newbery honor author 

new york times bestseller

Gennifer Choldenko
Gennifer Choldenko

Getting the Newbery Honor News

Q: Looking back, how did it feel to get the phone call from the Newbery Committee?

The weeks lead­ing up to the 2005 New­bery announce­ment were nerve-wrack­ing for me. Every day I would get an email from some­one I knew say­ing “Did you know Al Capone Does My Shirts just won our Mock New­bery award?” Or “Wow we’re so excit­ed for you. We think you have a chance to win the New­bery this year!” Since there are no ear­ly indi­ca­tors of whether a book is up for con­sid­er­a­tion for a New­bery medal, I knew that none of these peo­ple had any real idea if my book had even a rat’s chance of win­ning. But know­ing some­thing in your head and try­ing to con­vince your heart not to get your hopes up are two dif­fer­ent things entire­ly. It was a full-time job try­ing to keep myself in check.

I wasn’t the only per­son hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty with this either. My edi­tor, who was at ALA, had had so many peo­ple approach her say­ing: “Good Luck! We think it will be you this year,” that the night before the announce­ment she went to bed at eleven pm and got up at eleven-thir­ty p.m. and that was it for sleep for her for the whole night.

I, on the oth­er hand, had a great night’s sleep. All of my life I’ve been a dream­er. I couldn’t even get a nov­el accept­ed for pub­li­ca­tion and I was dri­ving around in my car prac­tic­ing my New­bery accep­tance speech. In my head I have won every award in the world, I’ve been the only female Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, I’ve been a net­work news anchor and I’ve sung with Tina Turn­er too. I’m used to dream­ing big dreams. What I’m not used to is hav­ing them come true.

When the phone rang at 4:15 a.m. in the morn­ing, it was the biggest shock I’ve ever had in my life. Because a good friend of mine was the author of a Calde­cott Hon­or Book, I knew awards phone calls came ear­ly, but when the phone rang, I lit­er­al­ly could not believe it. I lay in bed giv­ing myself a lit­tle talk­ing to. “Now you’re imag­in­ing the phone ring­ing. You are real­ly going around the bend, girl.”

Even­tu­al­ly the phone stopped ring­ing. A minute lat­er it began again. Who­ev­er it was would not give up.

It was my hus­band who final­ly answered the phone. “It’s Susan Faust,” he told me. “Chair­man of the New­bery Com­mit­tee. She wants to talk to you.” I’d like to tell you that I was com­plete­ly poised and had many eru­dite com­ments to make to the Chair­man of the 2005 New­bery Com­mit­tee at 4:19 that morn­ing, but when she said Al Capone Does My Shirts won the New­bery Hon­or all I could say was “Oh my God” over and over again. It was very embar­rass­ing, but the truth is: in the end I am always ready for dis­ap­point­ment. Until that morn­ing I had very lit­tle expe­ri­ence with hav­ing my dreams come true.

Q: Now that your Newbery Honor year is over, what do you think about the honor?

I went to a pub­lic school in a low­er mid­dle class neigh­bor­hood in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. I loved my school library with its old books and its old book smell. I loved run­ning my hands along the bind­ings of the books try­ing to fig­ure out which book would be as spe­cial to me as Charlotte’s Web or Across Five Aprils, Island of the Blue Dol­phins, or A Wrin­kle in Time.

The one thing I learned some­where along the line was the books that had the New­bery stick­ers were usu­al­ly bet­ter than the oth­ers, and so I always checked out the books with the sil­ver or gold seals. Every time I think about Al Capone Does My Shirts win­ning the New­bery Hon­or, I imag­ine some kid pulling that red cov­er off the shelf of his school library, run­ning his hand across the sil­ver seal and say­ing, “I’m going to check this one out.”

I still can’t believe that my own quirky brain pro­duced a book that earned a New­bery Hon­or. What an amaz­ing world this is!

Q: Some writers get what is called “Newberyitis.” After producing a Newbery Medal or a Newbery Honor book, they have a great deal of trouble writing the next book. Did this happen to you?

I’m hap­py to report it did not. After my kids and my hus­band, writ­ing is my biggest love. When the pres­sures of the world get too much for me, I hide out with my key­board. Life is hard. Writ­ing is always a blast.

Q: When can we expect to see your next novel?

As it stands now, I have two nov­els due out in 2018. One is the fourth and final Al Capone book. I would tell you the title, but then my edi­tor might break my leg. Since I’m rather fond of both my legs, the title will remain a mys­tery for a lit­tle while longer. I will say it is a very excit­ing book to write so I am hop­ing it will be a very excit­ing book to read. One of the char­ac­ters mis­be­haves so ter­ri­bly that she shocked my edi­tor. I am right now giv­ing my char­ac­ter a big talk­ing to, hop­ing she will take it down a notch, but so far she is refusing.

The oth­er nov­el will be illus­trat­ed — which means it might not actu­al­ly be out until Spring 2019 as the illus­tra­tor will need time to per­form his or her mag­ic. But I am hop­ing for 2018. It’s called One-Third Nerd and I think it is my fun­ni­est nov­el so far.

Q: Any other books in the works?

I’m thrilled to announce a new pic­ture book illus­trat­ed by Dan San­tat called Dad and the Dinosaur due out March 2018. I wrote it because my hus­band always com­plains that so many pic­ture books depict dads as doo­fus char­ac­ters. My hus­band, my broth­er, my cousin, my best friends are all lov­ing fathers. I want­ed to write a book which reflect­ed the kind of dads in my life.

Q: Do you do a lot of speaking?

Yes, I’ve done a lot of speak­ing at schools, libraries, and con­fer­ences. Speak­ing is a dif­fer­ent part of the author equa­tion. Some might say it is the oppo­site of writ­ing, but I believe there are some impor­tant sim­i­lar­i­ties. A good speak­er needs to reach deep down inside her­self for the courage to speak from her heart. A good speak­er has to be extreme­ly gen­er­ous and tell her own truth. She has to both enter­tain her audi­ence and leave each per­son with a tiny piece of her­self. When I read an amaz­ing book, I know that the author has giv­en me a part of her soul. A real­ly ter­rif­ic speak­er does the same thing but in a very dif­fer­ent way.