On October 19, 2007, the 2007 Jane
Addams Children's Book Awards
were presented by the Jane Addams Peace Association.
The following transcript is the opening remarks at the presentation
of the awards:
The
Opening Remarks by Susan C. Griffith
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 54th year, honor
Jane Addams – her principles, her philosophy, and her activism.
As Chair of the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Committee,
I would like to acknowledge Erika Schlenkermann for her music, the
special efforts of the JAPA Board in providing books for purchase
and signing, and all the members of the award committee.
Here today are Eliza Dresang, a member of the committee since the
year 2000, and a new member of the Committee, Sonja Cherry-Paul, who
will join our work in 2008. Other members, spread across the country,
are listed on your program and are here in spirit.
I welcome all of you gathered in this room.
You come from California, Florida, Texas, New York, Michigan, Oklahoma,
Connecticut, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to honor the legacy of Jane
Addams, the power of stories, and the future of all children. What
brings us to this moment? The journey for all of us begins long
before we took a step outside our doors today. It began with
imagination—maybe ten years ago, maybe just two or three, an
idea or image surfaced in the minds of the authors and illustrators
we see before us. They paid attention, made a commitment, nurtured
the ideas and brought them to friends, colleagues, publishers and
editors who listened, supported, reflected and gave time and resources
to bring those ideas forward to create the books we honor today.
And where will this moment take us? For us,
the readers of your stories, it will take us back to our own homes
and communities. There, we act as part of a social justice network
committed to the power of imagination and stories in shaping a world
grounded in peace, social justice and world community. In doing
so, we take inspiration from Jane Addams herself who, in 1902, wrote:
We have learned as common knowledge that much of the
insensibility and hardness of the world is due to the lack of imagination
which prevents a realization of the experiences of other people (Addams,
Democracy and Social Ethics, p. 8).
We use our own imaginations to create the events,
exhibits, conversations, reviews, activities and celebrations that
draw attention to these stories and place them in the hands of children
who have imaginations of their own. Our network grows stronger with
each passing year. Here are highlights of this year’s
efforts:
- For the first time ever, the Jane Addams Children’s
Book Award winners and honor books were announced from the Jane
Addams Hull-House Museum at the University of Illinois-Chicago
in April. In cooperation with Lisa Lee, Director of the Museum,
this now annual press conference was held in the Residents’
Dining Room—the wood-paneled, high-ceilinged room where Addams
herself ate, discussed, plotted and planned to change the world
with the cadre of woman who lived and worked alongside her.
- Accompanied by Jane Addams, the Time Traveler,
(who is here with us today), Addams Committee member Jo Montie worked
with children in Minnesota schools. She used the books, the
Addams doll and an empathy game to encourage children to make connections
with Addams and to ask themselves: How might I make choices
to make a difference while I’m here?
- As a direct result of attending last year’s
ceremony, Michelle Yang and Sonja Cherry-Paul of the Hastings-on-the-Hudson
School District founded the Jane Addams Literature Circle for Girls.
They organized and now lead a group of girls who meet once a month
to discuss an Addams Award winner or honor book. The girls,
many of whom are here with us today, tell what the group means to
them in a handout in your folder.
- Pat Wiser, our indefatigable member from Sewanee,
Tennessee, continued her work in Appalachia where she carefully
and cautiously integrates the Addams books into the curricula of
local schools and drives into the mountains to conduct story hours
that push school children to realize the experiences of others.
- And, members of the Women’s International
League for Peace and Freedom staged an impressive multi-faceted
celebration of the 2007 Winners and Honor books at San Francisco
Public Library. See the San Francisco Public Library Website to
catch the excitement of children enjoying Addams books on their
own and in organized activities and to see photographs of the exhibit
of 54 years of Addams Award winners that anchored the celebration.
And, now, back to this moment. We want you,
the writers and artists whose imaginations have led us here, to know:
When you put fingers to the keyboard or a brush or pencil to paper,
we are waiting for your work in California, Tennessee, Minnesota,
New York and beyond. We are out there, building a network ready
to receive the works of your imaginations. We believe, as Beth McGowan,
representative of WILPF, said at the 2007 Award Announcement at Hull-House:
In giving this Award, the Jane Addams Peace Association
acknowledges that the work of our minds shapes the world in which
we live. The association acknowledges that the remaking of the world
must begin with the remaking of the stories we tell our children.
Remarks
by Susan C. Griffith
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Ceremony
October 19, 2007
A Place Where Sunflowers Grow,
written by Amy Lee-Tai, illustrated by Felicia Hoshino and
published by Children’s Book Press, is the winner of the Jane
Addams Children’s Book Award for Younger Children. Set in a
U.S. internment camp and told in both Japanese and English, this is
the story of preschooler Mari and her family. Subdued by her losses
and frightened by living under guard in the harsh desert, Mari barely
talks or laughs anymore.
Mari’s parents look to creative expression to
urge her fears into the open and to rekindle her spirit. Her mother
plants sunflower seeds with her; her father brings her to art classes
held in the barracks. At first, Mari is unable to draw and the sunflower
seeds refuse to sprout. But then, lavished with the time, patience
and care of her parents and teacher, Mari does begin to draw, and,
in words from the text: “It was if, with every drawing she created,
Mari found another question to ask and the courage to ask it.”
“Why are we in camp? Why is almost everyone here Japanese
American? Will I ever see my old friends again?”
Finally, after three long months, on the day she draws
the crowded family barracks with imagined sunflowers so tall they
rival the guard towers above them, the sunflowers sprout.
A Place Where Sunflowers Grow
blends understatement with telling details in language carefully chosen
to appeal to young children. Mixed-media illustrations in the browns,
yellows, golds and greens of both sunflowers and the desert foreground
the tenderness of conversations between Mari and her parents against
the grim background of the armed guards and barbed wire that enclose
them. Writer Amy Lee-Tai and illustrator Felicia Hoshino drew
inspiration from the stories and art of Amy Lee-Tai’s grandmother
Ibuki Hibi Lee to create a book that demonstrates that, with time,
patience, care and the arts, human dignity and human compassion can
be nurtured in even the most unjust circumstances.
It is with great pleasure that we present the Jane
Addams Children’s Book Award in the Younger Children’s
category to author Amy Lee-Tai.
It is with great pleasure that we present the Jane
Addams Children’s Book Award to illustrator Felicia Hoshino.
Remarks by Susan C. Griffith
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Ceremony
October 19, 2007
Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata,
published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon
& Schuster Children’s Publishing, is the winner of the Jane
Addams Children’s Book Award in the Books for Older Children
category.
It’s early December 1941. Twelve-year-old
Sumiko rushes home to her hardworking family’s flower farm waving
a prized invitation to a classmate’s birthday party. In painful
foreshadowing of the heartbreak and injustice all Japanese Americans
will soon face, Sumiko is turned away from the party.
Thrown off balance early in life by the death of her
parents, Sumiko and her little brother are now firmly rooted in the
family of their Uncle, Auntie, grandfather and older cousins.
Life revolves around the routines of the flower farm and the family
rituals that nurture growth in everyday life. All is lost when
the United States declares war on Japan: The government arrests
Grandfather and Uncle and ships Auntie, the cousins, Sumiko and her
brother to Poston, an internment camp on the Mohave Indian reservation.
At Poston, like thousands of others in the camp, Sumiko
faces dust, heat, confinement and boredom. Adrift, she draws on memories
of her grandfather’s stories to spur her to purposeful action.
She irrigates and cultivates a plot of ground, plants seeds that she
has carried from home, and grows weedflowers, the common stock-flower
she loves so dearly. Grown-ups are worried about the loss of
discipline among the children. But when the adults talk about her,
they just joke, “All Sumiko cares about is dirt.”
But Sumiko’s life is more than what the grown-ups
observe. In a chance encounter outside the confines of the camp,
she meets Frank, a Mohave boy. In secret, Sumiko and Frank form a
friendship—one that Sumiko must nurture as carefully as her
flowers, one that pushes her to new understandings of herself and
of a world that seems not to care about her or her dreams.
In creating a story of the Japanese Internment through
Sumiko’s eyes, Cynthia Kadohata blends fact and fiction to create
a novel that portrays the cruel loss of the purposeful and productive
lives of Japanese-American citizens and the Mohave people. The author’s
thorough research and empathetic imagination give life to Sumiko,
herself a weedflower whose beauty springs from her hardy and artful
survival in an environment designed to destroy it. She proves that
in the human spirit, as in nature, nothing and no one is a weed.
The Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Committee
is honored to present the Award to the winner in the Books for Older
Children category, Cynthia Kadohata. Congratulations.
Two books won honors in the Books for Younger Children
Category.
Remarks
by Eliza T. Dresang
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Ceremony
October 19, 2007
We are bound for the Promise Land!
Oh, who will come and go with me?
We will come and go with you
We are bound for the Promised Land!
This refrain resounds throughout the 2007 Jane Addams
Children’s Book Award Honor Book, Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw
Tale of Friendship & Freedom, told in written form by nationally
recognized Choctaw storyteller, Tim Tingle, illustrated by Jeanne
Rorex Bridges, an award-winning artist, and published by Cinco Puntos
press.
This
traditional Choctaw story starts when Martha Tom, a young Indian girl,
crosses the River Bok Chitto the boundary between free and slave territory
in search of blackberries for her mother’s wedding preparations
and witnesses the singing of this refrain in a forbidden slave gathering,
deep in the Mississippi woods. The refrain rings in Martha’s
mind as she steals back across the river many times, using stones
hidden beneath the water but seeming to walk on the surface. Over
time she becomes a close friend of Little Mo, a black boy her age,
whose father leads these welcoming but forbidden worship services.
But the night that Little Mo learns his mother has
been sold and enlists Martha and the other Indian women’s help
miraculously to lead his seven-member family to safety and freedom
on the Choctaw side of Bok Chitto, the very immediate and concrete
meaning of the Promised Land becomes clear. Martha’s singing
of the refrain in Choctaw as the family crosses Bok Chitto symbolizes
the friendship of the two peoples and how they worked together courageously
and non-violently to break a cycle of fear and subjugation.
The lyrical language of the storytelling, the solemn
dignity of each individual portrayed in the perfectly-matched compelling
acrylic paintings, and the final historical notes and explanation
of the tale’s origins in Choctaw culture come together in a
uniquely outstanding picture book.
The Jane Addams Committee is pleased to honor this
story of friendship and freedom that can be found nowhere else in
the annals of children’s literature and yet records an extremely
important partnership between the native peoples and enslaved Africans
in their struggle for freedom. Congratulations and thank you to Tim
Tingle, Jeanne Rorex Bridges, and Cinco Puntos for bringing to the
children of the world this example of a little known but highly significant
part of American history authentically told from the oral tradition.
Remarks by Susan C. Griffith
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Ceremony
October 19, 2007
Night Boat to Freedom, written by
Margot Theis Raven with pictures by E. B. Lewis, published by Melanie
Kroupa Books, an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux is a compelling
work of historical fiction rich with the tones of oral storytelling.
Christmas John, an enslaved African-American boy, repeatedly faces
danger and darkness to row other slaves across the Ohio River to freedom.
With Granny Judith’s story of her own cruel capture fueling
his actions, Christmas John faces his fear with her words to guide
him: “What scares the head is best done with the heart.”
Expressive watercolors in blues and grays create passionate
conversations held in shadowy firelight and intense moonless nights
filled with silence and risk. Red, subdued when it represents
the sorrow and blood of slavery, becomes a bright motif of triumph
when it stands alongside all the colors Granny Judith sews into a
freedom quilt. Drawing key elements from African-American slave narratives,
Night Boat to Freedom offers an inspiring story that is exactly
as Ms. Raven describes it in her Author’s Note: “patches
of truth stitched together by voices alive with history.”
For Night Boat to Freedom, a story that shows the
resilience and courage of a child faced with injustice, I am pleased
to present this 2007 Jane Addams Children’s Book Award honor
citation for a Book for Younger Children to Melanie Kroupa on behalf
of author Margot Theis Raven.
In recognition of evocative, moving illustrations,
I am pleased to present a Jane Addams Children’s Book Award
Honor Citation in the Books for Younger Children Category to E. B.
Lewis. Melanie Kroupa will accept the citation.
Two books won honors in the Books for Older Children
category.
Remarks by Eliza T. Dresang
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Ceremony
October 19, 2007
Russell Freedman, author of the 2007 Jane Addams Children’s
Book Award Honor book, Freedom Walkers, published by Holiday House,
is a well-known name in the arena of children’s literature;
his work has received virtually every major award given to writing
for young people. And yet he continues, as he does in Freedom
Walkers, to tackle important historical and social topics in compelling
ways so that they capture the attention of youth and surely inspire
them, as did Jane Addams herself, to make the world a place more amenable
to peace and social justice.
In Freedom Walkers, Freeman takes a novel approach
to the story of the 1954 Montgomery Alabama Bus Boycott that is often
thought of as the event of that spearheaded the Civil Rights movement.
The quiet determination of many individuals who fought their own battles
against segregation, paving the way for Rosa Parks’s determination
not to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger on a Montgomery
bus is clearly portrayed. Whole chapters are devoted to such individuals,
e.g., Jo Ann Robinson, a recently hired professor of English, who,
in 1949, was humiliated because she happened to sit in what was determined
the white portion of the bus or teenager Claudette Colvin. Freeman
expertly depicts the dignity and intelligence with which Rosa Parks
carried out her role as the catalyst for the strike, and the subsequent
coming together of the many, many Freedom Walkers for the 382 days
during which they walked to work – often at great sacrifice
– and brought the attention of the world to Montgomery.
In fact, they brought about the end of segregated transportation forever.
Russell Freeman makes these walkers vividly real with the use of both
known and unknown personal details and forceful descriptions.
The black and white photographs speak as articulately as the words
of the emotions of this event that taught people everywhere how disputes
could be settled peacefully when determination to do so is present
and how injustice can be confronted in nonviolent yet highly effective
ways. The Jane Addams Committee congratulations you, Mr. Freedman,
for this engrossing account of the Montgomery Freedom Walkers and
for the clarity with which you portray this example of how to approach
problems of great magnitude with courage and determination to solve
them in a peaceable manner.
Remarks by Susan C. Griffith
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Ceremony
October 19, 2007
Counting on Grace, by Elizabeth
Winthrop, is published by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House
Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc. In
a fit of pique, schoolteacher Miss Lesley dismisses second-best reader
Grace Forcier from her mill-owned classroom. Her best reader,
Arthur Trottier, has just been conscripted to work in the mills in
his dead father’s stead. This novel is set in Vermont
in the early 1900s, and is told through the voice of twelve-year-old
French Canadian Grace Forcier.
No longer a schoolgirl, Grace is eager to join her
family in the mills. She knows that, as a doffer changing bobbins
on her mother’s six looms, she will be counted on for the money
she brings to her struggling family. But exuberant Grace
is not quick like her older sister Delia who, the morning of Grace’s
first day, issues her a stern, heartfelt warning: “Grace, every
second. Pay attention.” Grace’s mind wanders, her
body resists, and her spirits sag as the relentless pressure of factory
life bears down upon her.
In a story inspired by a photo taken by Lewis Hine,
a reformer with a camera, Elizabeth Winthrop gives us Grace—a
girl who negotiates the dangerous looms, empathizes with the striving
of her friend Arthur, and lovingly cares about and for her family
members. Grace is a courageous individual but she is not alone.
When the letter she secretly writes with Miss Lesley and Arthur brings
Lewis Hine to town, his careful activism and respectful approach ground
her more firmly in her community while stretching her sense of self
beyond its boundaries.
This historical novel emphasizes the importance of
literacy, imagination, community and activism in challenging social
injustice. I am pleased to present a Jane Addams Children’s
Book Award honor citation in the category of Books for Older Children
to Elizabeth Winthrop.
Since 1953, the Jane Addams Children's Book Award
annually acknowledges books published in the U.S. during the previous
year. Books chosen effectively address themes or topics that promote
peace, justice, world community, and/or equality of the sexes and
all races. The books also must meet conventional standards of literary
and artistic excellence.
A national committee chooses winners and honor books
for older and younger children. Members of the 2007 Jane Addams
Children's Book Awards Committee are Susan C. Griffith, Chair (Mt.
Pleasant, Michigan), Barbara Bair (Washington, D. C.), Ann Bower (Harwich,
Massachusetts), Eliza T. Dresang (Tallahassee, Florida), Oralia Garza
de Cortes (Pasadena, CA), MJ Grande (Juneau, Alaska), Margaret Jensen
(Madison, Wisconsin), Jo Montie (Minneapolis, MN), Sarah Park (Long
Beach, California) Deborah Taylor (Baltimore, Maryland), and Pat Wiser
(Sewanee, Tennessee). Regional reading and discussion groups participated
with many of the committee members throughout the jury’s evaluation
and selection process.
The 2007 Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards
will be presented Friday, October 19th in New York City. Details
about the award event and about securing winner and honor book seals
are available from the Jane Addams Peace Association. Contact JAPA
Executive Director Linda B. Belle, 777 United Nations Plaza, 6th Floor,
New York, NY 10017-3521; by phone 212-682-8830; and by e-mail japa@igc.org.
For additional information about the Jane Addams
Children’s Book Awards and a complete list of books honored
since 1953, see www.janeaddamspeace.org.
Founded in 1948, JAPA is the educational arm of the
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
In addition to sponsoring the Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards
and many other educational projects, JAPA houses the U.N. office of
WILPF in New York City and owns the Jane Addams House in Philadelphia
where the U.S. section of WILPF is located. Organized on April 28th
in 1915, WILPF is celebrating its 92nd year. For information,
visit www.wilpf.int.ch/.
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Honoring
children's books since 1953
