In the newest edition of “Horn Book” January-February, 2013 issue, the editors have compiled a list of the 2012 Boston Globe-Horn Book award winners. Here are two in the picture book category that are on our shelves and comments made by their authors.
“And Then It’s Spring” by Julie Fogliano. In accepting her award, Fogliano states that she got her first taste of writing when she was a sophomore in high school. The assignment was to write a short story. Once she started, she says, the words came flying out. She was hooked from that moment on. She then spent the next twenty years trying to recreate that experience. In 2008 a friend asked, that as a birthday present, she write him a thought every day for a year. The idea for “And Then It’s Spring” was thought # 156. That evening she didn’t want to write; she was tired and just wanted to go to bed. As she sat there trying to come up with a thought, she checked on her friend Erin Stead’s blog. The first picture she had on the blog was a table in the grass. “And there it was. The moment I had waited for since 1988.”
Mac Burnett author of “Extra Yarn” also won in the category of picture books. His comments on accepting his award were full of insight. He believes that we often tell kids “pleasant stories devoid of truth, and stories without truth are not good stories.” Picture books that challenge, excite and interest readers have always been widely read. He mentions Sendak, Silverstein, Brown, and Hurd as bold pioneers. They were the experimenters. These authors created books unlike anything else. Today he fears that the prevailing wisdom is to get people to read your book is to write a book like a book that has sold well. This is not what the publishing industry needs. “It’s the bold books–the experiements–that drive our form.”
Hurrah for innovative picture books like “And Then It’s Spring” and “Extra Yarn.”