 speakers and writers, award recipients and celebrators that have joined us this evening. So my name is Tammy McGovern and I'm a local author and a past Sammy winner and most important supporter of the Jones Library. It is an honor to be here on the occasion celebrating the centennial anniversary of the celebration of the anniversary of the Jones Library. And tonight we're here to honor Rich Mickelson, the Eric Carrow, Rich Mickelson, our beloved Bruce Watts. Unity has been immeasurably enriched by the contributions of these two writers and by, and through the role played by this important cultural institution that has put us on the map, has put Amherst on the map, which is quite literally, I get asked very often if Amherst is where the Eric Carrow Museum is. I know he's proudly saying yes. On behalf of the Jones, the trustees and the staff were all thrilled to publicly recognize their commitment and their talent. First, just very quickly, before we get to them, the Sammies are a wonderful time for us all to celebrate the role that libraries in general and the Jones in particular have played in all of our lives. My own Sammy speech recalled the essential, how essential the Jones was throughout the early days of my motherhood. How in so many small ways, it helped me come to terms with my oldest son's autism diagnosis. First, by providing me with books to understand what we were up against, but even more important by providing us a space and programs where Ethan could be accepted and even shine. The children's room, train table, happy dance, music hour, the February concert series. I have long been one of those people who gets irrationally sentimental about the role libraries have played in my life. But listening to a recent podcast on 99% invisible made me think about libraries a little bit differently. In it, author Eric Kleinberg talks about communities that best survived a tragic Chicago heat wave of 1995, which sadly I don't even remember, but apparently were over 700 people died. He went back as an ethnographer and discovered and looked through all the neighborhoods about where the deaths took place. And his discovery was that the neighborhoods with the lowest death counts were not necessarily the wealthiest or most educated. They were the ones with the strongest social infrastructure in place. The ones that had vibrant and well supported public spaces where neighbors and strangers came together regularly for programs and community. These were the areas where neighbors knew one another well enough to check up on each other and to call for help where it was needed. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the government sponsored a grant program called Rebuild by Design. The idea was to use some of this research about social infrastructure to rebuild the devastated areas in ways that might strengthen that community safety net. One group proposed constructing something that they called a resilience center. The idea was that it would bring people together before a natural disaster hit. It would serve families, have children's programs, offer Wi-Fi for parents, talking groups, etc. They made their pitch and the man running the program said, this all sounds great, but have you ever heard of a public library? As we move into the future, where the problem of isolation from our neighbors and from each other will only grow sharper, public libraries will become as they already have much more than repositories for books. They will define the social fabric of the community they are part of. They will be the first stop where newcomers will measure their welcome. They will be an essential destination for ensuring that our elderly do not grow old in isolation. They will offer us all the company of strangers. And yes, as Kleinberg argues, in so doing, they will save lives. Though I can easily tear up at a message like this, I also have to make a confession, aside from buying a Sammy ticket now and again, I have never made a donation to the Jones. Not only that, the confession gets worse. I've actually saved late books to return them in January with a few cans of beer. Instructed my husband to eat as much as possible at the Sammy's so we can get our money's worth. My point being, it has never occurred to me that this life-saving gift needs my support. That the state and town taxes pay a portion of the budget, but not for the programs my family most loved when we were all younger. And yes, it has an endowment but not anywhere near what it needs to fund. The hundreds of programs that serve ESL learners, at-risk teenagers, retired learners, and the countless children who receive a library card in the second grade and continue coming back for the rest of their school years. For these programs, it has always relied on the private donations of Amherst residents who understand their civic duty far better than I have. Currently, the Jones is an exciting process of planning a renovation that will meet the true needs of future generations, especially the ones who rely on it most. It will be truly accessible for the disabled and the elderly. It will provide children and teens the spaces they need to make the library their second home. It will offer quiet spaces for ESL tutoring. In July 2017, the Jones was awarded the largest grant out of 33 statewide applicants from the Mass Board of Library Commissioners, and we are now fourth on the waiting list. This is a huge boon in the effort to make Jones the 21st library that will sustain Amherst, but we need to spread the word about the importance of community support. You are here at the Sammies because for all your own private reasons, the Jones means something to you. If you are already a donor and have been for years, I thank you for the programs you supported and provided for me and my family. If you are like me in a belief for almost two decades that that wasn't necessary, I ask you to rethink that as I am. Even modest donations speak volumes to legislators, a community that comes together to ensure the vibrancy of its library is a community that will not only survive what lies ahead, but will thrive. We are here tonight to present the sixth annual Samuel Minot Awards for Literary Achievement. It is presented to members of our community who have made a difference in the lives of all of us who treasure the written word. This event is the culmination of many hours, of much hard work by many people, and we want to especially recognize our primary underwriter, People's Bank, which has been so generous to this event from the very inception. Special thanks to Matt Bannister, their first Vice President for Marketing and Innovation for joining us tonight. Is he here? Woo-hoo! Somewhere. Thankful to our major underwriters, Greenfield Savings Bank, Hampshire College, TD Bank, and Barry Roberts. Clued Amherst College, Applewood Davis Financial Group, Financial Development Agency, Fine Gold Alexander Architects, Piscucci and Textera, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Please join me in thanking them and the other local businesses who have taken out ads in our programs, in our program booklet for their support. For the awards presentation, we hope you will join the honorees and Erin Becker, the talented illustrator who created this year's Sammy's Art Print out in the reception hall, for a close-up on the list in that hero of Amherst books. Enjoy a cocktail or coffee for dessert, and hopefully you've already placed your bid on the silent auction. If not, you'll have the opportunity afterward to bid on some amazing packages donated by our honorees. So to get the ball rolling, I'd like to introduce Leverett-based author and screenwriter, Steve Adams, who will present the first special award, the Sammy for Significant Contribution to the Library's Centennial Celebration to Bruce Watson, whose book, Hearth and Soul, the Jones Library at 100, debuts to life. Such a pleasure and an honor for me to be chosen by my good friend, Bruce Watson himself, to hand him to hand him this special Jones Library Centennial award. But I must say, I didn't care much for him at first. When I moved into the town a long time ago, he had a weekly column in the local paper with his picture in it all the time. And I thought of myself as a writer and I kind of wished I had a column with my picture in it all the time, even though I actually never ripped a column. And so I just didn't care for him. We found ourselves coaching a little league team with our sons on it. And I must say, I liked him even less. His eyebrows were always in it. His eyebrows were always at a position which I would have to describe as knit. Also, he seemed awfully dour. Very, very dour. As head coach, I had to make lots of strategic decisions. And because of his eyebrows and his dourness, I never thought he had much admiration for the moves I had made little league wise, particularly in the later innings. I climbed up a ladder with a chainsaw and that did not go well. And when I got out of the hospital, Bruce showed up in my bedroom with a collection of articles from the onion, which I found to be among the funniest things I ever read. And as I convalesced and read the onion, convalesced and read the onion, the image of this guy Bruce shopping for this book for me. Picking this particular book out, somehow knowing I would love it. Getting into his car with it, driving to my home with it, getting out with it and coming up my stairs with it to my bedroom and handing it to me all dour. It made me suspect that I was missing something about this guy. And I was. Often I feel like a child around him. I want him to hold my hand while crossing streets. He knows so much. As far as I can tell, Bruce is happiest when he is discovering. And then he loves making sense of what he has discovered and putting what he thinks is true into clear and elucidating and entertaining writing with the single-minded intent of sharing his treasures with lucky us. Google Bruce Watson, the attic. I see. And you'll see what I mean. Let's see you stuff your head with as much information as possible. Absolutely everything. And not be slightly dour. Let's see you do as much research in the Jones Library as Bruce Watson does and not have your eyebrows get little fucked up. Once I've done a terrible thing to him. I've asked him to read a first draft of mine and it seems like maybe 20 minutes goes by and my manuscript comes back with arrows and underlines and question marks and exclamation points and notes written in complete sentences. All articulate and insightful and funny and helpful and kind and honest. You got a friend like that? Sometimes I think Bruce is full of shit. And when I tell him so, he looks back as if I've just told him he's got a nice smile. So here's what I'm telling you. It does take a while to get to know somebody and so I'm going to give you a handy shortcut to getting to know Bruce Watson in some alternate universe. Imagine that the great historian Howard Zinn has had a love chuck with renowned Whit Dorothy Parker has been adorned and raised by that great pal of Winnie the Pooh. My dour and sweet friend special centennial Sammy award winner. Bruce Watson. As my mother Dorothy Parker said to a friend of hers who had a baby, congratulations we always knew you had it in you. I knew when I picked him that I would have a tough act to follow. Thank you, Steve. I'm here real quickly to discuss the most radical idea in the history of the world. But first I want to say thank you to a lot of people because this is after all an acceptance speech and we know how those go. They go very hurdly and then the hook comes out so I'll go very quickly. I want to thank friends and family. And my first, first of friends, I want to thank my friend Henry David Theroux. He said to me when I was about 20 or let's say I heard when I was about 20, rise free from care before the dawn and seek adventures. Let the noon find you by other lakes and the night overtake you everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier gains that may here be played. Thank you, Henry. I appreciate that. I have another friend named Bill Faulkner who I didn't discover till later in my life because I thought that like many people he was absolutely incomprehensible but I just thought that when you go back and read some of these people later especially people you've been forced to read you were too young. Oh, Bill gave me the best advice a writer ever had. He said, read, read, read. Read everything, trash, classics, good and bad. See how they do it. When a carpenter learns his trade he does so by observing. Read, you'll absorb it, write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window. And since it's the Sammy Awards I want to thank a bunch of Sammy's. So real quickly, thanks to Sammy Ball, Sammy Sosa, Sammy Conn, Sammy Haigman. Sam and Sammy Steed and Snead and Sammy Davis Jr. You'd be surprised if people there actually take that name Sammy. I have a few more friends to thank real quickly. Jack and Neil, Theodore, Marcel, Zora, and Count Leo, you know who you are. Thank you all. But here's the thing. All my friends that I just named are dead. And that's sad, but they are all still living right across town. And that is why we are here tonight. Because of the most radical idea in the history of humanity. Because this is not about me or about Rich or about Eric Carle and his friends. Well, you'll get your time. It's about that idea I mentioned. And the idea was so strange and so wonderful. It was an urge. The gripped humanity really not that long ago. About 150 years ago. It started, right, pretty much in this building. Did you know that Melville Dewey, who lent his name to the decimal system, was a librarian, not just at Amherst College, but in this building. The Congress Library. The idea that spread from the public library movement that he helped start and made a lot of money off of too, by the way, was to take the best that humanity had ever thought and said and written down. Put it all in one place. Safe from the ravages of time. Safe from the numbness of the free market and that invisible hand that is always giving us the finger. Safe from everything else. And put it all in one place. And not sell it. Not promote it. Just let people use it for free. Imagine that. So right across town and of course here and in many other places, all the throat, all the Faulkner, all my friends and even my own books are there for people to come and take whenever they want for free. Friends, no more radical, no more peaceable, no more humanistic idea has ever graced human existence. Don't take my word for it. I'm going to call on a few more friends. Kurt Vonnegut. So the America of Love still exists if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America of Love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries. While I was writing my book on the Jones Library, a more celebrated author, Susan Orlean, scooped me and wrote a book called The Library Book and she writes in it, The Publicness of the Public Library is an increasingly rare commodity. It becomes harder all the time to think of places that welcome everybody and don't charge any money for that warm embrace. And finally from T.S. Eliot, very old friend, we go way back, the very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man. So when I looked into the Jones and began to discover, and Steve is right, I am happiest when discovering, I discovered not another Carnegie Cooker-Cutter Library that were being done all over Massachusetts, but a place that looks like a home. When I first moved here, I thought it was somebody's old house. It was designed that way, made out of stone that they actually pulled out of some old stone walls in Pelham and elsewhere. How much more homey can you get? It was designed to be, as one trustee said, Mother Amherst welcoming her children to her hearse. You can't make that up. I discovered a cultural hub that for 30 years was the center of Amherst, the auditorium, which is now where the modern fiction is, where they would meet every Sunday, hundreds of people gathering every Sunday afternoon for talks and speeches. Robert Frost read there, and others. And I discovered the dirty books, yes. Old Charles Green, who's librarian forever, had a group of books called The Starred Books, and he kept them behind the desk. And they were the dirty books. And you would have to ask for them by name. And unfortunately, he did not keep a list of what those books are, so we can only guess. I assume Ulysses probably not Fanny Hill, Tropic of Cancer. So I want to conclude by thanking, by quoting my friend Anne Patchett. The novel, she said, libraries have always been defined more by their spirit than by their space. Even the smallest can provide that deep human comfort that comes from reading and ideas. So know this. If you love your library, use your library. Support libraries in your words and deeds. And now, as I said, I want to thank my family, so I want to thank my wife, Julie. About 30 years ago, when we had just moved to Amherst, she was reading the paper, and she said, hey, the Amherst bulletin is looking for columnists. Maybe you should send them something. And I said, well, I don't know. I wrote a column about our dog, Rosie. We just got doing cold fusion in a coffee cup. And a bulletin editor, Nick Grave, over here tonight, I thank him for taking it and hiring me on. And then even more amazing, about 10 years later, and I'm almost done. About 10 years later, when I wanted to go freelance, this woman said, we had two kids, three years and five years old. She said, go for it. That, I submit to you, is love and trust. And speaking of kids, I must thank my kids, Elena and Nate, who, for providing all the clever lines and cute moments, I didn't have to make a thing up for all my columns, which filled my columns for many years and filled my heart to this day. Thanks to Thoreau and Faulkner and all those Sammies and my family and to Steve and everyone else. Thank you very much. The fruits of tonight is that, not only do we have our illustrious winners, but the people who will be introducing them are almost every bit as legendary and illustrious as they are. Next, I'm happy to introduce, I'm particularly thrilled to introduce Tony Dieter-Lizzi, who will present the next award, the Sammy for Significant Contribution to Literary Culture to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and their director, Alexandra Kennedy, here to accept. Tony Dieter-Lizzi is a New York Times best-selling author and illustrator who's been creating children's books for nearly two decades. From fanciful picture books, like my family's personal favorite, The Spider and the Fly, to chapter books like Kenny and the Dragon and the One Blob Trilogy, Dieter-Lizzi imbues his stories with a rich imagination. With Holly Black, he created the middle grade series, The Spider-Wick Chronicles, which has sold over 20 million copies and has been adapted into a feature film and translated into 30 countries. Please, everybody. Guys, ready? It's the roast of Rich Michelson tonight. You guys are, okay, that's Rich Michelson. I'm really, really excited. I'm very, very excited to be here. What a special evening. We did it at the Unish Book Center the last time I was here. So, I mean, that place is cool, but this is, I feel like you guys could really help me with a lot of food, though. I'm happy to be here. My wife, Angela, who couldn't be here, and I moved to Amherst 17 years ago from New York City, and I think it's pretty obviously, obvious why we moved here. Atkins. The cider donuts on the New Yorkers. This is good. Like, you can't get a donut like this. It's bad. Back in 2001, at a local bookshop in Brooklyn, we discovered this little brochure for the Eric Karl Museum of Picture Book Art. And although the museum had not yet opened, it occurred to us that any town investing in a museum dedicated to the art of picture books was a town worth investigating. After just one visit to the beautiful Pioneer Valley, we packed our bags and said goodbye to New York City to begin our new life here in Amherst. We timed, this is all true, I'm not making this up, it's going to sound like total bullshit, but I'm making this up. We timed our move so that we could attend the grand opening of the museum. Now, Angela, my wife, had worked in television for years. She had done makeup for many celebrities on many shows, but she and I were both totally awestruck by the who's who of literati that gathered on November 22nd, 2002 to celebrate this monument to children's books, including Mr. Karl himself. And since that celebratory day, we have experienced the museum in many different capacities. I've had the opportunity to exhibit, curate shows, volunteer for fundraisers, and I even served on the Board of Trustees for a period, but never have I been more honored to experience the museum than sharing it as a parent. Angie and I brought our now 11-year-old daughter, Sophia, to the museum when she was just a baby. We loved watching her. She crawled around the library floor while enjoying story time, probably by Megan Lambert. Since then, we've seen countless performances, presentations, and puppet shows in the auditorium. We've poured over original illustrations from our favorite books in the galleries. We even built a fairy house on the terrace, which was followed by cartwheels in the apple orchard. Not me, just the kid. I got a back thing. I can't do those things anymore. And every visit, she still begs for just one more book as we try to make our way out of the museum gift shop. That's also true. And all of this because the museum is succeeding in fulfilling its mission to inspire a love of art and reading through picture books. But why is a museum dedicated to picture books so important? Why are picture books even that important? Picture books provide more than just an introduction to words and pictures, reading, and art. They help develop essential learning skills, like creativity and critical thinking. The rise of diverse stories for children, like those exhibited at the Erich Hall Museum, provide windows and mirrors to young readers and their families. And so they encourage a more compassionate society. And let's face it, we need that now more than ever. The Carle, the first full-scale museum of its kind in the United States, has hung some of the industry's most iconic imagery in its galleries for all of us to marvel at. From the wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Winnie the Pooh, to where the wild things are. Museums the world over are following the mission established by the Carle. Exhibitions have traveled to the New York Historical Society in New York City, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and toward museums through Tokyo, Japan. All of these shows originated from our museum, right down the road. You know, across the street from Mackins. In doing so, the Carle is elevating the perception of children's book illustration and its importance in our culture. A culture that lately can seem overloaded with visual stimuli. It's a challenge that all of us artists face. Myself included. But I take solace in the words of Eric himself. He said, We have eyes, and we're looking at stuff all the time. All day long. And I just think that whatever our eyes touch should be beautiful, tasteful, appealing, and important. To see my daughter and so many other children and families exploring, engaging, and creating is a gift. It's a gift bestowed to us by Eric and Bobby Carle, a gift that will be treasured by my family, your family, many other families for many, many years to come. It is my great honor to congratulate the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art for its significant contribution to our community. The literary culture of Amherst is richer for having this beautiful, tasteful, appealing, and important institution. Flourishing within it. Alex Kennedy to come up and accept later on. If I looked at you, I would start crying. All right, we even have some overlapping phrases. So we're clearly, all right, but I'm just going to go ahead and read and not put you all through on the spot editing. All right, so here we go. We are so lucky to live in a community that believes that public libraries and museums and theaters and galleries are a civic imperative, that it's our responsibility to support and nurture the arts so that all of us and all of our neighbors can better understand the world around us and maybe just as important, better understand ourselves. Books and the arts play an essential role in our democracy and on our quest for a compassionate society. We are so lucky to live in a community that has as its literal and literary center the Jones Library, which for 100 years has been meeting the needs of everyone who walks through its doors. The staff at the Jones provides books and computers and ESL classes and free museum passes and DVDs. On any given day, they are happy to hand you a copy of the state income tax form and loan you a guitar and offer you this morning's New York Times, all before digging around in their archives to show you the poem, A Little Madness in the Spring, handwritten and signed in the unmistakable sweeping script of Emily Dickinson. Do you know it? A Little Madness in the Spring is wholesome even for the king, but God be with the clown who ponders this tremendous scene, this whole experiment of green, as if it were his own. How lucky we are that it's finally spring and that we have come together on this green and blooming campus to celebrate literature and the arts and how lucky we are that it's the day after the Jeff Sessions speech, which I believe he also titled A Little Madness in the Spring. On behalf of Eric Carle and the wonderful Board of Trustees at the Museum, I would like to thank Sharon Sherry and the Jones own wonderful board for this Sammy. It's an especially big honor for us to receive an award from our local community, those people who know us the best. We get about 50,000 visitors a year at the Carle coming from all over the U.S. and abroad and we try very hard to make them all feel at home. But we have a special place in our hearts for our local volunteers and museum members as well as the ever-growing family of children's book artists and authors settling here in the Valley. They visit us regularly, know our staff by name, take advantage of everything we offer and tell us what we can do to be better. I'd like to dedicate this award to them. Like the Jones, the Carle strives to be a place that radiates good. We are the international champion for picture books celebrating illustrations and the people who create them. We believe that the picture book is the perfect way to introduce children to the joys of art and reading and the power of the imagination, passions that can help them find fulfillment throughout their lives. When Eric Carle and the late Bobby Carle established the museum 16 years ago, their dream was that parents, children, librarians, teachers, students, illustrators, and anyone else who loves picture books would find inspiration, comfort, solace, and the sustenance at the museum. Eric and Bobby had tremendous courage, fortitude, and vision to take on a type of museum that had no precedent, no blueprint, no map. But I don't think even they could have imagined we would one day have a permanent collection of more than 7,000 drawings from 200 artists spanning 100 years or that our art exhibitions would be traveling around the world reaching more than half a million people every year going to New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Boston. Closer to home, we've had the privilege of doing outreach for years with families in Springfield and Worcester bringing free books and art activities through partnerships with Title I schools, low-income housing projects, social service agencies, and of course public libraries. Our goal is to be a good neighbor. Getting behind literary and arts organizations is an act of faith. I think Eric's dear friend Norton Jester, winner of a Sammy and its inaugural year, said it best in the Phantom Toll booth, so many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible. It's a gift to live and work among all of you book-loving, art-loving people. Thank you for the Sammy from all of us at the Carl or what Eric jokingly calls the house the caterpillar built. Thank you to the brilliant staff at the Carl who is so much fun to work with. Will you stand up? They're going to hate this. Will you stand up? Congratulations to our fellow Sammy winners, Rich and Bruce. Thank you to the spectacularly talented illustrators, Tony Turlezy and Erin Becker. And thank you many times over to the Jones Library. We're grateful for everything you do. Thank you. Next is the daunting challenge of introducing the extraordinary rich Michelson who has done so much in so many different fields so well that it's hard to know how exactly to frame his introduction. So we're going to leave that to the extraordinary and legendary Barry Mosier who is with us tonight and many of you will say how do I know that name because he is a legend. He's known for being an extraordinary artist and in fact I've thought of him as a children's illustrator and famous for Alice in Wonderland and many other classics. But apparently his work is also in the National Gallery of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Pierpont Morgan Library, the Vatican Library among others. He taught at the Rhode Island School of Design before joining the Smith College faculty where he is the Irwin and Pauline Albert Glass Professor. Welcome to announce that title myself. So I just reduce it down to the glass Professor. I met Rich Michelson sometime around 1980 I think it was. Circumstances are I have to tell you just a mite embarrassing and I do hope that Rich won't mind my telling the story which is this I was working over to the Camp Hampshire County Jail on Route 66 doing a class in advanced perspective and in caustic painting for the inmates you know they're pretty good at that stuff and it would be highly untoward of me to mention that just what it was that Rich was spending time in the house but I can't tell you he wasn't in there long six months it was Michelson who come over to visit me and I can't tell you what I was in there for foolishness aside Rich Michelson has been my friend since the 1980s and that part of my story is true it was two or three years later when I found out that he wrote poems I read his poetry and recognized that he is a good poet he wrote poems that resonated with me often deeply and then in 2016 I read More Money Than God which was a finalist for the Patterson Prize and when I read that collection I realized for the first time really just how fine a poet this old friend of mine really is his poems appeared in the Harvard Review the Massachusetts Review Crazy Horse Parnassus Image The Southern Review Hustler Thank you You're all bad Not bad for an old boy from Brooklyn and he's published a few books for kids and collaborated with folks who got names too big and important to even mention won all kinds of wars for him too and he's even stooped down to do two or three with me folks, good points you know I survived that I wasn't sure you never know what he's going to say that's why I kept telling him just read the damn booklet so I would like to say thank you to my adopted hometown I'm thrilled especially to be sharing tonight with Bruce Watson and my good friend at the Eric Carle Museum I'm especially honored because this award was previously given to so many writers I read and respect Maddie Glaze who won last year actually lived down the street with me our kids went to the senior prom together Cammie McGovern's work I learned of when I attended the Sammy Awards and promptly read everything the speaker in my book Too Young for Yiddish was named after Aaron Lansky and the Yiddish Book Center which won a previous award and that's also where I first met my dear friend Leonard Nimoy the subject of my book Fascinating and so many others Pat Schneider Palae Longworth Arthur Kinney the Amherst High School Theater Department I think got the award was at last year and they did a lot to nurture my daughter who is not here tonight because she is the vocal coach for Dave Malloy's new show opening next week on Broadway and my son however whose name is Sammy has no excuse are we taping this Sam Marissa never mind previous awardees have also included two of my dearest friends those footsteps I'm happy to follow Julius Lester Norton Jester and this is the sort of community that I'm so proud to be a part of most of my poems and books are set in East New York, Brooklyn where I spent my first nine years and most weekends for the next nine working at my dad's hardware store work hard he used to say someday you'll get out of here because now I couldn't afford to get back in but it was still a shock to realize I have been an Amherst resident for 40 years almost two-thirds of my life I moved here in 1979 with one small poetry chap up to my name I had never stepped foot in this town before but I'd worked three years as a traveling salesman selling fine art posters out of the back of my van three for five and then I settled for a blink of an eye in the Midwest my wife the same one then as now said if you think I am moving out here you've got another thing coming so she moved back east picked Amherst off a map told me they had a great library and she rented us a log cabin on Pelham Road a small space in the carrot shops and then sent me the address and I drove back east to move to the minor in business and career on the drive here I was reading a small press poetry chapbook which was illustrated with a few wooden ravens the bio said that the young artist who used to be young who I'd never heard of was named Barry Mosier and he taught at Williston Northampton Prep School I picked up a phone book and called Barry and I gathered together some recent engravings mostly his dark torch and portraits with Christ in between 25 and 50 dollars and I hung my very first exhibit it was reviewed in the D.L.E. Hampshire Gazette and I was described as having a face that looked like a Barry Mosier wood engraving if you check the auction items out there you will see in fact that space that face by Barry Mosier if you bid on that auction I am happy to trade that out for any artist or author portrait with Barry's future I met poets as soon as I moved into town I met Paul Mariani a good friend of Barry's and this is the wonderful literary committee I also met musicians another friend of Barry's like Steven Schoenberg who's musical with me will be opening next summer at Berkshire Theatre Festival and if you ask Steven after this talk he'll sing you a couple of songs in the lobby and most importantly every day on my way to work I drove past Emily Dickinson's house and the Jones Library in 1985 a few years later Barry Mosier stopped by my office he'd gotten a call from an editor asking if he wanted to illustrate a picture book a picture book I asked in disbelief I liked his challenging often sexually twisted engravings I had just added Leonard Baskin to the gallery I was trying to build a serious art gallery and I advised against it worst fucking idea I ever had is what I said to Barry what are you going to do start painting little watercolor bunnies in fact Barry was hired to illustrate jump the adventures of rare rabbit I did not grow up with books and certainly not children's books my parents were wonderful and loving in all ways but we never once stepped foot in the Brooklyn Public Library I do not recall being read to as a child and when my own children were young I didn't read to them I was a lousy student and as it was called at the time I was the class clown one of my oldest dearest friends is here in the back and I think he would vouch for that absolutely more of Mrs. Button let's pass that over and just because in the lobby ahead of time he kept saying are you going to mention me are you going to mention me David Rothenberg where are you okay you've been mentioned it was not until 12th grade that I found literature due to Mr. Ketchum who would not last a week in today's school system he was a drunk with no boundaries but he loved literature especially Dostoevsky one week he was on detention duty in the school library I was the only detainee we started talking Raskolnikov and then after detention was over he drove me to Jones Beach so he could get a six pack and some weed while we finished the conversation that day changed my life I should actually explicate what I mean by that okay I went to the library weekly after that and started reading voraciously Dostoevsky, Melville, Tolstoy I met my wife in a Tolstoy class in fact and later the poets Shakespeare, Amahai, Dickey, Wilbur the first book that my daughter recalls hearing me read to her and her friends during one of her second grade sleepovers was Kafka's Metamorphosis which is what I was reading at the time I was that kind of a father but now Barry Mosier introduced me to some of his friends who came to that first exhibition of Little Bunnies among them was some guy named Eric Carl I began looking at the books many of the local illustrated and writers were illustrating and writing and introduced me to a whole world I knew nothing about the best of them I had to admit were the equal in both skill and vision to anything I had been reading or seeing in my favorite museums my two passions were art and poetry how could I have been unaware that the best of both was often combined in the form of a picture book by the time my kids came home with friends from college I would be sitting in the living room and I'd call them over to read like from say James Marshall's The Stupid's so I was still in embarrassment in my book, Bussing Brewster in my book, Bussing Brewster Brewster falls in love with books when he is sent to the library on the first day of school after a fight for a time out this we have a limited edition this is also in the lobby as part of I think the auction so you'll see that piece right there I'm up by 530 but mama's already frying eggs don't you worry Brewster she tells me you're gonna like Central they've got rooms for art and music and a roof that doesn't leak there's even a swimming pool inside of the building and a real library bursting full of books well I don't know how to read or how to swim but I'm glad mama's happy maybe you'll be president someday Brewster she tells me and she looks at me proud like I already am we're spending the whole first day in the library Brian says it's called detention but I don't mind I've never seen so many books I find one with a rocket ship on the cover I turn all the pages and then start again from the front I wish I knew what it said Ms. O'Grady's the librarian perhaps you'll be an astronaut someday Brewster she says she brings me a book about the moon landing mama hopes I'll be president I say proudly I feel stupid as soon as I say even I know there's never been a negro president but Ms. O'Grady doesn't laugh you'll be going from here to Amherst College then she says sitting down next to me we'd better begin by teaching you how to read this book just republished this month by David Godin where Nat who's selling the books was fired you might want to ask him about that was one of the New York Times 10 best books of 2010 but it was written two years before I've ever heard the name Obama in a 2005 speech to the American Library Association that then Senator Obama gave an apology for all those times I couldn't keep myself out of trouble and ended up sitting in the library on a time out he went on to say that the moment we persuade a child any child and I would add to that teen or adult to cross that threshold into a library we've changed their lives forever and for the better I thank you for this recognition not because we're one minute ahead of schedule I don't know you haven't Michael is unfortunately both our State Senator Joe Comerford and our both beloved Representative Mindy Dom we're going to try and be here and they are unfortunately not here to present certificates to our honorees but instead we have the wonderful Elena Cohen I'm Senator Joe Comerford's district director and I didn't realize what a treat I was in for filling her shoes today so I'm not going to present the citations directly but they're all right behind me there's one citation for each of you from both Senator Comerford and Representative Mindy Dom both of them were just you know love the library and care so much about literacy and just thank you thank each of you for your work happy last but not least there's one crucial person we're missing tonight and that is Sharon Sherry and anybody who knows the director of the Jones Library Sharon knows how much she would she would want to be here and has always been here in the past and how much she regrets that she's not here this evening but I'm going to read her speech on her behalf and it's not very long congratulations again to Rich and Alex in the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and to Bruce and thank you all for being here tonight to support the library and the literary life of our community there's a few people that are very important to thank by name and this is going to be the home stretch and it's going to be very quick first we want to thank our primary underwriter People's Bank and especially Matt and Kim to thank our major underwriters Barry Roberts, TD Bank, Greenfield Savings Bank and Hampshire College we have to thank Nadine Shank for the beautiful music which will continue in a few minutes the party is not over yet we also thank the many community-minded businesses and individuals including Oliver Scott Photography I think this is for the cocktails Judy's Restaurant, Night Owl Cocktail Club Hope and Feathers that sounds like framing George Naughton and Amherst Media Progression Brewing Company sounds like the beer and R&P liquors and fine wines and Trader Joe's among others for donated services and beverages Kowski, George Shaheen and Amherst College and to Greg Wardlaw of Amherst College catering for the food and incredible hospitality great chunks of time to put an event like this together and now I'm going to read for a little while you don't have to do that clap and great chunks of time to put an event like this together I want to thank a quick moment to thank our very special Jones Library staff actually we do need to applaud them chance to thank them and so many others I wish I could name them all as well as many community volunteers Claudia, Erica, Kim, Deb, Elizabeth, Gabrielle and Molly among so many others for their valuable work and countless volunteer hours to make tonight the fabulous success Jones Library Board of Trustees for their support, dedication and passion not only do they care deeply about library services and library patrons in Amherst but they are also extremely committed to supporting the staff in the library and we are honored to be able to work alongside you Finally, last but not least join me in thanking Aaron Becker the creator of this year's gorgeous art print We're very fortunate to have his original painting on display in the library this year and it's out here in our lobby right now Thank you, Aaron The one last item on our agenda for this evening is our silent auction The package donated by Aaron Becker has already been snatched up but the others are available Rich, Alex, Bruce and Aaron have been generous so generous in donating items one of a kind to create one of a kind packages for an advantage so take advantage of this opportunity Sorry We'll close at 9.15 So there's alcohol to encourage and there's dessert to encourage that silent auction and while Aaron's package may have sold you can still have his art in your home if you remember to pick up your art print on the way out Again, thank you all so much for being here and for supporting the Jones Library Now make your way back to the reception hall where our honorees and Aaron will be available if you'd like to have a book sign or would like to congratulate them in person and enjoy cocktails and desserts