Children's Literature Gets a New Ambassador

The country’s new National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Photo: Abby Brack.

Earlier this week Newbery Medalist Katherine Paterson added the title of National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature to her long list of honors. In a moving but laugh-filled ceremony at the Library of Congress on Tuesday morning, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington officially named Paterson—who succeeded the first children’s ambassador, Jon Scieszka—to the two-year position. “It was lovely,” said Paterson. “It really felt like a celebration.”

Books like Bridge to Terabithia, The Great Gilly Hopkins and Jacob Have I Loved helped make the effervescent Paterson—a 77-year-old mother of four and grandmother of seven—a natural for crossing the bridge to ambassadorship.

So did her immense love of reading. “There are two things I did right with my children,” Paterson said. “I loved them, and I read to them.” (“I did feed them, and I did wash them!” she added.) They especially liked Charlotte’s Web. “We would get to page 78, and John would say, ‘Don’t cry, mom,” she said. They also read the Dr. Seuss and Narnia books multiple times. One childhood favorite: Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. “I was terrified to read it to my children for fear they wouldn’t love it, too,” she said. “It’s a magical book.”

Scieszka’s ambassadorial platform was reaching reluctant readers. Paterson’s is “read for your life.” With books, she said, kids (and adults) use their “powers of intellect and imagination” and experience “delight.” Stories also teach children about people from other religions, races, and countries, said Paterson, who spent the first three years of her life living in China with her missionary parents. “Books help us make friends who are different from ourselves.”

It bothered Paterson when she heard a librarian say she didn’t buy any Virginia Hamilton books because no black children attended her school. “That’s the very reason you should be buying Virginia Hamilton’s books,” she said. “Because your kids don’t have an opportunity to have friends who are African-American, they should be making those friends in books. Same thing with religion.” Jimmy Carter said becoming friends with Anwar Sadat was the most important thing that happened to him as president, she added. “Neither was trying to convert the other. I love the fact that we might be able to do that in this country—that we might be able to learn to understand each other.... The more we know about each other, the better.”

Paterson also enjoys reading aloud—sometimes with her husband, a retired Presbyterian minister, who has co-written books with her. They take different parts in stories like Blueberries for the Queen, which they wrote together.

Leave ’Em Laughing

Passing the torch: Librarian of Congress James H. Billington, outgoing ambassador Jon Scieszka, incoming ambassador Katherine Paterson, and Center for the Book director John Cole. Photo: Abby Brack.

At the hour-long ceremony on Tuesday morning, Cole introduced Billington, who thanked Scieszka. True to form, Scieszka immediately got everyone laughing. Because of media coverage, many audience members already knew the big news before Paterson’s name was announced at the Library of Congress Jefferson Building. Scieszka, tongue in cheek, referred to “the incoming ambassador, who will remain nameless.” And he gave humorous advice to his successor. One tip: avoid wearing her new ambassadorial medal to the airport. He also played the instrumental fanfare that a group of San Diego schoolchildren composed and performed for him at the beginning of his reign. (He uses it as the ringtone on his iPhone.)

Paterson, too, made audience members smile. Her answer to a child’s question? “If I said I had a favorite author, I would lose 99 percent of my friends. So I choose authors who are dead.”

Paterson and Scieskza, in a shot taken after the ceremony. Photo: Virginia Anagnos.

Scieszka will remain active with the program. “Once ambassador, always ambassador,” said Robin Adelson, executive director of the Children’s Book Council. Typically Scieszka and Paterson will not travel together. “It’s really important for each ambassador to stand on their own,” said Adelson. But the two will both appear at the Children’s Choice Book Awards gala on May 11 in New York City. “They’re going to be a pretty powerful combination,” said John Cole, director of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress.

Wearing kid-made ambassadorial sashes, Scieszka visited 300 venues during his term. Paterson will make multiple appearances, too. Looking forward to her reign, she said, “The only thing I can promise is I won’t be as many places as Jon would be. [And] I won’t be as funny as Jon is.” But she is funny. When asked to be ambassador, she said with a laugh, “I reminded them how old I was!”

Scieszka wholeheartedly endorses the selection of Paterson, whose books, he said, make people cry, whereas his make them laugh. “She’s a spectacular choice. It shows people the range of children’s books,” he said. When he was chosen two years ago, he said, “I was telling people, ‘I think they misdialed Katherine Paterson’s number. They dialed me by mistake.’ ”

Of course, neither ambassador was a mistake. They’re immensely popular, and their enthusiasm for books is contagious. Too many kids “don’t think of reading as fun,” Adelson said. “We need them to realize it is.” Often it’s just a matter of helping children find the right book. When Scieszka gives out recommended reading lists, publishers see a bump in sales, she said. “It does mean people are paying attention.”

Luckily, good stories provide great fodder for conversation. “If you read a book you really love, you can’t wait to tell somebody,” said Paterson, who is also v-p of The National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance.

At the event, in a beautiful room that overlooks the U.S. Capitol and the Supreme Court, audience members viewed a short slideshow on both authors. It included awe-inspiring facts (Paterson received National Book Awards for The Great Gilly Hopkins and The Master Puppeteer, and Newbery Awards for Bridge to Terabithia and Jacob Have I Loved) and funny photos (Scieszka posing with a wailing baby under the headline “An Obvious Affinity with Children).

Paterson signing books. Photo: Abby Brack.

Immediately following the ceremony, guests attended a reception, where Rebecca Miller, communications manager of the Children’s Book Council, presented Paterson with a pink plastic wand. Paterson said she was tickled by the gift. “It not only blinks, but it sings,” she said. “That was fun.” Will she actually wield it at public appearances? “I will think about it!” she said. (When he was named the nation’s first ambassador, Scieszka received a cape.)

Scieszka joked about his reluctance to say goodbye to active duty. “I’m devastated. I’m not the ambassador any more!” he told PW. More seriously, he said that Paterson “hypnotizes” him. “She gets up there and talks about what it feels like when your son’s best friend dies,” he said. (Paterson based Bridge to Terabithia on that incident.) Scieszka loved it when one young student volunteered that his favorite books were Bridge to Terabithia—and his own childhood memoir, Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing Up Scieszka. “This little guy—he could love both those books!” said Szieszka.

Another highlight of the day for Scieszka and Paterson was visiting the Librarian of Congress’s ceremonial office before the 10 a.m. presentation. What did it look like? “Lots of wood, lots of marble,” said Scieszka. “I’m going to have to get one like it.”

After the ceremony, the two ambassadors visited Politics & Prose Bookstore, here introduced by Jewel Stoddard. Photo: Dara LaPorte.

Scieszka reminisced about a few highlights of his reign: receiving his silver ambassador medal from former First Lady Laura Bush at the National Book Festival, and visiting one particular school in San Diego. During the National Book Festival in September 2008, at a fancy black-tie event, Scieszka (despite some trepidation from the folks at the Library of Congress and the Children’s Book Council) read an excerpt from Knucklehead called “Crossing Swords.” For the uninitiated, it’s about Scieszka and his five brothers going to the bathroom together and “crossing streams…which we called crossing swords,” he said. “President Bush laughed the whole way through the story. Jenna [the President’s daughter] and Laura were just as entertained.” At that San Diego school, the students gave Scieszka a red-satin sash embossed with blue tape “ambassador” letters and performed their “Ambassador Fanfare.”

While he was ambassador, Scieszka appeared on The Martha Stewart Show, talked with thousands of children, and published numerous books. He also worked with Cheerios—the primary sponsor for the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature—on its Spoonful of Stories program, which gives away millions of free books inside cereal boxes and also to low-income children in 51 reading programs nationwide (one for each state, and Washington, D.C.).

And of course, he hooked children—and adults—with his humor. Asked whether he ever felt like Miss America, with his platform and all, Scieszka said, “I did a little bit. I’m glad we didn’t have to do the swimsuit competition. Didn’t have time to prepare for it.”

At Politics & Prose. Photo: Dara LaPorte.

The post of children’s ambassador was created by the Library of Congress, the Children’s Book Council and the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book to raise national awareness of the importance of young people’s literature. A six-member selection committee chose Paterson for the two-year position, based on her contribution to young people’s literature and her ability to relate to children. Committee members included retired school librarian Rita Auerbach; Young Adult Library Services Administration board member Betty Carter; Diane Roback, children’s book editor of Publishers Weekly; Angela Sherrill, children’s book coordinator at 57th Street Books in Chicago; Roger Sutton, editor-in-chief of the Horn Book; and Scieszka, who is also founder of the nonprofit literacy group Guys Read.

Officially, the position is for an ambassador, not a laureate. “A laureate implies in some quarters an honor without an activity,” said Cole. “They’re very active.”

The position dovetails with the Library of Congress’s push to recognize children’s literature. “Our mission is to use the resources and prestige of the Library of Congress to promote books and reading,” said Cole. “That includes readers and potential readers of all ages.” In October, the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book opened its Young Readers Center—the first time in its history that space has been dedicated specifically to the reading interests of children and teens. Visitors to the Young Readers Center flip through (non-circulating) books, browse kid-friendly Web sites and view webcasts of children’s and YA authors who have appeared at the National Book Festival. Last December, the Center, in the Library of Congress’s Jefferson Building, became connected under First Street to the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center.

With the National Children’s Literacy Group, the Center for the Book also created The Exquisite Corpse Adventure, a continuing story created by more than a dozen prominent children’s book authors and four illustrators and available exclusively on the read.gov Web site. Scieszka wrote the first of the eight episodes that are already out, and Paterson wrote the second one (and will also write the final one—#27). “We’ve tied it in with Young Ambassador’s program,” said Cole. There are also NCBLA education materials and a contest related to it.

Each of the 30 lucky children who were on hand for the 10 a.m. ceremony headed home with a signed copy of Paterson’s Bread and Roses, Too—and a large cookie shaped like an open book and decorated with blue icing on one side with “National Ambassador 2010-2111” and with the new ambassador’s name on the other.

Meanwhile, Paterson plans to keep penning stories from her home in Barre, Vermont—though she won’t reveal any details about her next novel. “As you can imagine, I’m not getting a lot of work done,” she said. “But I’m trying!”