Loree Griffin Burns: A Life in Books - Boston Globe Horn Book Awards

What a night.

I thought I was prepared for anything, but moments after arriving at The Boston Athenaeum, Roger Sutton, Editor in Chief of The Horn Book and host for the award ceremony, informed me that I would be the first honoree called to the stage.

I thought I handled this news well.

I thought I was poised and confident.

This photograph of my acceptance speech, however, tells another story altogether. Apparently I was terrified!



The beautiful part of accepting my award first was that once it was finished I was able to sit back and enjoy the program. The eight remaining acceptance speeches were lively and thoughtful and as different in style and content as the artists presenting them.

When all the awards had been handed out, my husband took this photo of me with Erica Zappy, the editorial talent behind TRACKING TRASH. I'm holding my silver Honor Book Award plate.



Next on the program was a group book signing. I had planned to use some of this time to congratulate the other honorees, but there simply wasn't time. I signed copies of TRACKING TRASH and spoke with librarians and teachers and parents and publishing people and graduate students and, well, lots and lots of others. Every soul I met was kind and enthusiastic and I could not—cannot even now, actually—stop grinning.






The rest of the night was spent at dinner with friends from Houghton (thank you for everything, Lisa and Erica!) and several Boston librarians (thank you for joining us Pat and Michael, Sherry, Lauren, Kimberly, and Diana!).

Sigh.

I will be gazing at this plate and thinking about last night for a long, long time.