{"id":1039,"date":"2019-05-15T14:07:54","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T14:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olos.ala.org\/csk\/?p=1039"},"modified":"2021-08-15T02:59:09","modified_gmt":"2021-08-15T02:59:09","slug":"refection-of-an-experience-with-a-coretta-scott-king-book-awards-winning-author","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olos.ala.org\/csk\/2019\/05\/15\/refection-of-an-experience-with-a-coretta-scott-king-book-awards-winning-author\/","title":{"rendered":"Refection of an Experience with a Coretta Scott King Book Awards Winning Author"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Christopher Paul Curtis <\/strong>and I are longtime special friends who celebrate the pervasive prominence of the Coretta Scott King Awards and salute their enduring legacy on this occasion of the fiftieth anniversary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1995, I attended the annual National Council of Teachers of English convention.\u00a0 Scanning the program, I noted a session featuring an African American author named Christopher Paul Curtis who was to appear in a panel discussion.\u00a0 His name was slightly familiar, but I could not remember a context in which I had heard of him.\u00a0 With heightened curiosity and my ongoing search for emerging African American voices, I proceeded into the venue announced in the printed program. Christopher and another author who was seated on stage read from their books.\u00a0 Christopher read from his newly published book, The Watsons Go to Birmingham \u2013 1965 <\/em>(a Coretta Scott King Book Awards Honor).\u00a0 I realized immediately I had discovered a truly gifted storyteller. When I approached him at the end of the session to commend him and introduce myself, I was affected by the humility with which he accepted my comments.\u00a0 His radiating smile portended a new friendship that would be forever and everlasting.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The School of Library and Information Sciences had been\nsponsoring a biennial symposium on African American children\u2019s literature at\nthe time Christopher and I met.  I\ninvited him to deliver a keynote address at the event the next year.  He was spectacular as I had expected.  From that appearance, at least in North\nCarolina, his celebrity was firmly established and I was thrilled for him and\nreaders everywhere.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The publication of Bud,\nNot Buddy<\/em> brought special accolades of the Coretta Scott King Books Award\nand the Newbery Medal in 2000.  I was\npresent at the Breakfast and the Dinner among the hundreds of others to\ncelebrate the accomplishment.  The book\nwas personally gratifying for me as Christopher had asked me to read the\nmanuscript.  We had memorable discussions\nabout my opinions as I continuously predicted it to be an award-winning\nbestselling novel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In 2008, the year following the publication of Elijah of Buxton<\/em> which won the Coretta\nScott King Books Award, I visited Christopher who was living in Windsor,\nOntario, Canada.  The setting of the\nnovel is Buxton, a historical settlement in Canada on the Underground\nRailroad.  My surprise during the visit\nwas a trip to the Buxton National Historic Site and Museum.  It was a wonderfully enlightening Sunday\nafternoon of exploring the grounds and reliving the literarily acclaimed story\nof Elijah, the first free child born in Buxton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Christopher had always said he had to return to Bud Not Buddy<\/em> because he wanted the character Dessa (Deza) Malone who makes a slight appearance to have her own story. He sent the manuscript, The Mighty Miss Malone<\/em>, to me to read.\u00a0 I was at once intrigued by the 12-year-old main character, Deza, who aspires to be a teacher.\u00a0 In the chapter, I came to a complete stop overwhelmed by what I was reading!\u00a0 Deza\u2019s brother had taken a pie from a window sill placed there to cool.\u00a0 His parents directed him to return the pie, apologize, and seek terms of restitution.\u00a0 With Deza by his side, they meet the woman described as \u201cA very pretty, very tall and distinctive-looking woman with a glorious mane of pulled-back silver-and-black hair and tiny glasses on her nose\u2026\u201d.\u00a0 She eventually introduced herself, \u201cMy name is Dr. Bracy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One could only imagine how I felt: surprised and shocked, but elated and ecstatic.  I was also humbled and hoped that he would realize my humility as the same from the impression I had of him when we first met.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pauletta Brown Bracy<\/em><\/strong> is an Associate Professor at the School of Library and Information Sciences of North Carolina Central University. She is the Immediate Past President of the Coretta Scott King Book Awards Committee and the 2019 winner of the Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christopher Paul Curtis and I are longtime special friends who celebrate the pervasive prominence of the Coretta Scott King Awards and salute their enduring legacy on this occasion of the fiftieth anniversary. In 1995, I attended the annual National Council of Teachers of English convention.\u00a0 Scanning the program, I noted a session featuring an African … Continue reading Refection of an Experience with a Coretta Scott King Book Awards Winning Author<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,15,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-award","category-csk-award-winners","category-personal-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olos.ala.org\/csk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olos.ala.org\/csk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olos.ala.org\/csk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olos.ala.org\/csk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olos.ala.org\/csk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1039"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/olos.ala.org\/csk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1360,"href":"https:\/\/olos.ala.org\/csk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039\/revisions\/1360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olos.ala.org\/csk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olos.ala.org\/csk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olos.ala.org\/csk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}