When You Win...We Win!

By way of e-mail
Natalie, winner of our Thirteen Reasons Why ARC contest, sent us several cool photos of her cool prizes living it up in Italy. There was one of Eve’s painting being admired by a classroom full of children, a couple shots of Natalie’s own children enjoying good ol’ American peanut butter candy, a photo of her daughters carefully holding a drawing by Robin’s son, and several of Jay’s book enjoying the Italian experience. His book visited a beautiful stone fountain, rode a motor scooter, sampled gelato, and sipped cappuccino…


By way of mail mail (Jay’s dad works at the post office, so sn@!l mail is not a part of our vocabulary)
Stephanie, winner of our SCBWI summer conference scholarship, sent us a care package full of Mermaid-appropriate gifts (which will only seem appropriate to you if you’ve read an insane amount of our posts). Robin is thrilled to now own a Microfiber Super Duster, a bunch of plastic dinosaurs, and some Ghirardelli chocolate. It’s hard for Jay to believe he now owns a Not Now I'm Busy t-shirt, a Butterfinger bar, and a happy-face stressball. And Eve did the happy dance after receiving some new pink flip-flops, Little Debby Fancy Cakes, Gummi Bears, and a tube of bonbon flavored lip gloss.


By way of The Horn Book
Susan Patron has yet to win a Disco Mermaid contest. But she did win this year’s Newbery Award (which, we admit, is a very close second). The Higher Power of Lucky scrotum controversy inspired us to create The Newbery Jewels. The Horn Book then contacted us about including that design in their forthcoming issue dedicated to the ALA awards. We said, "Sure!" Then we began selling our design on T-shirts, mouse pads, coffee cups, tote bags, and thongs. But The Horn Book decided not to use our Jewels due to copyright concerns. We stopped selling that merchandise soon after, due to those very same concerns…and some e-mail exchanges with ALA lawyers (who, by the way, were extremely friendly and had brilliant senses of humor!). So what did we win when Ms. Patron won the Newbery? Inclusion! Here’s an excerpt from her Newbery acceptance speech, as printed in The Horn Book’s latest issue, which is dedicated to the ALA awards…

I was trying to keep a copy of everything being said, published, blogged, and podcast about the controversy. In a librarianesque way, I set up a folder: SCROTUM. Soon that folder was inadequate. I needed subheadings such as POPULAR CULTURE for online scrotum-inspired products: T-shirts, mouse pads, coffee cups, tote bags, and thongs.*

*Ms. Patron herself bought several items from us

...though she did not purchase any thongs.