Awards

Remarks read at the Association for Library Service to Children Awards Ceremony held on June 26, 2023, in Chicago, as part of the Annual Meeting of the American Library Association.

“What a thrill it is for me to be here at this meeting of the American Library Association.I can still remember my astonishment to discover, when I was growing up, that there was a place called ‘the library’ where you could find what seemed to me like every book in the world! That, of course, was not entirely true. In the 1950s and ’60s, for instance, relatively few children’s books were translated from other languages into English. In my case, as the
daughter of Italians who had immigrated to the United States, I would have loved to read books that had been written in my parents’ language and that Italian children read — but, with the exception of Pinocchio, those books were still out of reach.

Lia Levi’s autobiographical Just a Girl. A True Story of World War II describes the life of young Lia from elementary to early middle school age. Lia’s story is especially worth telling because it is also about being Jewish in Italy during World War II: it is about family life, school, friendship, and it is also about anti-semitism. It is about war and why there should never be any wars. It is about intolerance as well as kindness and hope. Lia never loses hope. The young Lia tells her story in a way that is poignant, profound, and inspirational, but funny, too. Her father loses his job, her family is separated, Lia and her sisters must go into hiding in a Catholic boarding school. The reader is moved, but often can’t help smiling because of the way spunky Lia tells her story. As her family is forced to move from city to city because of Italy’s racial laws, Lia tries to understand what is often inexplicable to her. Jewish fathers lose their jobs. She wonders: ‘Why would Mussolini want to get rid of some poor workers who spend the whole day in an office, some days without even a break?”Mussolini doesn’t want Jewish children in Italian schools,’ her mother tells her. ‘That’s silly! Who would ever believe something so ridiculous?’ Lia replies.

The beloved film critic Roger Ebert once said that movies are empathy machines. I would like to borrow that expression to say that in realizing the importance of children from one country knowing the books and stories of many other countries in order to create nearness and international understanding, Mildred Batchelder was able to turn children’s books into empathy machines. I like to imagine these small empathy machines as a paper fleet of ambassadors.

Thank you to Lia Levi for writing this book, to HarperCollins for understanding that it absolutely had to be translated into English and for asking me to translate it, and thank you to the amazing and esteemed Batchelder Award Selection Committee who chose Lia’s book for this year’s Mildred E. Batchelder Award.”