Growing up during the Great Depression in the Midwest, Naylor discovered her imaginative inner voice at an early age. Her creative writing pursuits began in elementary school and quickly led to a paid writing assignment. At 16, a Sunday school teacher asked her to write a story for their church newsletter. Naylor turned in “Mike’s Hero,” and received a $4.67 check.

After graduation Naylor attended community college and worked as a secretary and magazine editor. Before nearly deciding to become a clinical psychologist, she dedicated her time to her first passion, writing.

Her first children’s book, “The Galloping Goat and Other Stories,” was published in 1965. From there, her writing career accelerated to include more than 125 books for children and teens. In 1992, she was awarded the Newbery Medal for “Shiloh,” about the bond between a boy and his newly-found stray dog. To complete the trilogy, she released “Shiloh Season” and “Saving Shiloh.” Each book was turned into a successful movie.

Naylor says that she uses her personal stories and sights from her everyday world as inspiration for her prolific writing career. The idea for “Shiloh” came when she found an abused, feral dog in West Virginia. Her bestselling book, “The Grand Escape” began with a trip to the veterinarian for her cat, who was thought to have a tumor. An x-ray revealed the trouble as only 40 feet of Christmas ribbon and 11 rubber bands.

Other books by Naylor include the “Alice” series, “Cat Pack” series, “The Boys Start the War” series, “The Witch Saga” series and the “Besseldorf Mysteries.” Each series of books features the challenges of children overcoming adversity while learning to understand their individual strengths.

The Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Reader’s Literature gives formal recognition, on behalf of the Tulsa County community, to a nationally acclaimed author who has made a significant contribution to the field of literature and young adults. The award consists of a $7,500 cash prize and an engraved crystal book.

For more information on the Zarrow Award or other library programming, call the AskUs Hotline, 596-7977, or visit the library’s Web site, www.tulsalibrary.org.

Brooks, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “March” and best-selling “People of the Book,” will receive the prestigious Helmerich award on Dec. 4 at a black-tie dinner and will give a free public presentation at 10:30 a.m. on Dec. 5 at Central Library, Fourth Street and Denver Avenue.

At the public presentation, Brooks will speak about her life and works, answer questions from the audience and sign books. Copies of her books will be available for purchasing at the event.

Other works by Brooks include two nonfiction books, “Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women” and “Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal’s Journey From Down Under to All Over,” plus her first novel, “Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague,” which was an international best-seller.

To prepare the community for Brooks’ visit to Tulsa, the Friends of the Tulsa City-County Libraries group is offering a review of Brooks’ works as a part of its popular Books Sandwiched In series from 12:10 to 12:50 p.m. on Nov. 30 at Central Library in Aaronson Auditorium. Donna Farrior, a member of the Distinguished Author Selection Committee, will present “A Geraldine Brooks Sampler.”

Also, an exhibit showcasing Brooks’ life and writings will be on display through Dec. 6 on the second floor of Central Library.

The Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award consists of a $40,000 cash prize and an engraved crystal book. The award originated in 1985. Previous award winners are Michael Chabon, Thomas Keneally, Mark Helprin, John Grisham, Shelby Foote, Joyce Carol Oates, William Kennedy, William Manchester, Margaret Atwood, E.L. Doctorow, Dr. John Hope Franklin, Neil Simon, David McCullough, Ray Bradbury, Peter Matthiessen, Norman Mailer, Eudora Welty, John le Carré, Saul Bellow, Toni Morrison, John Updike, Larry McMurtry and Norman Cousins.

For more information about the Helmerich Award, visit www.helmerichaward.org or call 596-7977.

Sponsored by TCCL’s Research Center, the free program is from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 12 at Central Library, Fourth Street and Denver Avenue, in Aaronson Auditorium. Speakers are Brad Burnham, college and career counselor, Union High School; Lindsey Tackett, financial aid counselor, Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid, OSU; and Jessica Reed, Plan4College Center coordinator, Martin Regional Library.

Participants will learn about financial aid options and the library’s Plan4College centers, which are located at the Martin and Rudisill regional libraries. A project with Oklahoma GEAR UP, the centers provide families and students with a one-stop shop for all their college info needs. Each center features a knowledgeable coordinator, computers and handouts that can get anyone started on a great plan for college.

The “College Financial Aid” program also includes information about library resources to help plan for a college education. Ellen Cummings, Research Center manager, recommends the following titles:

• “1001 Ways to Pay for College” by Gen and Kelly Tanabe – Balancing detailed explanations with real-life examples and practical resources, this guide reveals a multitude of ways to finance higher education.
• “Financial Aid for the Utterly Confused” by Anthony J. Bellia – Written by a top financial aid pro with 30 years of experience, this guide walks you through the entire process of obtaining the maximum amount of financial aid to which you may be entitled.
• “Paying for College Without Sacrificing Your Retirement” by Tim Higgins – This guide shows how to maximize your resources, evaluate colleges and financial aid opportunities, avoid crushing student debt, make the tax system work for you and save for retirement.
• “501 Ways for Adult Students to Pay for College” by Gen and Kelly Tanabe – This book examines the issues and challenges unique to adults who want to go back to school despite the pressing responsibilities of families, work and mortgages.

For more information about the “College Financial Aid” program or library resources, call Tulsa City-County Library’s AskUs Hotline at 596-7977 or visit www.tulsalibrary.org.

A Puritan minister … a Wampanoag medicine man … Caleb’s Crossing, Geraldine Brooks’ next novel, will take readers on a riveting ride back to 17th-century Massachusetts when English settlers first encountered Native Americans.

"It will be just about written this time next year, but I am too superstitious to say anything more about it just yet," said Brooks, who will be in Tulsa Dec. 4 and 5 to accept the Tulsa Library Trust’s 2009 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award.

As a Helmerich award winner, Brooks said she is in awe to be included in such a distinguished circle of writers (i.e. John Grisham, David McCullough, Ray Bradbury, Eudora Welty, etc.)

The Tulsa Library Trust and Tulsa City-County Library are honoring Brooks with the Helmerich award for her major contribution to the field of literature and letters.

Brooks fell in the love with the written word when she was 8 years old, deciding then what she would be when she grew up.   
"I can date it precisely to a visit I made to see my dad at work," said Brooks. "He was a proofreader for a Sydney (Australia) newspaper. He took me down to the pressroom as the afternoon editions were rolling, and pulled one of the papers off the conveyor belt. I’ll never forget it – the paper was warm – literally ‘hot off the presses.’ I thought, ‘I’m the first one in this city to read this news,’ and from that moment I knew I wanted to grow up to write it."

Brooks’ childhood dream came to fruition first as a reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald, next as the Middle East bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal and then the Journal’s United Nations correspondent.

The switch to fiction came much later for Brooks.

"I’d been a foreign correspondent for years and years, and written two nonfiction books (Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women and Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal‘s Journey From Down Under to All Over), but I really had no idea a novelist dwelt inside until my son was born, and I had to keep still in one place for the first time in a decade," said Brooks. "That’s when I started hearing voices from the past and wanting to tell their stories."

Her first story was the 2001 international best-seller Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague,the true story of the village of Eyam, Derbyshire, where villagers voluntarily quarantined themselves when bubonic plague struck in 1666.

Her second novel, March, a retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved classic Little Women from the point of view of the girls’ absent father, won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize. Brooks’ most recent novel, People of the Book, traces the perilous journey of a rare illuminated Hebrew manuscript from Spain to the ruins of Sarajevo.

Brooks will receive the Helmerich award at a black-tie dinner on Dec. 4 and give a free public presentation on Dec. 5 at 10:30 a.m. at Central Library, Fourth Street and Denver Avenue. Dinner tickets are $125. For more information about the award or to purchase tickets for the dinner, call 918-596-7897.

Learning the art of conversation … listening to others … waiting to have your say … these are the elements of family dinner that make it the most favorite time of day for Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks.

"I’m a bit old-fashioned about this but I think everyone should sit down together for dinner," said Brooks, who is coming to Tulsa Dec. 4 and 5 to receive the Tulsa Library Trust’s 2009 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. "Also, as we’re a multigenerational family spanning ages 6 to 90 it is important to hear from each other and not spin out entirely into our own worlds of work, adolescence, et cetera. Plus I love to cook so the food is pretty good most of the time."

The Australian-born author, who lives in Martha’s Vineyard with her husband, mom and two sons, says she leads a typical life.

"My sons leave for school by 7:30 and I go to work in the attic till they get home. Then I do Mom stuff – schlepping them to music or sport, working in the veggie garden, riding herd on homework and making dinner," said Brooks.

Life wasn’t always so typical for Brooks who in the late-1980s through mid-‘90s led an adventurous, dangerous life working as a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. Dodging bullets, running for cover while helicopter gunships hovered overhead, being arrested and accused as a spy were among the harrowing experiences Brooks encountered while covering conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans.

During her career as an award-winning journalist, Brooks penned her first nonfiction book, Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women, in 1995. She followed it with the memoir Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal’s Journey From Down Under to All Over, chronicling her childhood in Sydney, Australia, where pen pals from around the world enriched her life and fulfilled her yearning for the exotic.

"Having pen pals connects you to the rest of the world in a wonderful and intimate way," said Brooks, who thinks children nowadays can benefit from the experience. "It made the rather small world of my childhood a much vaster place and helped me to see things through other people’s eyes."

During adolescence, Brooks’ favorite book to read was J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

"I think I read The Lord of the Rings every spring for about five years," she said. "I associate it with sitting in the garden in Sydney in late September (which is spring there), munching on the new green peas from my mum’s veggie patch. It is a wonderful story, complicated and engrossing and thoroughly entertaining. At different times it spoke to me in different ways – as a kid I loved the idea that the small ones mattered most in the end; as an older person I was struck by the idea that confronting evil can often have huge costs to what is good – a lesson quite relevant to today’s predicaments."

After her first son was born, Brooks made the decision to hang up her career as a foreign correspondent and try her hand at writing historical fiction. Her first novel, Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague, hit the stands in 2001 and was an international best-seller. She followed it with the 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner March, a retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved classic Little Women from the point of view of the girls’ absent father, Mr. March. Her latest novel, People of the Book, was an instant New York Times best-seller and has been translated into more than 20 languages. Catherine Zeta-Jones has acquired the film rights.

When asked about Jones’ plans for filming People of the Book, Brooks said she tries not to think too much about it.

"The book is the book and the film is something else entirely," she said. "The film business is an emotional rollercoaster, with so many moving parts. When you write a book it’s up to you. You just sit down and do it. With movies you have to get a good scriptwriter, you need to entice a luminous star and an esteemed director, and even when you’ve done all that, it still might not happen because the financing falls through. So, one day, I hope to be sitting in the darkened cinema as the credits roll on something based on the novel by Geraldine Brooks. Until then it’s really none of my business. But I would like, if a book of mine ever gets filmed, to play a corpse or something in it."

SIDEBAR

Meet Geraldine Brooks,
Winner of the 2009 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award

Black-tie Dinner
Friday, Dec. 4 * Central Library, Fourth Street and Denver Avenue
Tickets: $125
Call 918-596-7897 to purchase tickets.

Free Public Presentation
Saturday, Dec. 5 * 10:30 a.m. * Central Library

Call 918-596-7977 or visit www.tulsalibrary.org for more information.

When Geraldine Brooks walks amongst the historic houses on the island of Martha’s Vineyard where she lives, she imagines the families who once inhabited these tiny modest homes and feels an overwhelming desire to protect and preserve these fragile structures so that their stories survive for future generations.

"Sadly, all over this island, historic houses are being lost, usually to build grandiose vacation compounds where people will come for, maybe, a month a year," said Brooks, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and award-winning journalist. "I’m just really disturbed that so often the rights of individuals in the here and now are the only thing that’s valued as a core American ideal. What about the rights of Americans in the future to experience what their own past was like – the struggle and the guts and the austerity of the lives of the people who built this country. It is the modest buildings that tell us the most about who we once were. They are the templates of ordinary American lives."

Just as these tiny old houses reveal pieces of the past, Brooks’ storied novels and nonfiction works share intriguing bits of history. Brooks is the author of two nonfiction books, Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women and Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal‘s Journey From Down Under to All Over; and three novels, Year of Wonders, March and People of the Book.

The Tulsa Library Trust and Tulsa City-County Library are honoring Brooks with the 2009 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award for her major contribution to the field of literature and letters. Brooks will receive the Helmerich award at a black-tie dinner on Dec. 4 at Central Library, Fourth Street and Denver Avenue. The award consists of a $40,000 cash prize and an engraved crystal book.

Before Brooks turned novelist in the late-1990s, she worked for many years as a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, covering crises in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. But after her first child was born, the Australian-born journalist decided to stay put and try her hand at writing historical novels. Her first venture, Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague, was an international best-seller. Set in Great Britain in the 1660s, the book recounts the true story of the village of Eyam, Derbyshire, and the self-sacrifice of the villagers who voluntarily quarantined themselves when bubonic plague struck.

Tulsa City-County Library’s popular "Novel Talk" series will explore this dramatic, haunting read as it presents "The Gifts of Tragedy" on Nov. 18 at 7 p.m. at Central Library, Aaronson Auditorium. Erin Christy, anchor, KJRH Channel 2 News, will moderate a panel discussion focusing on Year of Wonders. Panelists Dr. Tom Dafforn, clinical psychologist; the Rev. Todd Freeman, College Hill Presbyterian Church; and Dr. Elizabeth Williams, history professor, OSU-Stillwater, will confront the different ways people handle tragic events.

Brooks followed up Year of Wonders with the Pulitzer Prize-winning March, which focuses on what happened to John March, the father character in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, the year he was away from his wife and four daughters. Brooks based the character of March on Alcott’s own father, an educator, abolitionist and progressive thinker.

Her third venture, People of the Book, a New York Times best-seller translated into 20 languages, traces the perilous journey of a rare illuminated Hebrew manuscript known as the Sarajevo Haggadah and its possible adventures over five centuries.

Brooks is known for peppering her novels with odd details of her characters’ daily lives that delight and surprise the reader.

When asked if any of the characters in her books remind her of herself, Brooks said: "You really can’t tease out who is who in the characters you create. There are thoughts I’ve had, smells I’ve smelled, emotions I’ve felt, in all of them. But there are also many, many shards of other people’s lives that I borrowed. More of those, probably, than of myself."

Brooks will share more about her life and writings at a free public presentation on Dec. 5 at 10:30 a.m. at Central Library. Brooks will speak, answer questions from the audience and sign books. Copies of her works will be available for purchasing.

For more information about the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award or to purchase tickets for the dinner, call 596-7897.

The free program is from noon to 1 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 19 at Central Library, Fourth Street and Denver Avenue, in the Lecture Room. You may bring your lunch.

Join Cathy Welsh, of Welsh Law Ltd., to gain a layman’s perspective on disability planning, including use of durable powers of attorney, living trusts, living wills, and other means of delegating management and decision making to another in case of incompetency or incapacity. Also learn about patient’s rights, conservator/guardianships and estate planning.

While you are at the library, check out some resources to complement the program. Titles include: “Elder Law” and “Estate Planning” by Margaret C. Jasper, “The American Bar Association Legal Guide for Americans Over 50,” “The American Bar Association Guide to Wills & Estates: Everything You Need to Know About Wills, Estates, Trusts & Taxes,” “The Complete Retirement Survival Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Safeguard Your Money, Your Health and Your Independence” by Peter Strauss, “A Guide to Elder Planning: Everything You Need to Know to Protect Yourself Legally & Financially” by Steve Weisman, “Plan Your Estate” by Denis Clifford, “8 Ways to Avoid Probate” by Mary Randolph, “Patients’ Rights in the Age of Managed Health Care” by Lisa Yount, “Power of Attorney Handbook” by Edward Haman and “Living Wills Simplified” by Dan Sitarz. Visit www.tulsalibrary.org/govdocs/laymanslegal.php for other titles.

The “Layman’s Legal” series continues with “Family Law,” Jan. 21; “Immigration Law,” Feb. 18; and “Rights in the Workplace,” May 20.

For more information about “Layman’s Legal,” contact Robbie Sittel, government documents librarian, at 596-7946, or visit www.tulsalibrary.org.

The "So You Want to Go to College” series features the following programs. Please contact the hosting library for more details.

• "Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA): Workshop for American Indian Students,” 10-11:30 a.m., Nov. 7, Maxwell Park Library, 1313 N. Canton, 669-6055. Shonday Harmon, coordinator, Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid, OSU-Tulsa, will share information on college financial aid and offer step-by-step guidance in completing and submitting the FAFSA application, which is required for any student who would like to receive financial aid. Preregistration is required and limited.
• "Fourth Annual Latino College Fair,” 6:30-8:30 p.m., Nov. 10, Martin Regional Library, 2601 S. Garnett Road, 669-6340. Meet with representatives from area universities, colleges and vocational schools, plus learn about library resources on colleges and financial aid. The Hispanic Scholarship Foundation’s Gates Millennium Scholars Program will participate. Presentations are in Spanish; information available in English and Spanish. Check out our new Plan4College Center.
• "College Financial Aid: Fund Your Future,” 7-8:30 p.m., Nov. 12, Central Library, Fourth Street and Denver Avenue, 596-7977. It’s never too early to start planning how you will finance your child’s college education or too late to pursue a college education yourself. Learn how to prepare for college. Speakers include: Brad Burnham, college and career counselor, Union High School; Lindsey Tackett, financial aid counselor, Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid, OSU; and Jessica Reed, Plan 4 College coordinator, Martin Regional Library, Tulsa City-County Library.

"So You Want to Go to College" series is sponsored by the Tulsa Library Trust, Tulsa City-County Library Research Center, Hispanic Resource Center, Charles W. and Pauline K. Flint Foundation, YWCA Multicultural Service Center, Paseo de la Salud and GearUp.