2024 American Indian Literature Award Medal Acceptance: Arigon Starr

Editors Note: On January 25, 2025, the American Indian Library Association (AILA) held its Youth Literature Award Ceremony in Phoenix. I am pleased to share the remarks Arigon Starr delivered when she received the American Indian Youth Literature Honor Award in the picture book category for Contenders: Two Native Baseball Players, One World Series. Starr did the illustrations; the book is by Traci Sorell. 

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AIYLA Medal Acceptance Remarks

Arigon Starr

Thank you to everyone at AILA, Kokila Books and especially Traci Sorell. This was my first picture book and hopefully not my last.

I come from a matrilineal baseball family. My Grandmother and her sister took my Mom to Tulsa baseball games in the 1940s, while she loved listening to St. Louis Cardinals baseball as a young girl. Mom and my sister Gay were San Diego Padres fans – while me and my Dad liked the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Editor Namrata Tripathi and art director Jasmin Rubero supported my artwork and let me run wild! It was an honor to represent these pioneers (Charles Bender & John Meyers) in baseball and celebrate their achievements.

Enter

Angeline Boulley and Eric Gansworth's Books on Saturday Night Live

On January 25, 2025, Saturday Night Live did a skit called AI Software. It was set in a high school classroom. Along one wall were shelves of books. I did a screen capture of it because on the shelves are books by Native writers, Angeline Boulley and Eric Gansworth!

The students were viewing what was presented as an AI generated video that was a mess, which is why the girl in my screen cap has that expression on her face (the word 'What?' is due to the the closed caption option I use). 

I am delighted to see Native-authored books on the SNL stage! That's a big one! I'm adding it to AICL's Milestones page. I know librarians, teachers, and writers are zooming in to see what else is on those shelves. Books matter so much to so many of us. Being represented like this: way cool!