Authors Barely Ever Come Here

Yesterday, a kid wrote to me to say authors "barely ever" came to Milwaukee. I suggested this link to him. I'll bet there are other places authors "barely ever" come either. Pass it along!


Would your school or library like a visit from Katherine Paterson, the new National Ambassador for Young People's Literature?

The newly named National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature for 2010-2011 is Katherine Paterson, author of such critically acclaimed and popular classics as “The Bridge to Terabithia” and “Jacob Have I Loved.”

Paterson’s theme for her ambassadorship is “Read for Your Life,” and she will be carrying that message with her during her travels as National Ambassador.

Tell us what kind of event you would develop if Katherine Paterson were to visit. Also, tell us how you would promote the event and to whom. Describe the event and its promotion in detail in no more than 250 words.

The Center for the Book, the Children’s Book Council and Every Child a Reader — the CBC foundation — sponsors of the National Ambassador program, will choose one winner. It could be you!

E-mail your entry no later than midnight EDT on March 15 in a Word document attachment to cbc.info@cbcbooks.org.

Katherine Paterson: Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?

This is a picture of my desk. Ignore the clutter. Look at my "inspiration shelf" of books---the books I want to look at while I write. The book on the far right, just before the dragon bookmark, is Katherine Paterson's collection of essays, A Sense of Wonder.  (You might also be able to see her The Great Gilly Hopkins and Jacob Have I Loved, as well as a hardback (signed!) copy of Preacher Boy.

You can imagine how thrilled I am that Katherine Paterson---wise, funny, humble, profound, brilliant Katherine Paterson--- has been named as the next National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. I will always remember her slipping into another writer's talk at the L.A. SCBWI conference, and taking a seat two seats over from me in the back reaches of the cavernous main ballroom. She was dressed in plain black clothes and looked like the most ordinary of the ordinary, a woman with no makeup, practical shoes, and not a whiff of pretention about her. Thirty minutes later, she went to the podium in that huge ballroom and laid a spell on the thousands who listened, breathless, to her words. We laughed, we ached, we were opened up to things larger than ourselves. She was extraordinary.

Here is a taste of what we have in store for the next two years of Katherine's service:

(From Do I Dare Disturb the Universe, collected in A Sense of Wonder, first published in The Horn Book, September 1984)

"My primary task is not to disturb a complacent universe or to decry a chaotic one. My task is to see through the disturbance to the unity so marvelously built into the Creation---to somehow find my way though the cacophony of reality to the harmony of truth. I have said elsewhere that my task is to write the best, the truest, story I know how to write. Someone may find these two statements contradictory. I do not." ---Katherine Paterson

Welcome, Ambassador Paterson. I wonder, will you enjoy flashing your Ambassador Medal as much as the irrepressible Jon Scieszka did? Or will you tuck it inside your outfit and walk incognito into a room as you always have?