ALAN Online

Pamela Sissi Carroll, Chair of the Hipple Award Committee, has announced that Jeanne McDermott, Director of Marketing of Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, has been selected to receive the 2008 Hipple Service Award.

Jeanne McDermott is a marketing professional with over twenty years in the field including, among other companies, HarperCollins and The Disney Publishing Group. She has spent the last twelve years as the Marketing Director at Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers. Jeanne is a long-time advocate for ALAN, devoting time and resources to the organization’s annual breakfast and workshop, and recently to the online ALAN Bookchats. As President-elect Sissi Carroll says, “she is ALWAYS there for us.”

Her mentors include Lauren Wohl and the late Bill Morris. Her source of inspiration has been the authors and artists who tell it as they see it and the passionate teachers and librarians who work against all odds – budget cuts, long hours, the threat of censorship – to connect young people with books. Her source of gratification is the teen who writes in: “I loved the book because it describes the exact way I feel.” Authors she has worked with include David Klass and Suzanne Fisher Staples, often covered in the ALAN Review, as well as some who will be appearing on this year’s ALAN Workshop: Kathe Koja, Will Weaver, and debut author Donna Freitas.

The Ted Hipple Service Award is given each year to the individual who has contributed to the ALAN organization. It is named in honor of Ted Hipple, the first and long-time ALAN Executive Secretary, who passed away on November 25, 2004. Ted shaped ALAN through decades of unwavering service and support. He was a Professor of Education at the University of Tennessee, where he was a former chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Previously, he was a Professor of Education at the University of Florida. He received his doctorate from the University of Illinois and was a high school English teacher at Homewood-Flossmoor High School.

Hipple Service Award Committee members for 2008 included Pamela Sissi Carroll, Chair, David Gill, Kathryn Kelly, and Gary Salvner.