Awards Ceremony

This year's awards ceremony, held on October 21, 2005 at the United Nations Church Center at 777 UN Plaza, offered a memorable afternoon of presentations, responses by honorees or their representatives, and an opportunity to meet and talk with each honored guest. 

Below are the introductory statements given at the presentation of the award to each author. This year, we honored Youme Landowne, Ann Bausum, Karen English, Bruce Edward Hall, James Rumford, and Deborah Ellis. Congratulations!

 

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Introduction to the 2005 Awards Ceremony

Thank you, Ann, and thanks to the Jane Addams Peace Association and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom for sponsoring these awards that, for the 52nd year, honor Jane Addams – her principles and her activist heritage.  As chair of the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award committee, I would like also to acknowledge Michele Zayla for her music, Beth Puffer of the Bank Street Book Store for providing books for us to purchase and have signed, and all the members of the committee.  Here today are Susan Griffith, from Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, Jo Montie, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Dionne Delancy, Brooklyn, New York and Sarah Park, Los Angeles, California who will join us for next year’s deliberations and selections, and Ginny Moore Kruse, former chair of the committee and long-time member, who continues as a participant in the local Madison Wisconsin reading group supporting our committee member there.  Other members, spread across the country are listed on your program and are here in spirit.  More can be learned about our work in an article in your packet, “Imagining Peace and Social Justice,” whose duplication was graciously permitted by Book Links, and the American Library Association.

The article, too, refers to the heritage of Jane Addams’ principles and activism as the standard by which we honor books.  And just what is that heritage?  We know that she co-founded Hull House, in Chicago, the flagship settlement house of all those that were founded in the late 1890s and early 20th century.  We know that she was a founder, in 1915, of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, as it grew from the Women’s Peace Party.  We know that in 1931 she was the first woman from the United States to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

What most of us don’t know is that she was a prodigious writer (150 articles just from 1900 to 1910, appearing in everything from scholarly periodicals to Ladies Home Journal to Machinists Monthly) as well as a dozen books over the course of her career, spreading her message about reform in every arena: social, economic, education   -  child labor laws, housing and factory regulations, public health services – and, of course, peace.  She also was outspoken in her support of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and for the National American Woman Suffrage Association. 

Although an esteemed leader herself, she did not believe in the hero theory of change, but that cooperative work across class was imperative if the nation was to solve the social problems of the day. Oh, that she were alive right now!  

Ultimately, her work for peace brought great public acclaim.  However, before and during World War I, she spoke strongly against United States participation in the conflict, traveled widely with the Women’s Peace Party to talk with world leaders, and proposed to President Wilson an international peace conference.  In reaction, Teddy Roosevelt spoke: “Jane Addams – don’t talk to me of Jane Addams, I have always thought a lot of her, but…she’s all wrong about peace,” and, later, “Pacifists are cowards, and your peace conference scheme is both silly and base.”  She also visited troops and reported on their dangerous and debilitating conditions  - and their heroism.  In a speech at Carnegie Hall in 1915, she said “we heard it everywhere – that this was an old man’s war; that the young men who were dying, the young men who were doing the fighting, were not the men who believed in the war.”  That night she spoke of the strength it took for patriotic young men to question the war.  As she spoke of the bloodshed, she mentioned that some were turning to drink in order to bear killing another human being and some were killing themselves rather than kill others, and for that she earned a torrent of abuse from all quarters: A letter in the New York Times claimed that she had belittled America’s military. Editorials: “Jane Addams is a silly, vain, impertinent old maid, who may have done good charity work at Hull House, but is now meddling with matters far beyond her capacity.”  Large numbers of American Legion members would not forgive her wartime involvement in WILPF, and the DAR cancelled her membership, claiming she was unpatriotic.  Her response to that: “I supposed at the time that membership had been for life, but it was apparently only for good behavior.”  She lost income, respect, and popularity, but continued to work for peace, untamed by criticism and slander.

And that’s the Jane Addams we are honoring here today with books about people who speak out, who stand up, who settle disputes amicably, who construct community, and who never give up in their fight for their ideals of equality and justice!

Sources: Victoria Bissell Brown, “Jane Addams,” in Women Building Chicago 1790-1990: A Biographical Dictionary,  ed. Rima Lunin Schultz and Adele Hast (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001): 14-22.  (http://tigger.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/urbanexp/main.cgi?file=display_docs.ptt&id=130. 

Peggy Caravantes. Waging Peace: The Story of Jane Addams. Greensboro, NC: Morgan Reynolds Publishing, Inc., 2004.

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Presentation remarks

Books for Younger Children

Sélavi, That is Life: A Haitian Story of Hope,
written and illustrated by Youme Landowne,
from Cinco Puntos Press.  

 

Presentation remarks for Sélavi, That is Life, A Haitian Story of Hope.

It begins like a folktale.  “Not so long ago and not so far away” a homeless child “went north and south, east and west.”  But it quickly moves to the contemporary reality of Haiti.  One lost boy is found by another named TiFre (Little Brother). Tifre tells the child that he can name himself Hungry, Sleepy, or Little Traveler.  And the child says I am all these things, and that’s life.  And so, Sélavi becomes his name.  This is our winner in the category of Books for Younger Children: Sélavi, That is Life: A Haitian Story of Hope, by Youme.  Based on real experience, Youme details the lives of street children who live in a banyan tree and who support themselves by working and begging.  When their self-sufficient community is dashed by uniformed men (police? soldiers?), a church congregation rescues them, saying: “Alone, we may be a single drop of water, but together we can be a mighty river.”  Together, young and old build a house for them.  It is wrecked by political opponents, and they build it again.  They start a children’s radio station that broadcasts their troubles and triumphs, a station that exists today.  And that’s life, too. 

Published by Cinco Puntos Press, Sélavi is feelingly illustrated by the author in glowing pastel colors, both realistic and symbolic.  An afterword by Edwidge Danticat and affecting photographs of Haitian children are appended to complete this beautifully designed book.  A story with a universal message of struggle, caring, and organizing honors the Jane Addams legacy.  Here to accept this award for her first book is Youme.  Congratulations!

Donna Barkman, 2005

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Books for Older Children

With Courage and Cloth:
Winning the Fight for a Woman's Right to Vote,
by Ann Bausum,
published by National Geographic Society.

Presentation remarks for Courage and Cloth, 2005

Our winning book in the category of Books for Older Children is a triumph of design, illustration, text and topic.  With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman’s Right to Vote was written by Ann Bausum, published by National Geographic Society.  Bausum chronicles the decades-long struggle for woman suffrage by summarizing the better-known history of the 19th Century and then focusing on the period from 1900 to 1920.  She details the two branches of the movement and their strategies: the National American Woman Suffrage Association and Alice Paul’s more activist National Woman’s Party.  These women wrote editorials and pamphlets, petitioned politicians and President Wilson, staged parades and protests and picket lines and went to jail for their troubles where they were force-fed during hunger strikes.

Bausum does not shy away from the difficult issues: the tension, philosophical and practical, between the two branches of the suffrage movement, the evidence of racism that pitted women’s rights against African-American rights, or the violent opposition of some citizens, legislators and police who were more concerned with disciplining suffragists than controlling the mobs that threatened and attacked them. 

With Courage and Cloth is totally accessible to readers because of its succinct, powerful, even suspenseful narrative (will Tennessee, the last state to approve the 19th Amendment, ever come through?) and because of its stunning archival photographs in one- and two-page spreads.  The book includes all you could ask for to inform its readers, young and old, by using profiles of the leaders, a chronology, and clearly organized notes and resources, all produced in the gold and purple colors of the movement.

I have run out of superlatives for a social history that exemplifies the principles and activism of Jane Addams.  Ann Bausum, congratulations on a much-needed and welcome book.

Donna Barkman, 2005

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Honors in the Books for Younger Children

Hot Day on Abbott Avenue
by Karen English, with collage art of Javaka Steptoe
published by Clarion Books.

Presentation Remarks for Hot Day on Abbott Avenue, 2005

Hot Day on Abbott Avenue, written by Karen English, illustrated by Javaka Steptoe and published by Clarion Books, centers on the friendship and conflict of two girls on one particularly hot day.  The rhythmic text poetically conveys the evolving emotions and experiences in Kishi and Renee’s friendship.  The feelings move from a "never-going-to-be-friends again day " into a "ropes-making-a -rainbow day," aided by a lively game of double dutch.  The resolution is complete when Kishi shares an ice pop with Renee and now it's a "forgetting-all-about-what-you-were-mad-about day."  Steptoe's fresh collage art creatively depicts the people and activities of the neighborhood -- the tissue-paper footwear of many types, the rope hose spraying ribbons of water, expressive hair, and varied skin colors -- these features collectively communicate the fullness of the community.  Hot Day on Abbott Avenue receives an honor award due to its emphasis on two children solving a believable conflict in a believable way.  With adults allowing them space to explore and express their feelings, the story provides a fine example of the girls' anger being validated, not denied or discounted, and affirms the range of feelings shared by all of us.
         The Jane Addams Committee commends Karen English and Javaka Steptoe for their outstanding example of resolving conflict in our everyday lives.   

Jo Montie, 2005

Henry and the Kite Dragon,
by Bruce Edward Hall, with paintings of William Low
published by Philomel Books/Penguin Young Readers Group

Presentation Remarks for Henry and the Kite Dragon

Eight-year-old Henry makes kites with Grandfather Chin. In Henry and the Kite Dragon, a conflict emerges between Henry and his Chinatown friends and Tony and his friends from Little Italy who are throwing rocks at the beautiful kites.  Eventually, in this suspenseful story written by Bruce Edward Hall and vibrantly illustrated by William Low, we observe the two groups facing one another. Their finger-pointing anger begins to dissolve as talking and listening begin.  We hear that Tony and his friends are trying to protect their homing pigeons, beloved pets being chased away by the gigantic kites.  Ultimately, the children invent a solution and Grandfather Chin affirms their solution with a shimmery, shiny pigeon kite that embraces both Chinese and Italian cultures. 

Hall's evocative words draw us into the story set in New York's Chinatown in the 1920s, and Low's stunning paintings parallel the range of perspectives that emerge from the text, as he contrasts the brilliance of the kites with the stark silhouettes of the pigeons.  Published by Philomel Books, Henry and the Kite Dragon illustrates a creative response to conflict and cautions against making assumptions about others.  Up until they face each other, Henry, and perhaps we as readers, prejudge Tony.  By truly listening to one another, perspectives shift and turn toward cooperative connections, making this book so powerful as a Jane Addams honor book.  We are delighted to present this award to Amy Hall, on behalf of her brother, author Bruce Edward Hall,  and to illustrator William Low for this compelling book.

Jo Montie, 2005

Sequoyah: The Cherokee Man Who Gave His People Writing.
by James Rumford (and translation into Cherokee by Anna Sixkiller Huckaby),
published by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children.

Presentation Remarks for Sequoyah:  The Cherokee Man Who Gave His People Writing

Sequoyah:  The Cherokee Man Who Gave His People Writing by James Rumford, is more than a picture book, more than a biography—it is an elegant rendering of the legendary life of Sequoyah, a man of rare genius who, as Rumford tells us, is “one of . . . a handful of people in the last seven thousand years who can claim to have invented a writing system.”  Published by Houghton Mifflin Company, the book’s stately watercolors, done in the greens, browns and golds of a forest, give heart to Sequoyah’s persistence in the face of serious opposing forces:  impending genocide from outside of his community and suspicion from within.

Excellent historical notes, a chart of the writing system Sequoyah invented and the text’s translation into Cherokee by Anna Sixkiller Huckaby amplify the grandeur of Sequoyah’s accomplishment.  In a volume whose proportions echo the stature of Sequoyah and the trees named after him, Sequoyah’s story demonstrates the political power of literacy and the written word.

For giving us an historical example of a truly creative response to injustice, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award recognizes James Rumford.  Please accept this honor citation for your important work.

Susan C. Griffith, 2005

 

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Honor Books for Older Children

The Heaven Shop,
by Deborah Ellis,
published by Fitzhenry & Whiteside.

Presentation Remarks for The Heaven Shop

This story, set in Malawi, sub-Saharan Africa, has as its central character, 13-year-old Binti Phiri, a popular radio show star who attends a private school for girls and helps her father in The Heaven Shop, his coffin-making business.  Life was good, then. However, it takes a drastic turn south when Binti's father dies from AIDS and she and her siblings are descended upon by greedy relatives who seize their possessions and half-heartedly offer to let them live in their homes.  Binti is separated from her brother as she now has to live with a mean, abusive uncle who warns his children to stay away from Binti and her sister because there is AIDS in the family.

Binti's character is well-developed and we come to know her innermost feelings.  Though self-centered and self-important when life was good, Binti learns through adversit, and her grandmother Gogo's example, to behave more generously. Gogo devotes her home, time and energy to caring for AIDS orphans and because of this selflessness, Binti learns the value of hard work and compassion.

Deborah Ellis' poignant story gives us a memorable look at a country's view about the deadly AIDS virus and how they are dealing with the epidemic.  The Heaven Shop was chosen because of its excellence as a catalyst to opening the eyes of young people to an important world problem.  Those who read this book will likely pay closer attention to headlines about AIDS in Africa and in our own country and perhaps show compassion and care to those who suffer from it.

We believe this book exemplifies the importance of the social issue of AIDS in Africa, and for that, The Jane Addams Children's Book Award Committee recognizes, Deborah Ellis for The Heaven Shop.

Dionne Delancy, 2005

 

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Click here for our Press Release about the 2004 Winners.

Click here for a list of previous winners of the
Jane Addams Children's Book Award.