From: Karen Breen <kbbreen_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2011 14:34:51 -0500

Thanks for reminding me of this Batchelder experience, Ginny. (Unfortunately, this listserve is set up to disallow me to repeat what you said, so I am going to paste it in at the end of my own message.) I was on that committee with you and had completely forgotten that aspect of things. I adored Margaret, of course; she was always in my corner and always amazed me at what she remembered about the different phases of my career. It was at IBBY in Williamsburg when I realized that she was the epitome of everything that was meaningful in our world and I knew I had to find something to do that made me happy while making a difference. I left the Queens Library and went to work for Library Power and I always said she inspired me to find the right balance at work. She was one of a kind. A dear dear woman with so much to admire.

Karen Breen

Ginny said, As luck and the annual competition would have it, it wasn't until 1988 when McElderry Books won the ALA/ALSC Mildred Batchelder Award for publishing the outstanding translated children's book in a given year. This was when the charming short Swedish novel "If I Didn't Have You" by Ulf Nilsson earned Margaret's imprint a Batchelder Award. I realized that this irony hadn't been lost on Margaret, when, as Batchelder chair, I told her that McElderry Books was the 1988 winner. Although she had apparently been bemused about the absence of a Batchelder Award for any of the books in translation she had published in earlier years, she was thrilled.

Be a New Orleanian Wherever You Are
Received on Wed 02 Mar 2011 02:34:51 PM CST