly critical of your own work? Probably I am. I think I have learned over the years to separate myself when I'm creating and painting and when I'm being critical. Generally after I've done something I think is not good, that's what I feel immediately. I'm sure a lot of artists do. It's helpful to put it in a drawer and look at it a week later. I'm sure every creative person feels that. Or they don't. What's are you working on right now? When Lions Roar by Robie H. Harris, which is a book about a child dealing with fear. And I feel good that will be something I'll get done. The other is a book of my own text, a picture book, a biography about jazz artist Sun Ra, a bandleader, for Candlewick. It's a book I'm really excited to do. How do you find your idea for stories and illustrations? I have a notebook nearby and when something strikes me as particularly potent, whether an emotion of sadness, or joy about someone or some music that I want to embody, then that goes into my notebook and I let it simmer there. So I always have a few things simmering that I can return to and try to tease a picture book out of. For picture books it's trying to heighten a particular emotion or idea and then have that pulled into a form that fits into 32 pages. Is the process different for you when you're working on your own story as compared to another writer's text? I feel very much the same about another person's text as I do about my own. With my own books it doesn't have to exist fully formed as a text before I can work on it. With another writer's, that text is fully formed. But the process when I'm working and painting is the same as when I'm working on my own as when I'm working on another's. The only thing is I can change my test, rather than ask the other writer to change theirs for some reason, which I really never do. When it comes to laying it out, painting, there's no difference at all. I find it's equally challenging, equally frustrating, and equally satisfying to do. This article originally appeared in the newsletter Extra Helping. Go here to subscribe.
January 26 2012
Jack Gantos
Photo by Anne Lower
Chris Raschka
Photo by Sonya Sones
