Letter from Author Sid Fleischman to Rachel Alexander

Pictured here is a letter from author Sid Fleischman to Rachel Alexander, thanking her for his Jo Osborne Award for Humor in Children’s Literature. He references how happy he is to see the award sitting on a bookshelf across from his desk, and thanks her for introducing him during his acceptance speech for the award in Columbus, Ohio, earlier that month.

Sid Fleischman was the Newbery-award winning author of “The Whipping Boy,” as well as many other chapter books, picture books and nonfiction works. His works have been widely praised for their inventiveness, comedy and insight, and he has been recognized with numerous other awards, including the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the Mark Twain Award, and as a finalist for the National Book Award and the Hans Christian Andersen Award. His son, Paul Fleischman, is also a Newbery-award winner, making them the only father-son duo with this distinction.

The Jo Osborne Award for Humor in Children’s Literature was established in 1996 in honor of Jo Osborne, who was a children’s librarian at Worthington Libraries from 1979 until her death at age 59 in 1995. The award sought to honor her commitment to bringing children, books and humor together, and recognized the art of humor in either a single children's book or in the body of work of a children's literature author. As described in the brochure for the award, Jo "sought out the silly, the funny, the poignant, the witty for storytelling and puppet shows to impart a love of books to all the children who were lucky enough to cross her path" during her years as a librarian.

In addition to Fleischman’s receipt of the award in 1997, the other Jo Osborne Award winners were Patricia Polacco (1996), Steven Kellogg (1998), Jon Scieszka (1999), William Steig (2000), Rosemary Wells (2001), Kevin Henkes (2002), Tomie dePaola (2003), Paula Danzinger (2004), Daniel Pinkwater (2010), and Betsy Lewin (2011).

Rachel Alexander was the chairperson for the Jo Osborne Award, leading a committee of librarians and teachers who chose the winners. She is a former staff member for Worthington Libraries, where she served as community services librarian, children’s librarian, youth services manager and youth services materials selector.

The image pictured here has been altered to remove addresses from the letterhead and recipient.