WHAT JAVAKA STEPTOE WAS DOING WHEN HE LEARNED JIMI SOUNDS LIKE A RAINBOW HAD WON THE CORETTA SCOTT KING ILLUSTRATOR HONOR THIS JANUARY

Here’s what he told us:

About 11:00 am that Monday [of the ALA Midwinter Conference], I decided to crawl out of bed.  I stayed up late movie-watching to drown out the sound of my neighbors partying hardy till six am Monday on a Sunday night.  In retrospect, I’m thinking maybe they knew about the award, and it was all in my honor?  Anyway, what’s the use of getting an award if you don’t have a good story to tell about how you heard you won.

 So I get up and meditate, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘Ah! My day is shot,’ and started my beginning-of-the-day routine by checking the phone messages, starting the computer, and boiling water for tea. My mother was there, also. She had come over for her periodic visit and, being nosy, of course, she is listening to my messages even more intently than me. 

First message: “Wow! Congratulations on your award! See you in New Orleans Portia :o).”  So, in my head I’m thinking, ‘Huh!’ I forgot all about Midwinter so I have no idea what she is talking about. Then it’s my editor and she is sounding really excited, letting me know that Jimi won and she has to go back into a meeting.  Of course, Mother is asking me what did I win? So, my computer has finally finished doing its thing, and I get on the web and see the good news.  I have won this year’s CSK Honor!!!  The cool thing is that Bryan Collier (who won the CSK Medal for Illustration and a Caldecott Honor and with whose wife, Kristina Evans, I worked with on What's Special About Me, Mama? which will be coming out in February), Laban Carrick Hill (who won the CSK Illustrator Award), Gary Golio (the author of Jimi Sounds Like a Rainbow) and I were all together at Books of Wonder taking questions and signing books.  (Bryan Collier’s daughter happened to be wearing a t-shirt with a guitar on it.)  Who would have guessed that moment at Books of Wonder would foreshadow a breakfast in New Orleans? The Coretta Scott King breakfast, that is! 

I celebrated by paying for tea and fresh muffins at my local coffee house.