K.A Applegate has won the 2013 Newbery Medal for The One and Only Ivan! A big congrats from all of us here at Hirac Delest! (If you haven’t had the chance to read it yet: Please do. The award is entirely well deserved.)
There have been many publications about this over the last week, but Publisher’s Weekly got a hold of K.A’s reaction approximately two hours after winning:
Normally Katherine Applegate would have been in her house in San Francisco the morning that “the call” came in. But she’d been visiting family in Richmond, Va., with her 13-year-old daughter, and found herself in a hotel room 3000 miles from home when the phone rang. Her daughter had caught a bug and was running a fever, and Applegate’s mind was not on the Newbery committee. “It just never crossed my radar screen,” she said. “They told me it was the medal, and I asked, ‘Are you sure?’ ”
As the news sunk in, Applegate said she told the committee, “ ‘It’s the best thing that happened to me since I gave birth, adopted my daughter, and got married.’ I heard a great deal of laughter on the phone. It was fun.”
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Then, she recalled, “I just sat tight and watched the webcast. It was so much easier because I already knew what the outcome would be.” As soon as her Newbery was announced, “the phone started ringing immediately and incessantly. My husband texted me and said, ‘OMG you’re trending on Twitter!’ ”
Read the full article on Publishers Weekly:
Katherine Applegate on Winning the 2013 Newbery: ‘Stunned Disbelief’
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In other news: An amusing article has popped up on The Buzz where a new Mississippi bill has been introduced that forbids human-animal hybrids, such as the Animorphs. The HB 819 is The Protection of the Human Person Act, and would have slapped the Animorphs with a fine should they have ever gone public in our time.
The article explains a bit more in depth regarding the circumstances and intent behind the hybrids, and can be read in full at The Buzz.
Thanks to Jason for forwarding this to us!