So what’s it like to win the Newbery Medal? We asked Susan Patron

by Peggy Spear

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to win the Newbery Medal? Schmoozers at the February West San Gabriel Valley Schmooze had the good luck to meet Susan Patron, this year’s winner, just five days after the announcement of her selection. Susan had agreed to be our featured speaker months earlier, long before the Newbery was announced, so we were honored and delighted to share her good news within days of the announcement.

“The phone rang at 6:30 a.m., and it was my publisher in New York. He told me I couldn’t breathe a word of it, even to my mother, until the official announcement at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time. Of course, I ran upstairs to tell my husband!”

Once the Children’s Collections staff at the Los Angeles Public Library heard the news later that morning, the usual low hum of activity in the Library was broken with whoops and screams, as Susan’s colleagues realized she had won the most coveted award in children’s literature. From that moment on, Susan said, her life became a roller coaster ride. NBC called to tell her to take the next plane to New York, because she was scheduled to appear on the Today show the next morning. She laughed as she told us how she managed the interview for all of two and a half minutes on the popular morning show. Previous winners calling to congratulate her assured her life would not be her own for the rest of the year. So she is prepared to ‘go with it,’ knowing that it will only be for a year.

But what made the award all the more exciting for this published author was that it came as a total surprise. She had never given the Newbery a thought when “The Higher Power of Lucky” came out last October. She had worked on it for ten years. It hadn’t come easy. When it was published by Simon and Schuster, her editor retired. Only one review came in, so sales had been slow. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected the Newbery. She had just written the best book she could, on a character who came to life for her…and then she had reworked and rewritten it until she was done. None of the subsequent controversy fazed her. Because at her core, she’s a writer, and writers deal with the truth of any situation.