Speech by Katherine Hannigan:
I was thinking the other day about this: How my grandparents, my mother's parents, emigrated from Ireland, very young and very poor. They landed in New York, and settled in Brooklyn. And how my mother, when she married my father, moved with him to Lockport, 500 miles away. So once or twice a year, while we were growing up, she would bring my brothers and me to Brooklyn and into Manhattan, which we knew was the most amazing city on earth in part because she said so, but mainly because anything busier, taller, louder, smarter, less organic, or more diverse was unimaginable. And I was thinking that if there was a creature that could travel across time, bearing tidings of future joy, and that creature had showed up on one of our trips and told me, "Some day, when you're grown up, you'll be coming back here. To receive an award. And it will be for something you wrote," I would have known that that creature was, at the very least, mistaken.
Then I was thinking about years later, when I was working for Head Start, and the Director and I would talk about sending staff to Bank Street College for training. And if a similar sort of clairvoyant creature had showed up then and told me, "You'll be going there yourself. But it will be because you wrote a story that meant a good deal to a good many people," I wouldn't have believed it. I couldn't have.
Because I was not the child, or the adult, to whom others said, "Ah, you will be a writer." I don't tell you that with any sort of self-pity. I think it was a gift. I like thinking about things like that--that life is quite amazing, and you just never know. It exposes worlds of possibility. For kids. For everyone.
Now, I don't want to mislead you or seem overly simplistic about my writing and Ida B. I was always a storyteller, but a very shy and private one. I can write well, and did a lot of academic writing. But when I came to Ida B, I came as a storyteller rather than a "writer", without external expectations and without expectations for external rewards. Writing simply served the story, and I think that made all the difference.
About five years ago, I moved out to Iowa to teach art and design at a university there, and because that's where I most wanted to be. We don't have time for me to tell you about all the reasons why I loved it, why suddenly it felt like life's boundaries and my own limits were just blown away. It's the garden we grow, the people who always wave, the size of the sky, the wooded hills and the river, the bald eagles and the deer and so much more. I felt like I'd found my true home and, simultaneously, that maybe anything was possible.
Ida B came out of those two experiences--passionately loving my life, and the elimination of limits I hadn't even realized I'd assumed.
I'd been writing--articles, grants, reports. And I'd been starting to write stories, then talking myself out of it, because I was intimidated by the "writer" part. But some things won't leave you alone, and one day I decided that I was going to tell myself the story I most wanted to hear. I'd write it down, because that way I could remember it and make it better and better. At that particular time, Ida B was the story I most wanted to hear. She was the girl I'd most like to spend time with, maybe even be, her place was the spot I'd most like to live, and her family the family I'd like to have. In the end, the story's about love, and what we do when we think we've lost it, and how we might remember the things that are constant and true. It was my greatest pleasure, and sometimes sadness, to hear her voice almost every day, and it was only me that heard that voice for a long time.
Can you imagine how nervous I was to share the story? It was the thing I loved most, and sharing it, I thought, made me the most vulnerable. After eight months alone with it, there was one person, then another, who read it, but I kept it close and shared it with few. Each time, though, and to my surprise, they laughed at the parts I thought were funny, sighed when I did, even cried. You see, I've always suspected that my world and the rest of the world might intersect at points, but not many. So it was an unexpected delight to find that those things that were deeply meaningful to me, were to other people, also.
I want to tell you how much this award means to me for its specificity: for "a book in which children or young people deal in a positive and realistic way with difficulties in their world and grow emotionally and morally." Because Ida B has many wonderful qualities--she is brave and loving and creative. But she is also angry and fierce and flawed. Like me. Maybe all of us. She's dead on right about some things, and justified, and wise; but she also messes up and hurts people. Like I have. Maybe you, too. I know it can be hard for people to look at those aspects of ourselves--that we're imperfect, that we're struggling in very unattractive ways sometimes. It can be really hard to see them in a child, especially a girl, an angry one, because we want so much for it to not be so. But I know it is so. It means a great deal to me that you do, too.
I was talking to a group of kids one day, and one of them asked me, "What's the main message of Ida B?" So I asked all of them, "What do you think it is?" and somebody offered, "Get outside!" which was fine. But then I said to them, "You know, we all mess up. Some things we're going to get right and some things we're going to get wrong. What makes a hero, I think, is somebody who keeps trying. Somebody who keeps going to that place inside of them that tells them when things are sitting right or not and, if they're not, eventually says, "Okay, then, I'm going to try again till I get it. Even though this is really hard, and hurts, and isn't there a way for me to get out of this? Oh, then, all right!" That's who Ida B is to me. Maybe you, too.
Thank you so much for the honor of the award, and the chance to speak with you.
Speech by Jeanette Winter:
I received a letter from Alice Belgray, telling me I was to receive the Flora Stieglitz Straus Award for "a nonfiction book that serves as an inspiration to young readers."
Well, when I first read about Alia Bakir in the N.Y.Times on July 27, 2003, the story of how she saved the books in her library during the war, at great danger to herself, was a great inspiration to me, and I I knew immediately that I wanted to share the story of her bravery and optimism with children.
I know that there is discussion about how much we should say about current events to children in books, about intruding into the innocent world of childhood. But when war images are like wallpaper on our TV screens, there's already a loss of innocence, unrelieved by any optimism, or sense of connection to the faces we see on the screen.
Alia's bravery, in saving the books in her library, puts a human face on the anonymity of war. And her courage gives children an opportunity to see how one person can make a difference.
We all feel powerless at times, especially children.
I hope children would remember how brave Alia was, surrounded by destruction, with neither side helping her.
I hope children would remember that she defied her surroundings, to save what was most important to her. And that she succeeded.
In making this book, I tried to keep the text and pictures as simple as possible, so that younger children could understand a story about a brave librarian who saves books, and older children could bring their greater knowledge to the simplicity of the story.
Even though this book was inspired by Alia Bakir's bravery during a particular time, I concentrated on Alia's story, not the war. It seemed better to me that the backdrop for her story be "War," with a capital "W," rather than getting into the specifics of this war, which could have turned into a political story. And political stories are often one-sided, sliding off into propaganda, which would have detracted from the main focus of my book, which is Alia.
Children need heroes, we all need heroes. Alia Bakir is a hero, who has given us optimism.
I want to thank the Bank Street Book Committee for honoring my book with this award.
Thanks to my editor, Allyn Johnston, who from the start, when I first read the manuscript to her over the phone, went far above the call of duty in publishing this book.
Thanks to Lori Benton, for putting the full weight of Harcourt's support behind this book. And thanks to Shaila Dewan, N.Y. Times, for uncovering Alia's story.
--and--
The Race to Save the Lord God Bird
by Phillip Hoose
(FSG)
Speech by Phillip Hoose:
The Flora Stieglitz Straus Award / Thank You from Phil Hoose 3/17/05
First let me say how very honored I am that you've chosen me as a co-recipient for the Flora Stieglitz Straus Award.
For me, writing The Race to Save the Lord God Bird was a journey. It began over thirty years ago, when I discovered a barely read copy of James Tanner's book The Ivory-billed Woodpecker at the New York Public Library. Ever since I opened that book, the great phantom bird has been perched in a corner of my imagination. As I turned the stiff pages, I found myself filled with admiration for Tanner. Along with his mentor, Cornell's Arthur A. Allen, Tanner seemed to represent a new breed of biologist who sought to understand birds on their own terms by exploring them in their habitat, rather than shooting them and studying lifeless specimens. Funded by the National Audubon Society, Tanner spent three years searching for the Ivory-bill across the southern United States -- on foot and in a Model A Ford -- digging for information about the bird and studying a small population of Ivory-bills at close range in their last holdout in a Louisiana swamp.
I loved Tanner's account. I could see him bouncing over rutted roads, trekking with his guide, J.J. Kuhn, through the Singer Tract, snapping his immortal photographs of Sonny Boy, the baby Ivory-bill who climbed on Kuhn's cap. I especially respected him for creating such a fair-minded plan to save Ivory-bill habitat at the Singer forest.
I first went looking for the Ivory-bill myself in the Big Thicket Swamp in Texas in 1980. On a sticky morning I was guided into a veiny network of shallow, tree-lined riverbeds by a Nature Conservancy colleague. By mid-afternoon, it was so hot I had to carry my dog out! Alas, there were no Ivory-bills, or if there were, they kept out of sight. But I was hooked.
In 1986 came the miraculous news that the Ivory-bill had been rediscovered -- in Cuba! It was all anyone in our office at The Nature Conservancy could talk about. I wanted to drop everything and go there to search myself. But I couldn't. It wouldn't have mattered. Great actor that the Ivory-bill was -- or is -- the bird had disappeared again, eluding teams of frustrated international scientists.
When in 2000, I was finally free to research a book about the Ivory-bill, I found the quest for stories and facts about it to be as exotic as looking for the bird itself. Like James Tanner, I often worked on rumors and leads. Following a courthouse tip, I located the deeds to the Singer Tract in a lawyer's'garage. A rare stamp featuring the Ivory-bill turned up in a doorless shop across the street from a dance hall in Santiago de Cuba. I found an oil painting of an Ivory-bill rendered by a Cuban artist who had become inspired by stories his grandfather told him about the great spirit of the forest. A small Louisiana museum contained woodcarvings made by German prisoners-of-war who cut down the last trees at the Singer Tract. Penny postcards from Tanner to Dr. Allen spilled from one file in a Cornell Library, while another file contained the first photograph of the Ivory-bill ever taken. And a single sentence in a book led me to three of the last people to have seen the Ivory-bill in the United States.
The Ivory-bill has charisma. It gives off an air of mystery and legend, and I got more spellbound by the day. Like Flora Stieglitz Straus, I deeply believe in the power of non-fiction to both inform and inspire. That's the writer's challenge: to find a compelling story and then write it without losing its magic or compromising its truth. This is the most satisfying work I've ever done. To think that I did it well enough in The Race to Save the Lord God Bird for you to honor my work makes me extremely proud.
Thank you.
-- and --
Hummingbird Nest: A Journal of Poems
By Kristine O'Connell George, illustrated by Barry Moser
Speech by Kristine O'Connell George:
First, let me say how very much I wish I could be with you today. If only I lived next door to Bank Street College rather than clear across the continent. However, living in California was the reason my family won the "bird lottery" when an Anna's hummingbird commandeered our back patio for a nesting operation. This little bird and the poetry she inspired allowed me to work with two extraordinary editors from Harcourt -- Allyn Johnston and Jeannette Larson -- who brought vision and insight to the book. Watching my words come to life through the artistic talent of Barry Moser and design talent of Judythe Sieck was equally amazing. From concept to final design, Hummingbird Nest was lavished with care and attention to detail. An author could not have asked for a more visually beautiful book. In my family, we name everything from dish towels to cars. So, it was natural that we name the teeny bird that moved in with us. Anna cast a shadow much larger than her diminutive self. However, our first meeting was brief:
VISITOR
A spark, a glint,
a glimpse
of pixie tidbit.
Bright flits, brisk zips,
a green-gray blur,
wings, zings, and whirr--
I just heard
a humming of bird.
Writing poems about events that occurred in this patio-sized theater -- on a stage smaller than the palm of my hand -- challenged me as a writer. I wanted each of the poems to convey what was happening as well as capture the sense and presence of a hummingbird -- light and quick. I also wanted to report from multiple points of view -- my family, Anna and her nestlings, the family dog, a neighbor's cat. Here's the feline take on events:
THE CAT REMARKS
I'm locked in jail,
can't go outside.
(I certainly tried.)
I'm a prisoner--
because of a bird.
How absurd.
Anna fascinated me and also evoked a great sense of responsibility. It's all I could talk about for weeks. I knew I was a goner when, on a rainy, windy night, I crawled out of my warm bed, grabbed a flashlight and tiptoed out onto the patio in my pajamas.. Although I realize that hummingbirds have been nesting and raising babies for quite a long time without my help, I had to check on the nest. That night I wrote:
RAINY EVENING
Tonight, sitting on your nest,
almost unseen,
you are even slighter
than you seem
when you are
wide with flight.
You are silent
and serene
this rainy evening,
your quiet wings
smoothly pressed,
as you patiently sit,
gentle captain
of your cobweb ship.
One of the funniest scenes was watching the little birds practice flying. I realize I'm anthropomorphizing them but, honestly, the nestlings looked dumfounded when they first got those high-speed wings going:
FLIGHT PRACTICE
Four curled feet grip
the top of the nest.
Two tiny motors
rev up for wing test.
Two aviators
begin to lift off...
Uh-oh!
They quickly adjust
wing speed back to slow....
Two student pilots
not yet ready
to
let
go.
Writing Hummingbird Nest opened a new world for me and gave me the opportunity to speak with some of the world's foremost hummingbird researchers. I also got to experiment with integrating music and poetry. On my web site, you'll find readings of the poems accompanied by music written by my friend, Cece Worrall Rubin, who is a brilliant musician and saxophonist. Hummingbird Nest and Anna's story brought gratifying responses from readers: A classroom is using the book for the language arts portion of an extended nature study. The Hummingbird Society praised it. A woman wrote a poignant note about reading Hummingbird Nest to her elderly mother in hospice care. Add now this amazing award from Bank Street College honoring Hummingbird Nest with The Claudia Lewis Poetry Award. I'm humbled and deeply grateful. Thank you! Thank you!