November 10

Birthdays: Oliver Goldsmith (1728), Friedrich von Schiller (1759), Winston Churchill (1871), J. P. Marquand (1893), James Broughton (1913), Karl Shapiro (1913), W.E.B. Griffin (1929), J. California Cooper (1931), Mark E. Neely Jr. (1944), Jack Ketchum (1946), Marlene van Niekerk (1954), Neil Gaiman (1960), Fernanda Eberstadt (1960), Holly Black (1971), Caroline Kepnes (1976), 

Holly Black is best known for “The Spiderwick Chronicles”. Her 2013 novel “Doll Bones” was awarded a Newbery Medal Honor.

J. California Cooper won the 1978 Black Playwright of the Year. 

Jack Ketchum won four Bram Stoker Awards for his horror novels.

Neil Gaiman was the first author to win the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same novel – “The Graveyard Book”

Winston Churchill (the novelist, not the statesman) was one of the best selling authors of the early 20^th century.

J.P. Marquand won the 1938 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for “the Late George Apley”

Karl Shapiro won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and was a US Poet Laureate

Mark Neely Jr. won the Pulitzer Prize for “The Fate of Liberty”

Quote: “May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.” – Neil Gaiman

“Librarians are hot. They have knowledge and power over their domain…It is no coincidence how many librarians are portrayed as having a passionate interior, hidden by a cool layer of reserve. Aren’t books like that? On the shelf, their calm covers belie the intense experience of reading one. Reading inflames the soul. Now, what sort of person would be the keeper of such books?” – Holly Black

Tip: An interjection is a word used to express a sudden feeling: Yikes! Ow! Yay! They usually use exclamation points when used alone, but not when in a sentence.

Jumpstart: It’s lonely at the top. I’d heard that, but never believed it until now…