Monday, January 10, 2011

Odyssey Award

Well! This is nice.

The ALA Youth Media Awards were given this morning–a big batch of medals that includes the Caldecotts and Newberys (Newberries?).

So I eventually emerge from my bedroom this morning to discover a bunch of congratulatory emails, because the audio production of The True Meaning of Smekday (read by Bahni Turpin) has won the 2011 Odyssey award for best audiobook produced for children or young adults. Which was a complete surprise. That's not to slight the production or Ms. Turpin, but I just didn't go to bed last night hoping the ALA Santa might bring me something in the morning. It hadn't occurred to me that the audiobook of Smekday was in the running.

I'd have a celebratory drink, but it's only two in the afternoon here.

Thanks to Bahni Turpin and producer Dan Musselman at Listening Library!

19 comments:

Kelly Polark said...

It's five o'clock somewhere. Go for it. Congrats!

melanie said...

Congratulations, Adam! I watched the announcements live and was also surprised to see this win--I didn't know there was an audiobook of Smekday! I can't wait to listen to it--one of my favorite books ever.

Peter Underhill said...

Many congratulations. Tell you what, I'll have a drink for you!

Sonya said...

Mazel tov, Adam Rex!

Anonymous said...

UNEXPECTED awards = double the fun.
Congrats!

Amy Timberlake said...

Congratulations anyway Adam! I'm so glad it won! Actually I would have liked SMEKDAY to win the year it was in the running -- that would have been my first choice, but still, COOL about the audiobook!

Cheering here in Chicago!

Adam Rex said...

Thank you one and all!

MotherReader said...

Yeah that was a surprise! A great one! It never occurred to me that books published in previous years would come up in this category, so very fun. Congratulations!

Adam Rex said...

Well, the audiobook WAS produced in 2010. Took a couple years to get audio producers interested.

Vinod Rams said...

Very cool! Congrats!

Angie H. said...

Congrats Adam! That's exciting news!

Arrolynn said...

Congrats Adam! I love Smekday, I'll have to check out the audio book!

Mongo, At The Moment said...

Congratulations! And (no joke) I keep looking for an announcement: "Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture"!

Phil said...

Well here's another congratulatory blog comment! It's well deserved. They did a really nice production of Smekday.

Anonymous said...

Congratulations, and excellent timing! It was perfect for the drive from Knoxville, TN, to Wilmington, NC. I'm really enjoying it.

I'm still traveling and still spreading the good news of Adam Rex wherever I go! Keep up the good work!

Your peripatetic fan,
Christine

Michael Goins (Steph Mahan husband) said...

Just finished listening to it and I really enjoyed it. Congratulations to you and production team. It is well deserved.

Adam Rex said...

Thanks Vnod, Angie, Arrolyn, Mongo, Phil, Anonymous, and Michael!

Kiana said...

Good job on winning the award!! I loved reading Smekday! IT WAS SOOO GOOD I AM DOING A book report on it!!! Can I have some fun facts to tell my class?

Adam Rex said...

Thanks, Kiana!

Well...you can tell your class that the Boov are named after a physicist in Philadelphia named Bhuvnesh Jain. Everyone calls him Bhuv, and I liked the sound of that.

You can tell them that Captain Smek used to be named something else entirely, but then I discovered that his name was a bad word. So I changed it.

And you can tell them that the koobish started out as a tattoo:

http://adamrex.blogspot.com/2010/04/where-koobish-come-from.html