ALA Cognotes San Diego Midwinter Highlights Issue - (Page 1)

Cl ic SAN DIEGO — 2011 MIDWINTER MEETING k F G C O OR E T h e N A SE r e FE NN T an R E U d N AL se C E e ! in sid e. .. Cognotes ALA By Brad Martin LAC Group MIDWINTER HIGHLIGHTS Ted Danson: A Love of Acting and Oceans T Midwinter attendees get Mardi Gras beads from a stilt walker kicking off the Wrap Up–Rev Up Closing Event. Click here for more information on the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans. An Afternoon with Neil Gaiman and Nancy Pearl By Stacy L. Voeller, Minnesota State University Moorhead n Sunday afternoon January 9, author Neil Gaiman and librarian Nancy Pearl discussed Gaiman’s award winning book The Graveyard Book, the firstever book to win both the Newbery and Carnegie Medals. Other books by Gaiman include Coraline, American Gods, Stardust, and Neverwhere. Pearl started the conversation by asking Gaiman, “When you are writing, your books are so wonderfully character driven and I wonder if what comes to you first is the character or the story?” Gaiman replied, “As an author I tend to be less driven by the story than I feel I ought to be. What I tend to begin plotting by is character and place, and place for me is so huge and important and very often the starting point. In O the case of The Graveyard Book, I actually know where it started. It was about 1986, and I lived in a very, very old, very tall, very, very spindly » see page 9 ed Danson, in a freeranging interview January 9 conducted by ALA President Roberta Stevens, spoke on everything from his first experience on the stage in college to his most recent work on HBO’s “Bored to Death” TV series, but repeatedly returned to something he has cared about for the past 25 years, which is his love for the world’s oceans and his concern for their state and that of the fish that live there. Danson told of his love of acting and of becoming wildly famous after the television show “Cheers” went into broad syndication. He also shined a light on what this fame has meant to him. “I am grateful for my career as an actor,” Danson said. “One the great things about being successful is that it has given me access to some amazing people and has provided the ability for me to talk about things I care about.” Danson told of his book Oceana, in which he details the crisis the world faces as a result of overfishing the oceans and what needs to be done now to help solve this environmental problem. Since the 1950s, according to Danson, about 90 percent of the tuna, swordfish, shark and king mackerel populations have been depleted. Despite improvements in the fishing industry such as more advanced boats and higher tech techniques at finding fish, catches have been declining. In addition, Danson said that impact on the ocean’s floors from modern bottom trawlers is damaging the areas – calling them the “nurseries’ – that young fish need to grow and thrive. Danson said this attack from the top and bottom is literally “putting the squeeze on the vitality of the world’s oceans.” “At the current rate, the oceans will be fished out in forty or fifty years,” he said, adding that there is good news however, “because fish populations are able to rebound quickly, given the chance.” When asked how librarians can help, Danson suggested that librarians are in the position to “point people to information” by suggesting materials they can read on the topic. “In the end, we are all literally in this together,” he said. “You have to ask yourself if this is the kind of world you want in the future.” Actor, environmental activist and author Ted Danson is interviewed by ALA President Roberta Stevens during the President’s Program. ALA Honors Top Youth Authors and Illustrators A LA announced the top books, video and audiobooks for children and Newbery Medal winner and best-selling author Neil Gaiman gives librarian, best-selling author, and literary critic Nancy Pearl a hug backstage. young adults – including the Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, Newbery and Printz awards – at the Midwinter Meeting. A list of the 2011 winners follows: John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature Moon over Manifest, written by Clare Vanderpool, is the 2011 Newbery Medal winner. The book is published by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Four Newbery Honor Books also were named: Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm and published by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc.; Heart of a Samurai written by Margi Preus and published by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS; Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night writ- ten by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Rick Allen and published by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; and One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia and published by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. R a ndolph Ca lde c ot t Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children A Sick Day for Amos McGee, illustrated by Erin E. Stead, is the 2011 Caldecott Medal winner. The book was » see page 8 Inn vative Click here to see our ad on page 3. interfaces http://www.alaannual.org/ http://www.ala.org/ala/conferencesevents/upcoming/midwinter/cognotes/index.cfm http://www.alaannual.org http://www.alaannual.org

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ALA Cognotes San Diego Midwinter Highlights Issue