Seacoast Blog #80
January 21, 2010  

Every morning I get an email from Amazon.com telling me what top books their computer thinks I should buy. Imagine my surprise this morning to discover a book by an author I know. Rodman Philbrick of Kittery, Maine (and yes, a graduate of Portsmouth High School) is among five author’s honored this year by the American Library Association. Although he didn’t get the top prize (yet) Rod’s latest children’s book is among four others named a 2010 Newbery Honor Book. The Newbery Award has long been considered the “gold standard” and now that list includes The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg. (Continued below)  

I was among millions of Amazon’s freqnent buyers who got the email announcing the winners of the John Newbery honors for the best children’s books. Within moments of the announcement Rod’s book began to climb on the bookseller charts. By that afternoon it had cracked the Top 100 of books sold on Amazon.com that day.  Set during the Civil War, the book is told by a boy caught between two warring forces. Homer Figg runs away to find his older brother, who has been illegally sold into the Union Army. 

Rod was characteristically understated as we emailed back and forth about the news all day. He is a writer, not a self-promoter, and prefers to let his work speak for him. But there’s no getting around the fact that this is big news for any author. Being recognized for a Newbery or a Caldecott is like winning – or being nominated for – an Oscar or a Tony. It doesn’t get any better, unless of course, you take home the statue. But just getting nominated is a door-opener. In Rod’s case, it’s a nice shiny that his publisher can now place on the book cover and a fresh press run for Homer Figg -- plus a lot of respect from librarians and teachers. And it means being read by thousands more students. And that ultimately, is the writer’s goal. 

Rod has supped at the banquet table of fame before. His novel Freak the Mighty, about a dying boy lifted up by an unlikely friend, is still among the favorites of middle school students today. It was made into a film starring Sharon Stone, Harry Dean Stanton, Gena Rowlands, Meatloaf, McCauley Culkin’s little brother Kiernan, and Gillian Anderson, the red-haired woman on X-Files. Although released half-heartedly by Miramax, it is a fantastic film and is growing increasingly popular in the “family favorites” category on DVD.  

Homer Figg too is a superb character, a sort of junior Mark Twain, with a refreshingly witty sense of humor (compared to so many cartoon kids’ characters) and an eye for the truth. Rod thinks like a scriptwriter, and the Newbery honor is exactly the kind of attention a book needs to attract Hollywood. At least 13 former Newbery winners have been turned into films, including Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson and A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle and Holes by Louis Sachar.

But I didn’t entirely win, Rod will protest. But he’s wrong. He won. Oh, he won all right. This is the big time, and close counts as much as it does in horseshoes. The Newbery gives those teachers and librarians a second chance to order good books and it gives kids a second chance to discover them. That’s a win-win-win for everyone.  

© 2010 by J. Dennis Robinson, All rights reserved.