Marcelo in the Real World was the recipient of this year’s Schneider Family Book Award. I am so very proud and honored to have received this award. It is a very meaningful award to me. The award is given for “a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences.” The award, for me, recognizes the many young men and women who suffer because their perception of the world differs from that of a neuro-typical person. The award is also a recognition that “artistic expression” can take us into the world of the non-neuro-typical person like nothing else. People sometimes ask me how I came upon Marcelo’s voice, a voice that resembles the voice of so many young people with Asperger’s syndrome, and ultimately I have no answer other than to say that the voice was a gift and also that somewhere in me I too must have Marcelo’s voice, I too must see the world the way he sees it, if only in a small way. I am glad there are awards like the Schneider Award.
January 24, 2010
December 28, 2009
End of the Year Lists
For the first time in my writing career, a book of mine has appeared on various Best Book of the Year lists. I’ve been wondering for a couple of weeks now as to how to respond (at least to myself). I have referenced the various lists and commendations elsewhere on this website, but I felt that this praise for the book, proud and honored as I am of receiving it, needed to be put into perspective (at least to myself). I think of the many good books that didn’t get listed and which deserve to be read. I remember a couple of books of mine that have gone by unnoticed – heartfelt books as worthy to be read, in my view, as Marcelo. So I wanted to say something (at least to myself) about lists and awards and competitions but all I could think of were the words of T. S. Eliot in Four Quartets (East Coker).
And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to
conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot
hope
To emulate -but there is no competition –
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under
conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
June 11, 2007
Recent Awards
Behind the Eyes recently named one of 14 Commended Titles for 2006 for the Americas Award. The Americas Award is given in recognition of U.S. works of fiction, poetry, folklore, or selected non-fiction (fro picture books to works for young adults) published in the previous year in English or Spanish that authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States. By combining both and liniing the Americas, the award reaches beyond geographic borders, as well as multicultural-international boundaries, focusing instead upon cultural heritages within the hemisphere. The award is sponsored by the national Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs. The award winners and commended titles are selected for their 1)distinctive literary quality; 2)cultural contextualization; 3)exceptional integration of text, illustration and design; and 4) potential for classroom use. The winning books will be honored at a ceremony (tentatively October 6, 2007) at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)
For more information on the Americas Award please see www.uwm.edu/Dept/CLACS/outreach/americas.htmlÂ
Behind the Eyes was also selected for inclusion in the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age 2007. This list, now in its 78th year of publication, selects the best of the previous year’s publishing for teenagers, 12 to 18 years old. All the titles chosen were read by young adult librarians and recommended for this special publication. See www.nypl.org Â
And last but not least, Behind the Eyes was inducted into the Teens Read Too Hall of Fame! See: www.Teensreadtoo.com
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