When Gaiman heard that he won the award, he immediately twittered his enthusiastic and profane response. School Library Journal reported it and said that librarians on the floor of the American Library Association Conference at the time were "dismayed" by his reaction, though Nina Lindsay begs to differ. "It really makes me wonder exactly who in that room of many hundreds the reporter spoke to, since the dozens I talked with were thrilled and laughing at Gaiman's response. It's just a good feeling that such a celebrity would feel as excited about getting the Newbery as we are that he got it."
Gaiman knew exactly what he was doing when he wrote his tweet. He is forty-eight, exactly the same age I am, and though I know he leaves the house more often than I do, I have been around the block a few times (My La-Z-Boy has wheels.), and I am sure he has lapped me repeatedly. I think we can eliminate naivete as a prime motivator for his tweet. In an interview, again with School Library Journal, he half-heartedly sidesteps the issue, "You did curse in your tweet. I tweeted once I was sort of up and trying to figure out what was going on, that somebody is trying to phone me, somebody is trying to get hold of me. And I thought, I’ll twitter it."
Personally, I think Gaiman was deliberately trying to tweak the nose of the Establishment, whatever that is, and that the Establishment did not care all that much. He is quoted in the LA Times piece, "I never really thought of myself as a Newbery winner. It's such a very establishment kind of award, in the right kind of way, with the world of librarians pointing at the book saying, 'This is worthy of the ages.' And I'm so very used to working in, and enjoying working in, essentially the gutter."
Still, despite his self-perception, Neil Gaiman is both too old and too successful to be anything but Establishment himself. The Newbery insures that he will sell lots and lots of books. He would have sold lots anyway, and Stardust and Coraline have both been made into movies. He has an extremely lively web presence. Everybody is charmed. Everybody wants what Gaiman produces, and they are prepared to pay to acquire it.
He certainly did not shock the kids, most of whom have been reared on a steady diet of cable television and rap music. And the librarians? Mr. Gaiman might think of librarians as Establishment, but they think of themselves as subversive, free-spirited, Children-of-the-Sixties, even though there is currently some debate about where to SHELVE The Graveyard Book in libraries. I mean, do you put it in the children's section or in the young adult section? Ah, Fellow Professionals, I love you. Just try to put it out there where your people can get at it, ok?
The LA Times reports, "On Gaiman's blog, he writes that "The Graveyard Book" is not a children's book. It's 'a book for pretty much for all ages, although I'm not sure how far down that actually starts. I think I would have loved it when I was eight, but I don't think that all eight-year olds were like me.' "
I don't know about that, but I do know that if you truly want to be Anti-Establishment these days, Kids, clean it up. Everybody will be shocked. -mh
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