Newbery Honor Author Daniel Nayeri

I asked Dave Eggers, Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson, M.T. Anderson, Pedro Martín, Erin Bow, and Daniel Nayeri to answer two questions and finish two sentence starters.  Pedro Martín's responses .  Hello, Daniel Nayeri! Congratulations on receiving a 2024 Newbery Honor for The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams ! I love hearing about the CALL. What was running through your heart when the committee was clapping and cheering for you? Daniel Nayeri:  I’ve spent decades dreaming about “the call,” and I’ve even been lucky enough to be a part of a few of them as an editor over the years. And yet, (Glory! Glory!) when it happened that I might receive the call from the award committee…I missed it entirely. Can you believe the luck? You see, as most authors know, the call is supposed to come on the eve of the ALA Awards Ceremony, Sunday night. Allusions to Christmas are made every year. It’s a fairy tale situation, and I’m still kicking myself, frankly. But a few years ago, due to the lockdowns, the call I received for the Printz Award was on Friday night. I’m justifying myself here, so please bear with me. It came on Friday night, and it was heaven, Heaven, I tell you. Okay, now fast forward to the Friday before the awards THIS year…nothing. That’s fine. It would be presumptuous and preposterous for me to expect anything anyway. So I counted my blessings, gave myself a pep talk that didn’t really work, and went to bed. The next day, Saturday, of course, nothing. But to be disappointed would imply that I had expected to win, that I thought I deserved it above and beyond all the many great books published this year. How impudent. How conceited. How in the world could I possibly think it? Well, by Sunday evening, I had finally resigned myself to not getting the award that I didn’t in any way consider myself entitled to but would have delighted in anyway in case it had happened—which it had not. What else to do but retreat into a story? My son was sick in bed, so it was an easy choice. I was reading him THE PRINCESS BRIDE all evening until—in a quiet moment in between breaths, right as the Man in Black is climbing the rope up the Cliffs of Insanity—we all heard my phone, ringing from across the house. I looked at the clock. Who could be calling at 11pm—HOLY MOLEY WHAT HAVE I DONE? I ran to the phone. Half a dozen messages from my editor, the brilliant Arthur Levine, from my agent, the brilliant Joanna Volpe, from the head of marketing, the brilliant Antonio Cerna, and a call from one number unrecognized by my phone. I’m afraid the committee must have been asleep by then. I had an intimate and heartfelt call with Antonio and Joanna, and though we would have loved to have everyone there, it was no less special. I celebrated with two people who deserve a share of the honor as much as I do, and then went back to reading the book to my wife and son. It would have been criminal to stop where we were. I hope I can share my gratitude for the committee members someday. I hope I can shake their hands and tell them they changed my life, and I’m so sorry I missed the call. Oh, wow! What a memory! What a story! I'm cheering for you, Daniel!  What does a Newbery Honor for The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams mean to you? Daniel Nayeri:  Around 24 hours after hearing about the award, I heard that a dear friend and mentor in the publishing world had passed away. She edited several Caldecott and Newbery Medal-winning books. I had hoped I’d get to tell her about the Newbery Honor for SAMIR, and that she had a part in this one too. I suppose I shared all that to say the award meant an affirmation that she’d taught me a worthy standard of literature. That I’d been listening, even when I seemed like “a young man in a hurry.” It was a confirmation that I should stick around and keep writing a few more stories. I will miss my friend. I hope my gratitude finds her anyway. *Hugs*, Daniel!  Please finish the following sentence starters: Story is the breath He breathed into our nostrils to give us living souls. Libraries are the bellwether of a healthy society. Congratulations, Daniel!