Q: Looking back, how did it feel to get the phone call? (cont'd)

It was my husband who finally answered the phone. “It’s Susan Faust,” he told me. “Chairman of the Newbery Committee. She wants to talk to you.” I’d like to tell you that I was completely poised and had many erudite comments to make to the Chairman of the 2005 Newbery Committee at 4:19 that morning, but when she said Al Capone Does My Shirts won the Newbery Honor all I could say was “Oh my God” over and over again. It was very embarrassing, but the truth is: in the end I am always ready for disappointment. Until that morning I had very little experience with having my dreams come true.

Q: Now that your Newbery Honor year is over, what do you think about the honor?

I went to a public school in a lower middle class neighborhood in Southern California. I loved my school library with its old books and its old book smell. I loved running my hands along the bindings of the books trying to figure out which book would be as special to me as Charlotte’s Web or Across Five Aprils, Island of the Blue Dolphins, or A Wrinkle in Time.

The one thing I learned somewhere along the line was the books that had the Newbery stickers were usually better than the others, and so I always checked out the books with the silver or gold seals. Every time I think about Al Capone Does My Shirts winning the Newbery Honor, I imagine some kid pulling that red cover off the shelf of his school library, running his hand across the silver seal and saying, “I’m going to check this one out.”

I still can’t believe that my own quirky brain produced a book that earned a Newbery Honor. What an amazing world this is!

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