MRBP #12: Getting the call

(Most-Read Blog Posts Count­down #12. Orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished on Jan­u­ary 14, 2016, this essay begins my Sum­mer Countdown.)

One of the things that go along with a New­bery award—and I am one of those lucky people—a lot of peo­ple ask, “Where were you when you heard the news? Was it a sur­prise?” Well yes, it was a com­plete sur­prise. It went like this.

As many of you know, the award is announced at the ALA mid­win­ter con­fer­ence.  Com­pared to the annu­al ALA event, not a lot of writ­ers are there. But I was in Philadel­phia that week­end to pro­mote a rare (for me) pic­ture book, Silent Movie.

No soon­er did I get there than I became sick, real­ly sick, sick with the flu. I nev­er had it so bad, before or since. I could not keep any­thing down, or in. I was cold. I was shivering.

I had a num­ber of engage­ments, which I kept with as good a face (and stom­ach) as pos­si­ble but, as soon as pos­si­ble, I fled to my room shiv­er­ing, wrapped myself in blan­kets, and was mis­er­able. All I want­ed to do was get home.

Sun­day morn­ing, how­ev­er, I had promised to be at a break­fast event, and went, sit­ting as it hap­pened, with a num­ber of New­bery com­mit­tee mem­bers. I don’t recall being able to say any­thing to any­body. Nobody said much to me.

As soon as it was social­ly accept­able, I fled to my room, packed up and fled to the air­port.  Once there I changed my tick­et for the ear­li­est pos­si­ble flight and flew home to Den­ver.  Home, I said hel­lo to fam­i­ly. “Check your-email,” my wife said. I did so and found a request from my daugh­ter to rewrite an appli­ca­tion she had composed—an appli­ca­tion for a sum­mer job. “I need to send it in by nine next morning.”

I set my alarm for five o clock, and went to bed, still sick.

Next morn­ing, I was sit­ting at my desk (still not well) work­ing on my daughter’s appli­ca­tion let­ter when, at about six o clock, the phone rang. It was Starr Latron­i­ca, that year’s New­bery chair, telling me I had won the Newbery.

I said “Thank you,” and imme­di­ate­ly into my head flashed the thought, “My next book bet­ter be good.”

I put the phone down. I heard my wife’s sleepy call: “Hon­ey! Who was that?”

“I just won the New­bery,” I answered, and burst into tears.

The next day I was in New York City, The Today Show, and on and on. Excit­ing, and fun.

At some point I sud­den­ly had a real­iza­tion. “The flu! It’s gone!” Indeed, all my flu symp­toms had vanished.

The moral of this sto­ry: have the flu? Win a New­bery. It works.