2010 Robert Kirsch Award
Robert Kirsch, whose idea became the inspiration for the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, was the newspaper’s book critic from 1952 until his death in 1980. In addition to writing criticism, Kirsch was a novelist, editor and teacher.
Winner
Without Beverly Cleary, writing for children would not be the same. That’s no overstatement, just plain fact. Indeed, with the publication of her first novel for middle readers, “Henry Huggins,” in 1950, Cleary became a revolutionary figure, a writer with a clear-cut, but radical agenda: to write directly and movingly for kids. Cleary’s development was influenced by her own experiences as a young reader in Portland, Oregon, struggling through books she felt were boring, that took no real joy in storytelling. Later, as a children’s librarian in Yakima, Washington, she was asked by a young boy why there were no books about kids like him. For Cleary, the question was a challenge, a gauntlet, and out of it, Henry Huggins was born. Sixty-one years and 41 books later, her signature characters — Henry, his dog Ribsy, the sisters Ramona and Beezus — as well as their neighborhood of Klickitat Street have become some of the most recognizable icons not just of children’s literature but of American literature.
Over the years, Cleary has won three Newbery Awards and a National Medal of Arts. The Library of Congress has named her a Living Legend. Her character Ramona has become the face of Drop Everything and Read (D.E.A.R.), a national program for kids, teachers and families to focus on reading every day. It’s celebrated on her birthday each year. But for her, the most essential thing remains the story, the connection that a young reader feels to narrative, the joy that takes place when a book kicks in. Cleary has only once written a book under contract; the pressure of it nearly ruined the experience. Instead, she says, she writes for her enjoyment first, setting a story aside if she isn’t pleased. It’s a vivid lesson — about the power of creativity and the connective force of literature, the idea that reading and writing is (or should be) first an act of enthusiasm and engagement, that it is not work but connection that we seek.
This has been a hallmark of Cleary and her writing from the very beginning, and it’s a central reason why her books continue to resonate with children after all this time. Hers has been, and remains, a lifetime of achievement, which makes it all the more appropriate and delightful to present Beverly Cleary with the Los Angeles Times Book prizes 2010 Robert Kirsch Award.
