Me! Can you believe it? Well, I still can’t…
There I was a couple of Saturdays ago, getting ready to meet friends and take in a football game or two. Alison was trying to wake up our 14 year old son Ben, who was grumbling — loudly I might add — about evil parents and the horror of having to get up before the crack of noon, etc. Our big, hairy dog Cody got caught up in this little wake-up drama and started jumping around and barking wildly (and sneezing; he does that when he gets jazzed up). Then the phone rang.
Normally, I would ignore the ringing and let someone else answer the phone. Why? Because the likelihood is that the call isn’t for me. I mean, even Cody gets more calls than I do. But with the loud grumbling and Cody’s barking/sneezing, I was the only one who heard the phone.
“Hello,” a woman said when I picked up. “Is this Jim Murphy?”
I don’t know about other writers, but when someone on the phone asks that question, I always wonder if I owe anyone money. But this turned out to be about something else entirely. The woman was Maren C. Ostergard, who is from the King County Library System in the great state of Washington and more importantly (for me, that is) the Chair of the ALA Margaret A. Edwards Award committee. And she was on the phone with her committee to tell me that I’d won the award!
Maren then went on to explain that the committee had singled out five of my books (An American Plague, Blizzard, The Great Fire, The Long Road to Gettysburg, and A Young Patriot) to “recognize an author’s work in helping adolescents become aware of themselves and addressing questions about their role and importance in relationships, society, and in the world.” Now that’s pretty cool, but then she added that I’d made a “significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature.”
Mind you, even though I was hearing all this through a background of loud, grumbling boy and barking/sneezing dog, I still managed to feel humbled (Maren mentioned the names of some of the past winners of the award) and excited. Then another committee member (who did not identify herself) called out, “And you’re the first nonfiction person to ever receive the award!” Wow, I’m a first!
Of course, as gratifying as any award is, most of us aren’t writing to win them. We write because we want to communicate with young readers, to share information and insights into subjects that fascinate us, and maybe, if we do our jobs right, to touch their minds and hearts in a lasting way. But being recognized with an award is certainly a wonderful way to put the icing on the cake. So my heartfelt thanks go out to Maren and her committee. Oh, and Cody sends an appreciative bark/sneeze your way, too.
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