THANK YOU!!!!

I’m still processing, but Hey, Kiddo took home the Odyssey Medal for excellence in audiobooks for kid and teen listeners. I am just proud of all the work that EVERYONE put into this! I am so thrilled that Scholastic

 Audio trusted me to not only come on board as a narrator but also as a producer and director on this.

From the ALA website:

Odyssey Award Medal
The Odyssey Award is given to the producer of the best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults, available in English in the United States. The award is jointly given and administered by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) and the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), divisions of ALA, and is sponsored by Booklist.

The story of the wanderings of Ulysses, as he returns to his kingdom of Ithaca after the Trojan War, are ascribed to the blind poet Homer who either wrote, or dictated, the epic poem called "The Odyssey." Whether this odyssey of Ulysses was based on one specific event, or many different ones, is argued by researchers today, though they all seem to agree that the poems comprising The Odyssey were originally told and retold in the oral tradition, hence the name for this award. The Odyssey Award allows us to return to the ancient roots of storytelling, while living in our modern world.

I made a little thing to express my gratitude for the Odyssey committee selecting the HEY, KIDDO audiobook as the Odyssey medalist.

I wonder how many cassette tapes we would have needed had the HEY, KIDDO audio been published when the story took place?

Monday morning, all of the major awards in children's and young adult literature were announced at the American Library Association conference, and we won the audiobook prize!

To think. I got National Book Award-winning author Jeanne Birdsall to cuss as my grandmother in an audiobook, and she up and wins an ALA award for it!

I stopped in so we could take in all the Odyssey Award awesomeness together for a moment.