Female Speaker: From the Library of Congress, in Washington,
D.C. John Cole: Well good morning,
and welcome to the Library of Congress.
I'm John Cole, I'm the Director for the Center of the Book
in the Library of Congress.
It's the reading promotion arm of the Library of Congress.
We happily promote books and reading, and libraries and literacy,
for audiences of all ages, but we especially like to have audiences
like today's audience: enthusiastic, filled with both heart --
young people, wonderful writers, wonderful librarians,
and people who all come together for the sake
of reading, and for young people.
The Center for the Book was created in 1977,
and we now have stimulated the creation of Centers
for the Book in every state.
We don't pay for them, so it's always a bit of a challenge for us
to work with them to help promote books and reading.
And today, we are lucky to have some public librarians from Maryland
and from Virginia, and I was telling a couple of them earlier
that we want to stay in close touch, because we have a couple
of wonderful new things happening with the Center for the Book,
and with the reading promotion part of the Library of Congress.
I also want to say that today's event is hosted
by not only the Center for the Book, but the Hispanic Foundation --
Hispanic Division, excuse me,
and Georgette Dorn simply could not be here today,
so I promised to give her greetings, and also to invite you to stay
with us -- the Hispanic Division and the Center
for the Book have helped host this event now for a number of years,
and we hope to keep going on this with your help, and I also urge you
to help, once the news is out next year of our ceremony,
to help us get a good crowd.
We were able to advertise in the Washington Post, but of course,
part of this is raising awareness of the importance of books
for young people, and we would appreciate help
in getting wonderful audiences in the future.
One of the Center for the Book projects is the National Book
Festival, and we have just, with a lot of help from around the Library
of Congress, we have just had our eighth National Book Festival last
Saturday on the Mall.
It was brought to the Library by Laura Bush.
This was our last, obviously, book festival with Mrs. Bush,
but it was a bang-up finish.
We had over 100,000 people on the Mall,
and for eight years now we've had wonderful authors and illustrators
for books for young people, including Pat Mora who has been
at least once or twice -- twice, Pat, I think?
We are going to be able to continue the Book Festival.
We're not sure exactly how, but the Library
of Congress will continue it, one way or another.
We are the organizers and the sponsors, and I've had that question
from so many people today,
I just thought I would mention it for certain.
We do have posters from this year's Book Festival.
We're giving them away.
It's a wonderful poster by Jan Brett, and we do have a supply --
we don't have tubes, you'll have to roll them yourself
and put a rubber band around it,
but we hope that in the social time afterwards
that you will go ahead and grab a poster.
We also, the Center will be having a new "read aloud" project next year,
so these are kinds of things that we're working on, and we will keep
in touch with you about these activities.
But to get us started today, as you know this is a collaborative effort,
and it is really presented by the Consortium
of Latin American Studies Program, CLASP, but the person
who is behind the event and who is really our hostess for today,
and the true organizer, of course, is Julie Kline.
And I'd like to ask Julie, and I'm going to give her full title now,
to come forward and to get us started.
But Julie is the Outreach and Academic Program Coordinator
at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies,
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee,
and she does represent our major organizing sponsor, the Consortium
of Latin American Studies Programs.   Julie. Let's give her a hand.

[applause] Julie Kline: Good morning.
Audience: Good morning.
Julie Kline: I'm also asking out -- this is Charline Barnes,
from West Virginia University, who was the chair
of this year's Americas committee.
[applause] Julie Kline: Very happy to have you all here today.
I thought we'd be a little leisurely in our start because there was
such nice sounds in conversation going on in the room.
Thanks all for turning out.
Did some of you get caught up -- did you run, like, a 5K on your way?
[laughter] We actually are scheduled to have book sales from Busboys
and Poets bookstore, and I think they actually are caught
up in the race, so we'll be crossing our fingers
for the books to show up.   Thanks for turning out.

It's a very -- this is always such a nice event.
This is, to me, the icing on the cake after a year of work,
and probably the committee would say it was a year of work.
Female Speaker: Yes, it was.   Julie Kline: To have the chance

to recognize our recipients this year --
Pat Mora, here, and Rafael Lopez for Yum!
Mmm! Que Rico!   America's Sproutings.


[applause] Published by Lee & Low,
and their editor Louise May is here with us.

[applause] And also Laura Resau, author of Red Glass,
published by Delacorte/Random House.
[applause] And the nice thing is Laura brought a good part
of the audience, didn't she?
[laughter] I'd like to thank my early helpers, Talbot de St. Aubin
and Andy Kline, who were the program layer-outers on the table.

And John Cole for turning around from 100,000 people
for the Book Festival to coming in, working with us on this event.
A little background.
The Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs is a national
organization to which college and University programs
of Latin American studies belong.
One of the main missions of the organization is supporting teaching
and outreach in Latin American studies, and as such,
they started the book award back in the early '90s.
Our first recipient in 1993 was Lulu Delacre
for the bilingual book Vejigante Masquerader.
Anybody here back in -- well, we didn't do the award back then,
but -- [laughter] But we still get hands.
The Americas Award is -- there's up to two awards given in recognition
of U.S.-published works of fiction, poetry, folklore,
or selected nonfiction, from picture books to works for young adults,
which authentically and engagingly portray Latin America,
the Caribbean, or U.S. Latino cultures.
By linking the Americas, the intent is
to reach beyond geographic borders,
as well as multi-cultural international boundaries,
focusing instead on cultural heritages within the hemisphere.
To determine the books, the group looks at four criteria:
Distinctive literary quality, cultural contextualization,
exceptional integration of text, illustration, and design,
and the potential for classroom use.
Would you like to introduce our committee members,
those present, and here in spirit?
Charline Barnes: The committee is selected --
Julie and I have talked about this several times --
it's usually people who are involved in Latin American studies,
and that includes the Caribbean.
And as chair of this committee for this year,
all the committee members have served for three years,
or will be serving for three years.   It's a three-year term.

And I just wanted to thank the committee for 2008.
The first one is Kristel Foster, she's a teacher
in Sunnyside Unified School District in Arizona.
Where's Kristel?
[applause] Jaime Naidoo, at the University of South Carolina.
Now he's at the University of Alabama.

[applause] And he teaches children's literature
in the Library Science Area.
And then we have Rosalind Santavicca, she's at the University
of Pittsburgh, and she's, like Julie,
and outreach for the Latin American studies.
And then the person who could not be here
because her father-in-law passed away in Mexico is Patricia Velasco,
and she's at Teachers College, I think it's in Bilingual Studies.
So we want to just let you know that she really wanted to be here,
but unfortunately, yesterday she was flying
out to Mexico for a sad family event.
[low audio] Yes, okay.
Once the committee is selected, and we all agree --
I just have to tell you a little bit of how I got on this committee,
because I didn't even know anything about the Americas Awards.
I'm a professor in literacy, and I don't deal a lot
in children's literature, but I want to include it.
And I was getting ready to write a Fulbright, and I was looking
at the Caribbean, and Latin American studies, and it was just by me going
to the University of Wisconsin where the Americas Awards site is on,
and found some wonderful books, including some
of Pat Mora's books, already.
And I used that to introduce Caribbean teachers to works written
by Caribbean authors in the U.S., and this was done in Barbados.
And I am very fortunate for those six months that I was there.
Those teachers are still using those books, because they've got copies
of those books, and they now tell me a lot that they link their parents
and teachers to the Americas Awards
at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
So we are very grateful.
Now, the committee gets together, and Julie sends out notices
to the publishers and other places that promote Latin American studies
and the Caribbean, and they send us copies of the4se books, and we read.
Let me tell you, we read.
And we also look at the artists' work that are connected,
the illustrators' work that are connected to these books.
And we kind of narrow it
down by these four criteria that Julie talked about.
And then we get on the phone.
This is a lovely phone conversation, because when we come together
at this event in October,
this is the first time a lot of us meet each other.
[laughter] So we put faces to voices at this time,
but during -- about what, four months?
From January to about April, we are working on the phone,
reviewing these books, discussing them, and how they fit
in each of these criteria.
And then we keep narrowing them down,
and finally we pick the commendable ones,
and the honored ones, and then the winners.
The chair gets to call the winners, and I was very fortunate I was able
to talk to all of them at some point; sometimes we play phone tag,
with their schedules, because they are busy,
and a lot of them have full-time jobs,
along with doing this wonderful work,
and this gift that they had given us about books, and reading, and art.
But we do.
And we are so glad that their publishers support them
in coming here, because it's an honor to be able to get these
out into not just the public's hand, but also into classrooms.
The committee is very much focused.   We spend a lot of -- three?

About three hours each week during those four months discussing these
books, taking notes, and Julie kind of keeps us on track, and reminds us
of some of the issues that may come up.
And I'm very much pleased and thankful
that the committee has done an excellent job this year.
They represent a good -- as you can see,
our field out there represented a good interest
in looking at classrooms.
Some of us have tried these books out in the classroom.
We also looked at reviews that go along with these books,
but most important is how we read as readers, and these criteria:
the literary quality, the culture contextual --
because those are some of the things that we are very much conscious
of -- and the integration of the text and the illustration
and the design, and again, is it possible to use these
in any classroom, whether it's elementary, secondary,
or even at the college level.   So I thank the committee.

They have done a wonderful job, and I'm going to miss you all.
I guess now we need to have two -- Julie Kline: Let me just do --
Charline Barnes: Okay, we need
to do some other things here before we introduce you
to the commended ones, the books that are listed back there.
Julie Kline: One second.
I always remember when I was doing a show in my front yard
with my friend Richie Mundae [spelled phonetically],
and we didn't practice first -- [laughter] --
and we were telling jokes to each other,
and one of us would say the line
and then we'd whisper what the other one was supposed to say next.
[laughter] And my mother made us -- we charged money, a nickel each,
and my mother made us give the nickels back.
[laughter] Just some quick things: it really was fun to work
with this committee, and I think, as you can tell -- oh, this microphone.
As you can tell, we have people from a diversity of backgrounds,
so bringing in library sciences, and teacher training,
and classroom teachers, curriculum specialists,
it really makes a really rich conversation,
and I think really does full credit to the books
as they're being discussed and debated.
Because some books -- enough of a strong case is made
for that they really perk up and into the list.
And you'll see a display of all the books
on the commended list, in the back.
Some very quick things: in addition to the committee members,
thanks to the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs;
our Library sponsors: Hispanic Division, The Center for the Book,
Special Events and Public Programs Office,
whom I worked with so you have this nice setting,
in particular Cynthia Acosta
and Paul Mizachi [spelled phonetically] --
Paul, who stepped out because they're all so busy --
John Cole and Anne Boni, also William Low, who provided support
for Rafael and Pat to attend; The Center where I work,
the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University
of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Roz Santavicca's Center
for Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.
Laura Resau -- we always try to work in school visits the day before,
and the Connelly School for the Holy Child, Vicky Masson
and Denise Stablein, who I met this summer at a teacher institute
in Milwaukee, helped host visits -- about how many kids,
do you think, did Laura speak with?   Charline Barnes: Yesterday?

Julie Kline: Yeah.
Three groups -- Laura Resau: About 160.
Julie Kline: Thank you, Laura.
Laura Resau: We did a writing workshop.
Julie Kline: Fun.
And Denise -- Vicky said they weren't --
they were not in a hurry to get up and leave, I hear,
so that's a very good sign.
[laughter] [low audio] Yeah, and also I think Deborah Menkart
from Teaching for Change was able to arrive with books,
so she probably won the race.
And Busboys and Poets bookstore, and Don Allen, who helped us out,
will be helping us out with book sales today.
Now it's your turn, Kristel.   Thank you.

Kristel Foster: Good morning.   Audience: Good morning.

Kristel Foster: Before we present the awards for the two titles,
I'd like to share with you the commended list, and talk to you
about the 18 titles -- this was a very, very hard process,
because we went over so many books, and we all had our favorites,
and we all had ones we stood up and went to battle for,
and it was really very difficult to come to consensus on two,
and so I'm glad that we get to talk more about the other ones as well.
On the commended list, again, there's 18 titles,
and reading these books featured
on the commended list is an intriguing literary journey
through the Latin world.
We begin in the historic corner of the American southwest,
and go through the rumblings of Guatemala,
on to an intellectual island hop through the Caribbean
and into the highlands of the Andes,
and even into the African roots of Brazil.
And along this journey, we meet Latin American icons
such as Frida Kahlo and Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
and we debate burning issues of racism, violence, and poverty.
And finally, we get to celebrate with song and dance, and rhythm
and artistic expression, culture, Christmas,
capoeira, and even cucarachas.
[laughter] And we invite you to explore Latin America
with these commended books, with a class full of kids, your own child,
or even next time you need a little getaway of your own.
And now I'd like to talk about the honorable mentions.
We have a novel as well as a children's book, and I'll begin
with the children's title, Nochecita by Yuyi Morales.
And it's a beautiful story filled with touching metaphors.
It's a lullaby for child Little Night, told by her dear mother, Sky.
And the story resonates with anyone who plays their own game
of hide-and-seek just as they are called to go
to bed at the end of the day.
It's a poetic tale that honors the curiosity of little girls,
while embracing their ethnic identity and innocent femininity.
The illustrations are rich in color, and soothing in style,
and children will love Little Night's beautiful world,
and want to read about her unique, yet familiar,
nighttime ritual again and again.
And the novel, Raising Sardines, by Enrique Flores-Galbis;
this novel explores the relationship between economics
and the environment in a pre-Castro Cuba.
And there's a wealthy landlord, Don Rigol,
who claims the villagers' mountain as his own,
and plans to clear the area for a coffee plantation.
And our characters, Ernestina and Enriquito, are determined
to stop this devastation, and in doing so they meet an array
of unpredictable characters that inhabit a mystical world.
Following a Latin American literary tradition of magic realism,
this author creates a meaningful adventure
with integrity and purpose.
So I invite all of you to read those titles as well.
[applause] Jaime Naidoo: Roz and I get the honor of giving out one
of the awards, the award that was given for the picture book
that won the award, and I think I've -- when I was in this community,
I think I became, for at least for a point there,
known as the illustration snob.
Whenever they would talk about an illustration, I'm like, "Oh,
I hate that, you can't like this, because this."
And so -- I mean, we really got
into some heated debates about different things.
But as soon as I opened up the box and the package
that included this book, I just fell in love with the book.
It has blazing illustrations, it's just very, very beautiful work,
and I just knew this was a very, very special book.
And it was very wonderful for me that everybody else
on the committee agreed with me.
And I just want to read you, I guess, what I wrote about the book.
There's a poem -- it's a collection of haikus from all
across the Americas representing foods from all across the Americas,
and this one is about Dad and his chili.
It says Dad bites green mouth fire, laughs when tears fill his eyes,
sighs mmmm this heat tastes good.
It's a combination of energetic haikus and informational text,
this vibrant collection highlights 14 food combinations that are native
to countries throughout the Americas.
The pairing of dual text introduces background information
about the various foods while providing readers
with an opportunity to play with lyrical food descriptions.
So it was really important, I thought, to lend itself
to classroom use, because you had haikus on one side,
and then you had the informational text.
So you have people picking up both --
you can get children that like haikus,
the children that like the informational text ,
playing together.
The blazing images, suffused with magical realism,
create a sensory celebration that encourages readers
to taste the food, feel the heat of the sun,
and listen to the popping of cranberries.
Children of all ages will leave this visual
and lyrical feast begging for second helpings.
[laughter] Rosalind Santavicca: Exactly.
Jaime Naidoo: And so we're hoping there may be second helpings
one day.
[laughter] Rosalind Santavicca: That's right.
Jaime Naidoo: Roz is going to tell you a little bit
about the creators of the book.
Rosalind Santavicca: This book was so wonderful.
It made me want to taste everything, and I can't wait
to share it with my grandchildren.
I'll be seeing them over the holidays.
But it's my pleasure to introduce you to Pat Mora, the author,
and Rafael Lopez, the illustrator.
And this book really was one where the combination of the writing
and the works of the author, and the works of the illustrator,
just made a wonderful final product.
It's just a pleasure to be talking about them
and introducing you to the book.
Pat Mora is the author of more than 25 books for children,
young children, young adults.   Among them, Lee & Low's Confetti,

which was an Americas Award Honor Book a few years ago.
And she also wrote Love to Mama,
a notable social studies trade book for young people.
She is the founder of the family literacy initiative,
El da de los nios/El da de los libros -- "Book Day/Family Day."
"Children Day."
Mora and her husband live in Santa Fe now, and we had the pleasure
of having breakfast with both her and Rafael this morning,
and she's just lovely, and you're going to really enjoy meeting her.
So it's a pleasure for us to call her up here now,
and to award her this book -- this award.

[applause] Well, you should be part of this.
Jaime Naidoo: Yeah, you should be part of this.
[laughter] [low audio] Pat Mora: Buenos Dias.


Pat Mora: Que gusta esta aqui con ustedes.
It's a pleasure to be with you, a pleasure to be with you.
Well, let's begin this beautiful autumn morning
with a couple of autumn haikus.
The book I'm going to be reading from is a special edition of Yum
that was produced by the Portland Public Library
for a fabulous program, you can look up information on the web,
called Every Family Reads.
And they managed to convince Lee & Low, and Lee & Low was willing --
not all publishers would be -- to produce a flip-book.
So it is English, and if you flip it over, it is Spanish.
Lee & Low will be publishing the Spanish edition in the spring.
Pecan We crack hard brown shells family munching storytime crunchy
taste of fall.
It's the same thing in Spanish: Pacana Hora del cuento,
cscaras duras nueces crujiente otoo.
And one more.   This is a trick.

[laughter] Because children's books don't have page numbers.
[laughter] Pumpkin Under round luna scattered tumblings
down the rose autumn's orange face
Which in Spanish becomes Calabaza Bajo la luna la cara del


When Charline called me, I squealed in delight.

Authors have an odd relationship with awards.
Frankly, they can be dangerous business.
So I try not to think about them.
I come up with a wacky idea -- I tell young people that's the joy.
You come up with a wacky idea and you're grateful
to the publisher who's willing to go on the journey with you.
So a book about the foods of the Americas -- in haiku, right?
That was a wacky idea.
Now I am so glad Louise is here, Louise May,
because some editors are very involved with books,
and sometimes you have a manuscript that it's pretty much done.
Well I wrote the book of haiku because I love poetry,
and my editor said, "Well how about some informational text?"
And initially I said -- because I really wanted kids
to focus on the haiku, right?
And she said, "But some kids really like facts."
Well it took me a while to just resign myself -- [laughter] --
to this second part of the journey, and then to come up with facts
that I thought they'd like.   I'm the mother of three now --

I tell two of them they're now older than I am.
I subscribe to that notion, "What age would you be
if you didn't know how old you are?"
And I would be 35, so -- [laughter] -- two of mine are older than I am.
But having said that about awards, I have to say,
I really wanted this for Yum!   I really wanted this for Yum!

And it's funny, you know, I've had the pleasure of doing a number
of books, and at a certain point, it's not that you want it for you,
you want the award for it.
You want it because -- and in this case, I thought, "This would be
such a perfect award for Yum!," you know?
And what awards do, is they get a book attention.
So my deep gratitude to the judges and the committee,
because they're very busy people, it's a huge time commitment,
and I am deeply, deeply grateful.
So I am grateful to John and the Library of Congress,
it's a thrill to be here; to the amazing Julie Kline who,
let's face it, does a lot behind the scenes.


[applause] Thanks to Louise, and Lee & Low,
and an incredible thanks to Rafael Lopez.
He is a gifted artist.
We have another book coming out together in January
that we're very excited about called Book Fiesta,
about El da de los nios/El da de los libros.
But I want to focus on this today.
When I visit schools, and I tell children
that I did not do the illustrations, they wonder why I'm there.
[laughter] And I understand.
I mean, I understand: picture books are about pictures.
But I also write for adults, and I tell my friends who write only
for adults, and to my academic friends who wonder why I spend time
on children's books, what does it mean to get a set of letters
that say "You are my favorite arthur in the world"?
You know, what can replace that?
And what can replace having written words, and having someone
like Rafael illustrate them?
It is just an incredible honor, and I feel we're lucky to have him
in the field of children's books.
His star is just starting up, and as I said to someone
at breakfast, his is a shooting star.
You know, he's gone right up, and there is reason.
I left home yesterday at 10:00 and I got here at 9:00, and so I had a lot
of time to catch up with The New Yorker,
which is usually my airplane reading, but of course,
as I got closer to DC, I thought "Well, why do I do this?"
You know, I was a teacher,
I was a university administrator -- why children's books?
And why writing at all?
And I think, you know, in addition to my intense love of language
and of languages, I do it for that moment
when I hope your heart will sing.
And I met someone this morning -- Vicky, here she is --
and she started talking about using Yum!
with -- and I'm happy to say this in front of my editor,
because she never thought I'd be able to say,
"with middle school students."
She kept saying, "No, not really," and I said "Yes.
Middle school and high school, don't say it's only for elementary."
Her middle school students were sharing it
with the little ones, right?
But every time Vicky talked about it, she went like this --
she'd say, "Oh, the book."
You know? And that's why I do it, because I want that one moment,
and maybe it's only one page out of the whole book,
when your heart sings a little bit, when you experience a little bit
of linguistic delight, that is the joy of all this for me.
I am deeply grateful for this very special award.
[applause] Rosalind Santavicca: We're also grateful, thank you.
Now I'd like to introduce Rafael Lopez.
Rafael grew up in Mexico City, and his art is strongly influenced
by the work of the Mexican muralists.
he has created many large murals for public space,
including the Urban Art Trail project in downtown San Diego.
Lopez's first book, My Name is Cecilia,
won the Americas Award and a Pura Belpre award.
He now lives in San Diego, Calif.   with his wife and their son.

It's a pleasure to bring him up here.

[applause] [low audio] Rafael Lopez: Thank you.

It's hard to follow Pat Mora.
[laughter] I was going to offer her money for me to go first, but --
[laughter] -- that's how it worked out, so...
It's -- I just -- I can't believe that I am back here,
speaking at the Library of Congress.
It's truly an honor, and I really want to thank the committee,
I want to thank Russ, I want to thank everybody else
that really put all these hours in; especially you,
Julie, thank you so much.
Particularly I want to thank also Pat, Pat Mora --
it's just, I'm in awe that I'm working with her.
We have the opportunity to work twice together, and to me,
she's so big and famous I think she should go by her first name.
[laughter] Like Sting, or, you know, Prince.
There should be only "Pat."   She should change that.

[laughter] And again, and especially I want
to thank also, as well, Louise.
Louise May was amazingly patient with me.
I know many times we didn't see eye-to-eye,
and I was the rebellious artist, and she was the expert advice,
and thankfully she guided me in the right way.
So, thank you for choosing the right two books, guys.
I appreciate it.   [laughter] So where do I start?

Before that, I really want to thank my wife and my family.
They've been incredibly patient, and very supportive,
and like I said earlier this morning, I wouldn't be here
if it wasn't for my wife and the way she pushed me off to --


So... [applause] The first thing I had to do was to do some research
on what haiku meant for me.
I've heard about it, but I didn't realize what it was,
so I'm going to read it to you, for some of you
who haven't heard the description.
It says here, "Haiku is a poetic form and a type of poetry
from the Japanese culture.   Haiku combines form, content,

and language in a meaningful, yet compact way.
They are inspired by nature, feelings, or experiences.
Haiku doesn't rhyme.
Instead, it paints a mental image on the reader's mind.
This is the challenge, to create the image in only 17 syllables."

So these guys are doing my job already.
I'm the one that is supposed to be painting the mental picture,
and they're already doing it there.   So it was a real challenge.

I've always done the solution to very complex problems.
I'm a conceptual illustrator.
So my reaction, immediately, was of terror.
[laughter] What am I going to do with a very simple,
yet beautiful, poetic verse?
And my first thought was to run away, say "What am I doing?"
[laughter] "What is this Mexican doing trying
to solve a Japanese challenge, right?"
[laughter] I mean, here's this beautiful way
of telling things, and it was a match.
It was actually a challenge, so what I did then was try
to find that inspiration.
And my first inspiration, eventually,
was to look at my mom, and look at her cooking.
She's an amazing cook.
And the trips up the street to the mercado, in the chilly morning,
walking with our side, our big bags, you know, ready to be filled.
You know, the first thing that hits you as you go
through those beautiful arches of the old buildings
of the mercado is the overwhelming smells of the guayaba and naranja;
the fresh herbs that greet you, you know, and they wake you up,
slap you in the face, glistening with the droplets of water
that are coming from the sun, coming from those high, high ceilings,
and the beautiful windows.
And the exchanges and the greetings that you do with the merchantas,
you know -- they come from the word "merchant," I guess, in French.
Some of these people were very young,
but some of these merchantas have been there for ages.
They're in their 70s and their 80s, and they knew me since I was a baby,
but they also knew my mom since she was a baby,
and they knew my grandparents; and the exchange of pleasantries,
and the "como lavai [spelled phonetically]," "como estado,"
and "you should do this," and "you should do that."
So they were sort of like family for me, too.
It was an incredible experience to go
to the mercado and pick the fruits.
Actually grabbing the fruit, and my mom taught me how to figure
out which is good and which one is bad, and it's not about squeezing,
it's all about knocking and listening to the noise.
And I still find myself doing this when I go to the supermarket,
but I had to catch myself, and no one's watching, and I just go --
[laughter] You know, so, it does happen.
Some ways you figured out, yeah,
this is the right one or the wrong one, so...
Then you say goodbye to the merchants,
you say bye to the mercado, and you walk back to prepare this food.
My mother then would proceed to give me the expected lecture
about the benefits of fresh fruit.
You know, the areas of Mexico they were from,
where did the name come from, and the amazing health benefits,
the medical benefits from all of them.
And you know, sometimes I had serious doubts about her claims,
but would never dare to question her.
She knows best.
I see her now, in her 72 years, walking past me at the Mall
after our last purchase at some Smithsonian gift shop, and you know,
I don't question her anymore.   Something's going on here.

[laughter] So to my mom, cooking was huge.
Cooking was this event, you know.
Her cooking was not only the cooking that you and I know,
it was not the 20-minute preparation, or the heating
of something indescribable in the microwave, the opening of cans
or the 10-minute boiling of pasta over the stove.
To her, it's about the two- to three-day preparation, you know,
the dishes like chilis and [Spanish], or tamales.
The procedures to me so complex that it requires some kind
of master's degree in gastronomy, you know?
[laughter] Everything from scratch, of course; nothing frozen.
And, "It's quite simple," that's what I heard all the time.
My wife and I look at each other,
just rolling our eyes, saying "Yeah, right."
So her cooking is not about preparing something
to satisfy the craving of hunger.
Her cooking was about showing her love
for you, for us, for the family.
Preparing these unexpected flavors were preparing you for life,
you know, to try new things, new challenges.
Don't be afraid to try this.
Always trying the new higher levels of spiciness.
You know, because for Latinos it's all about sitting down and eating,
and this is a very important part of the family life,
is a unique opportunity to bond and to strengthen these ties
that keep the family together.
Problems and differences are argued; politics, religion,
the latest girlfriend, the loser boyfriend,
the "You don't know what you're doing," the "I don't agree
with your lifestyle, but still, I'm with you,
and I'll never abandon you."
Everything is discussed over the table and over this delicious food.
So solutions are found, and the bonds of the families,
and the ties, they get even stronger.
The cook, in this case my mother,
is then a beautiful, magical weaving master.
You know, they're weaving the fabric that keeps the family together
with this magical thread of smells and flavors and fresh fruit,
and you're unable to escape it.
So they're very powerful, very powerful.
My mom is very powerful.
So here's my haiku to her, for her inspiration of this work.
It says: Her brilliant cooking casts spells
on my paintbrushes they dance to her tune.
Thank you, very much.
[applause] Charline Barnes: Please take advantage
of Rafael Lopez's work, in the back.   He's the typical first-year artist,

he doesn't bring it up for you to see it.
But his designs are wonderful, and they are painted on wood,
so that is a very unique thing.
Our next author, winner, is Laura Resau.
I saw her book, Red Glass, come in the box, and I said,
"Oh my goodness, Laura is back again."
[laughter] She had written What the Moon Saw,
which is an Americas Award-winner too, on my first year
on the committee, and I enjoy that book.
And so I'd like to introduce you to Red Glass.
There are several things going on in Red Glass.
It's a wonderful coming-of-age book
for a 16 year-old young lady named Sophia.
Sophia's mom and step-dad became foster parents for Pablo,
who was an orphan from Mexico, but somehow he crossed the border
into Arizona, and this family gets this kid.
And her parents decide that she needed to go back to Mexico for him
to find his family to agree whether he can stay in the U.S.,
because that was one of the laws, our immigration law situation.
And Sophia is kind of hesitant -- typical teenager, you know,
don't want to listen to your parent -- and she goes with Pablo,
this 5 year-old, and her aunt, who is an immigrant from Bosnia,
a refugee, and another Mexican who had lived in the U.S.,
and he is the aunt's boyfriend.
And the boyfriend and a teenager son,
so you see this journey's going to be fun.
Really, and I'm telling you, I introduced it to a couple
of young people, and they loved the book.
They laughed, they cried, and as I said, it's a wonderful introduction
to Northern Guatemala, as well as parts of Mexico.
I have two comments from librarians who reviewed this book.
They said, "the author's love for the culture and physical setting
of Northern Guatemala is shown in beautiful, descriptive detail.
The satisfying love stories and moving glimpse
of the immigrant experience make this book a capturing read."
The second one says, "It is beautifully written,
the characters are well-developed, there is personal growth not only
for our main character, but everyone changes, grows,
evolves, just like real life."   So who is this Laura, the author?

Laura grew up around Baltimore, Md., okay, but she lived in Mexico,
and taught ESL there, and was an anthropologist for two years.
So now she's back in the United States, and she still works
with a lot of our second language learners,
and she continues to write.
And I think you have a new child, right?
Okay. [laughter] Laura Resau: He's in the hallway.
Charline Barnes: Oh, they're in the hallway.
[laughter] So you'll get to meet her family, and I'd like for her now
to come up to talk, and receive her certificate.

[applause] [low audio] Just one note:

a lot of you have been seeing these envelopes from the Americas Award.
These are monetary gifts to our winners, because we do support them
in other ways, along with buying their books, okay?
Laura Resau: Thank you, very much.   Hi, thank you.

I'm really happy that Charline summarized Red Glass,
because I can't do it in less than about 20 minutes.
[laughter] So I'm grateful for that.   Thank you so much for coming,

and thank you to the Americas Award committee, and Julie Kline,
for all their hard work and enthusiasm, and endless energy.
I'm so grateful.
Thanks to the Library of Congress, and the Center for the Book,
and the Hispanic Division, for hosting this,
and to you guys for coming.
I found out -- you know, when I decided I wanted to become a writer,
I thought it would be kind of a solitary kind of profession,
but I realized that it's a giant group effort for the entire journey,
and I think it started when my mom
and dad read me books when I was a little kid.


[applause] And then my whole giant extended family,
most of whom are here -- [laughter] -- just incredibly encouraging,
and really instilling confidence in me,
and my aunt gives me children's books for my birthday every year,
and just my whole family has been so supportive in making reading
and writing a big part of my life,
so all of you guys can maybe raise your hand and --
[applause] And also, I realized that a book's success doesn't end
when it gets published, which,
as a new writer I thought publication was winning the lottery
and I was set forever, but then I realized, no,
a lot of a book's success has to do with it getting
into the right hands, of teachers and librarians and kids.
And the Americas Award is so important in making this happen,
and I'm so grateful to the Americas Award, because now I know
that the book is going to have even a wider distribution,
and more people are going to have access to it, and that means
so much to me, so thank you.
So I thought -- a lot of people, when they read Red Glass,
they ask me, you know, "How did you get the ideas for these characters?"
Because there's some pretty zany characters in there,
and so I'm going to talk about this and show you some slides,
so hopefully you get a better sense of kind of the places
and the people who inspired the book.
And when I write, and especially with Red Glass,
I kind of got glimpses of characters, and scenes, and images,
and bits of dialogue that kind of felt like little pieces of a mosaic,
and my job was to kind of see how they all fit together,
and the structure, and the relationships.
And the main characters, the seeds of each
of the main characters were inspired by real people, and then they kind
of grew into their own characters.
And I had a lot of fun writing these characters,
and also I grew very attached to them,
and the characters really move me, also.
So let me go ahead and get the first slide up.

Oh, there's my son in the back.
Hi. Hi. Can you blow a kiss to everybody?
[laughter] Okay.
Okay, and I also want to show you these slides,
because a lot of the people who are so, so important in the creation
of this book can't be here, because they live in Mexico,
or they're in Arizona, so it's important to me
that you know what a huge part they played
in this book coming together as well.

So just a little bit about my journey, and how I ended
up being interested in Latin America.
After I graduated from college, I decided that I wanted to live
in another culture, and part of me was terrified about this,
because like the main character Sophie in my book, I had a history
of anxiety disorders and panic attacks,
and definitely had my fair share of extreme nervousness.
But stronger than that was my urge to experience a different culture,
and kind of understand more about the world.
So I sent my job application all over the world --
South America, Eastern Europe, Africa --
and the first place that offered me a job was University of Oaxaca.
And at the time, I didn't speak Spanish.
I did not like Mexican food.
[laughter] If you dragged me to a Mexican restaurant,
I would order a hamburger, so --
but I decided I wanted to take this leap, and I did it, and I do owe it,
you know, my relatives and my parents
for giving me the confidence to take that leap.
And I ended up really loving it there, and I discovered
that I love Mexican food, real Mexican food.
I love mole, and tamales, and pozole, and probably a lot
of the good stuff that's in this book.
[laughter] It made me hungry listening
to Rafael talk about his mom cooking.
So I discovered that the university where I ended up working gave a lot
of scholarships to indigenous students -- Mazateco, Zapoteco,
Mixteco -- and I ended up becoming good friends with many of them.
These are two friends, they're Mixteco,
Herardo [spelled phonetically] and Jose Lopez, and they're some
of the students that invited me to spend vacations and weekends
in their villages in rural Oaxaca, and that just opened
up a whole new world to me.
I started learning Mixteco, I kind of participated
in everyday activities of their lives.

This is just an example of a Mixteco village --
you know, many, many bus rides to get there,
and in both of my books there are different adventures on busses,
all of which are based on things that really happened to me.
Noa Epifaa [spelled phonetically] is a curandera, a healer,
and this is her son Victor [spelled phonetically], or grandson Victor,
who was a student of mine.
And you know, in both of my books there are also curandera figures
who are grandmothers; they're very wise, interesting women,
and so I modeled those women after a number of curanderas
who I was friends with, and grandmothers who really treated me
like a granddaughter, and really embraced me.

The midwife.
And collecting plants with Doa Pipaa [spelled phonetically].
Maria Chiquita [laughs] was her name.
96 years-old, and when she gives you a limpia, like beating you
with herbs and spitting on you with alcohol, you can,
like, feel it the next day.
[laughter] I spent a lot of time making tortillas from scratch.
This is something I spent hours every day doing with women.

And like Sophie, when Sophie goes to Pablo's village in Southern Mexico,
in Izteco [spelled phonetically] Village,
she's coming from a place -- you know, back in Tucson she always felt
like a misfit, and kind of like she didn't really have a sense
of belonging, and when she's in this village with these women,
she really feels a bond with them, and she starts to feel like,
you know, she has a little place in this kind of family
of women in this community.
You guys are going to be really hungry after seeing this.
[laughter] This is flor de calabasa quesadillas that she's making --


And women of all ages, you know, spending hours every day cooking
and talking together is such a rich and wonderful experience.
Collecting firewood, walking down --
there's a scene in the book where Sophie and the women are going
to the molino to grind the corn for tortillas,
and the grandmother tells everybody, "Oh, this is my niece,"
which is very unlikely because Sophie pretty much looks like me.
[laughter] So that happened.
They would prompt me, they'd tell me how to say hello in Mazateco,
and I'd, you know, I'd say it, and she say, "Oh, yeah,
this is my granddaughter."
And so then they'd turn the corner and we'd all giggle together.
[laughter] A lot of the humor that comes out in the book, you know,
they're based on really fun, humorous experiences
that I had with my friends.
Immigration issues also come out in the book, and I didn't set
out to write about a controversial topic,
but it kind of ended up that way.
I didn't really know much about immigration
until I was spending time in Oaxaca, and I noticed that almost everyone
in rural, indigenous communities on Oaxaca had relatives
in the United States sending back money.
And many children hadn't seen their fathers
in many years, or their mothers.
My friend Idayel [spelled phonetically] --
he's about 11, there -- and he hadn't seen his dad in 10 years.
His dad was sending back money, but he pretty much was raised
by his Uncle Baruk [spelled phonetically] and his grandparents.
And I realized how common this situation was.
This little boy, his mother is a single mother working
in the United States, sending back money.
This is my friend Luis and his family, they're Mixteco,
and he snuck away when he was 17 years-old.
He snuck away across the border,
and a few months later his mom got a postcard from Florida, and he said,
"I'm sorry I snuck away, but I thought you'd cry so much
that you wouldn't let me leave."
So he was spraying pesticides on tomatoes in Florida, because he felt
that was -- basically, it was his only option to raise himself
out of poverty, and a future for his own family.
So I really wanted to capture some of these experiences,
and some of the kind of complex emotional dynamics
that immigrant families have to experience.
So this is the border between Arizona and Sonora, Mexico.
And being an ESL teacher and being someone
who really loves Latino dancing, I get to hang out with a lot
of young Latino people, Guatemalan and Mexican,
who share their border-crossing stories with me.
And many of my friends have really fascinating, and sometimes tragic,
and suspenseful border-crossing stories, and so I tried
to incorporate -- kind of weave their stories
into this book, as well.
Angel [spelled phonetically], the teenage Guatemalan boy,
had to make a pretty treacherous journey involving him not having
enough water, and enough food, and you know, clinging to a train
in the rain, and all of these are little bits and pieces of stories
that my friends have told me.   I also lived in Tucson, Ariz.

I went to grad school there, and I spent a lot of time hiking
in the desert, and you know, if you hike in the desert near Tucson
for even an hour, even if you have, like, three big bottles of water,
you're going to be pretty hot and thirsty,
so like Sophie I spent a lot of time thinking about how it would feel
to make that desert crossing.
In the book, there are not only Mexican immigrants,
but there are also Guatemalan refugees.
And I got interested in this because when I was living in Tucson,
I became friends with a Guatemalan man, who is a middle-aged man.
And you know, he lived in my neighborhood, we would talk
and hang out, and one day --
you know, he had experienced la violencia,
the violence in Guatemala, which is why he was living
in Tucson with his teenage son.
And one day he said to me, he said, "Laura," or, "Laurita,
there came a time when I had to decide if I was going to,
given all the violent things that I witnessed and that I experienced,
there came a time when I had to decide: would I fill my heart
with love and light, or with anger and bitterness?"
And then he said, "The people in my country who were not able
to fill their hearts with love and light turned psicoptico,"
and I didn't know what "psicoptico" meant.
That's not a word that comes up in rural Oaxaca very often,
and I kind of was thinking about it for hours, and then later
that night I realized that it meant "psychopathic."
And it really -- it moved me that he felt that he had come to a time
in his life when he had to make a decision whether he was going
to become a good human being,
or let the violence he experienced turn him psychopathic.
So I thought a lot about that, and that's kind of one of the themes
in the book, is how do you find beauty in life
after you've experienced something really, really hard?
There's also a Bosnian refugee in the book, a middle-aged woman,
who in the book is the girlfriend of the Guatemalan refugee,
and when I was living in Tucson I also volunteered
to teach a Bosnian woman English.
And she was not -- like the character in my book,
she was not what you'd think of if you think of a refugee,
or the preconceived notion you might have of what a refugee looks like,
you know, this was not her.
She's very flamboyant, and she just had this zest for life,
and she just glowed, and she's this big woman,
and really flashy dresser, and I really loved her,
and we had a really great relationship.
She shared with me some of the horrible things she'd been
through in the prison camp, and with her house being bombed out,
but more than that she seemed
to really enjoy small pleasures in life.
She'd always be talking about how blue the sky was,
and how sunny it was in Tucson, and she felt so lucky
to have so much sunshine.
And one day I went early to our tutoring session,
and she was in the -- the apartment complex had a pool at it,
and she was lying in this turquoise bathing suit on a lounge chair
by the water, and she just had this really blissful smile on her face,
and she looked really, really peaceful.
And I thought, "Wow, how can she embrace life,
and embrace friendships and human connections,
and appreciate the color of the sky after she's been through so much?"
So again, all of these things were questions that I really wanted
to explore in writing Red Glass.   And in real life, these two --

the seeds of these two main characters never got together.
They were important in my life at the time;
I'd hang out with my Guatemalan friend in my neighborhood,
then I'd go tutor my Bosnian friend, but I think maybe
in my imagination I secretly wanted them to get together [laughs].
So in my book I got to make that happen.

[laughter] The power of writing.
[laughter] Like Sophie, I had a lot of adventures on busses,
and I did get myself into some pretty sticky situations sometimes,
as my parents can bear witness to, because I sometimes called them
and said, "Help, I'm stranded in this place."
But I did find that there are some people out there whom might be
out to get you if you're traveling, you know, alone, as a young woman,
but the vast majority of people are going to be watching your back,
and be protective, and say, "Come to my house, stay at my house,
come over and eat with my family."
The vast majority of people that I met while travelling alone
in Central America treated me
like they would want their sister to be treated.
They were very, very, very kind, and that's what Sophie ends
up realizing during her travels.
And this is Guatemala, Guatemalan busses.
So I really found, when I was living my time in Mexico,
it really helped me -- like Sophie, it helped me get over a lot
of my anxieties and fears, and I did think, "Well, you know, if I die,
at least I'm living a really interesting life,
and I'm really living, and so it's okay if I do," and that really --
like Sophie, that idea helped me.
And I'll just finish by telling you one little story of --
to me is kind of the ultimate example of kindness
of strangers, helping you out.
This is a bao de temazcal, which is an herbal steam bath,
and I'm very interested in that.
That comes out in my first book, and that was kind of my introduction
to indigenous healing practices, which come out in both of my books.
And I took -- I decided -- this was a few months after I'd been
in Mexico, and my Spanish -- you know, now I'm fluent in Spanish,
but at that time my Spanish wasn't so great still,
but I decided that I wanted to visit this little town for its market day.
So I got on a bus -- I didn't really bring water or food with me
because I thought on the map it looked really, you know, "Oh,
this is only like a half-inch."
[laughter] So I ended up like six hours later, I was really thirsty,
really hungry, I had to go to the bathroom really, really badly,
and I talked to some people on the bus.
I talked to this teenage guy on the bus -- if you read Red Glass,
he was sort of like Rodrigo [spelled phonetically], like,
lot of hair gel, and really a lot of cologne.
And he -- so I got off the bus, said goodbye to the folks on the bus,
and within a minute I got pickpocketed.
So I was stranded in this town, I had no money, and I had to go
to the bathroom, and I was hungry and I was thirsty
and I was miserable, and the boy from the bus, the teenage boy
from the bus, saw me looking miserable
and asked me what was wrong, and when I told him he said,
"Why don't you come to my house, you can use our bathroom,
you can have lunch with us."
So I said, "Well, it's a little sketchy, I don't know him,"
and I didn't know if I should trust him,
but I didn't have any options, really.
So I ended up doing it, and that was one
of the best decisions of my life.
His mother turned out to be a curandera, a healer.
She gave me my first bao de temazcal, and taught me --
she was one of the people who taught me Mixteco,
told me a lot of really fascinating Mixteco folklore.
That day, after I had lunch with them, they --
you know, they were very impoverished, but they lent me money
for the bus rides back to my town, and they trusted
that I would come back the next weekend to pay them back.
And I thought that was amazing, that they were that kind
and trustful that they would do that.
So a friendship ended up forming, and I really don't think
that I could have written the books that I ended up writing
if it weren't for being pickpocketed that day.
And I think that's what Sophie learns too, on her journey,
is that if you open yourself up to the world, if you open yourself
up to making human connections, that you're going to find
that the world is a pretty good place,
and that people are pretty good-hearted.
So thank you so much, all of you, for coming.
Thank you.
[applause] Julie Kline: That was a pleasure.
All of it.
This year in particular really emphasizes
to me what this award has tried to accomplish.
It's recognizing books that come out, not just out of authors
and illustrators' heritages, but also individuals who sought
out culture, embraced culture, and changed their own life just
by realizing the amazing diversity and richness of the Americas.
Could my two helpers again please come up?
We'll see how many people we can get up here.
[laughter] We've gotten in the habit,
and perhaps Rafael will remember this --
could they hand them, please.   Charline Barnes: Yeah, [inaudible].

Julie Kline: They needed a role.
[laughter] [low audio] We started several years ago also including
with the award something symbolic of the weaving of stories,
and in fact Rafael did a nice bit, I felt like he was segueing for us.
These are backstrap loom weavings done by Doa Ramona --
her cachical [spelled phonetically] Maya name is Ishae, in the village
of San Antonio Aguas Calientes, in Guatemala,
and we wanted to present them to all three of you.
Do you two want to turn around, maybe, and you'll -- thank you.
Present them as one more expression of our appreciation
for their writing, their illustration,
and what they've contributed to classrooms and libraries,
to show the diversity of the Americas.


[applause] Female Speaker: This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.   [end of transcript]