Neil Gaiman Wins Newbery Medal for ‘The Graveyard Book’
This article originally appeared in PW's Children's Bookshelf. Sign up now!
By Donna Freitas -- Publishers Weekly, 1/29/2009
 |
|
Neil Gaiman. |
“I was on so little sleep and had not expected or even dreamed that I would win,” Gaiman said about the 5:30 a.m. call to his cell phone—he was in Los Angeles doing a press junket for the film based on Coraline, which is set for release February 6. “The only thing going through my head was: ‘Don’t swear. It’s wrong. They’re librarians.’ And then I was informed I couldn’t say anything for another hour until it was announced. So I just sat there and wrote a blog entry, made myself some tea, and phoned my agent who was over the moon, and my editor, Elise Howard, who was crying she was so excited.”
When asked how it felt to become the new Miss America of children’s literature, since the Newbery Medal comes with quite a good deal of responsibilities, invitations, and appearances, Gaiman laughed. “There is definitely this sense of responsibility, the sort of thing where I keep thinking I really mustn’t rob a bank this year. The news headline would inevitably be "Newbery Winner Robs Bank." I have to say away from Ponzi schemes too,” he added. “Though, to be honest, none of this has even started to sink in yet.”
Monday was a “mad haze,” according to Gaiman, who explained that by the time his alarm was originally set to go off he’d already done six interviews and the doors were closing on his airplane to New York City for his appearance on the Today Show. “It’s absolutely mad, just madness, and I’ve spent 20 years writing and doing interviews, and having films come out and doing interviews. Honestly, I think if I’d gone from nowhere to this week I don’t think I’d be able to cope. But I’m just going to hold on—it won’t last forever.”
Amid all this madness, Gaiman is also enjoying the excitement of everyone else about his novel’s book’s win. “The thing that I am starting to get a sense of, which is wonderful and at the same time very, very strange, is how happy this choice is making other people. My editor has had from editors from other publishers calling to say how happy they are for The Graveyard Book. Teachers, librarians, and kids are emailing to say that they are delighted that this book is the Newbery—that it’s a book people want to read and it’s a good book, too.”
Gaiman said he assumed that because his book had been on the New York Times bestseller list since it came out that it wouldn’t be a book anyone would feel the need to point to for an award. “That the Newbery Committee did point to it,” he said, “fills me with joy. It also fills me with joy that Harper is so happy about the win. And what’s lovely about The Graveyard Book is that it was the first time I’ve ever written something that I was prouder of than I set out to write. Normally you fall short, but with The Graveyard Book I’d done better than I’d hoped.”
As for how Bod (short for Nobody and the protagonist in The Graveyard Book) will handle all the attention, Gaiman was confident that “Bod will do just fine,” but he also dropped a tantalizing tidbit about a possible future for Bod in a sequel. “There is a lot of background story to The Graveyard Book,” he explained. “I’d pondered doing a great big book or set of books that tell about what Bod doesn’t know quite yet during The Graveyard Book. And when I finish the big nonfiction book, [Monkey and Me: China and the Journey to the West], it will be time to do this next. I don’t think it’s too strange, the idea of doing a second Graveyard Book.”
Gaiman’s many fans will surely agree.
