Chances are if you’re a girl of a certain age — skewing younger, at least — you’re reading Kate DiCamillo’s backlist of books. Now that she’s touring for her newest one, THE MIRACULOUS JOURNEY OF EDWARD TULANE, she’s getting the kind of event attention (and sales) that a J.K. Rowling or Jacqueline Wilson may get. So no wonder Kate Margolies caught up with her in this New York Times profile:
Beloved by book buyers (three of her books are on the New York Times children’s best-seller lists of Feb. 12), respected by critics (“a terrific, bravura performance,” Jerry Griswold wrote of Miss DiCamillo’s 2003 fairy tale, “The Tale of Despereaux,” in the Book Review), she has sold seven million copies of her books in English and has won a Newbery Honor for her 2000 debut novel, “Because of Winn-Dixie,” a National Book Award Honor for “The Tiger Rising,” from 2001; and the Newbery Medal for “Despereaux.” She has also become a mainstay of her publisher, Candlewick Press, of Cambridge, Mass., which has doubled its size over the last three years and earned revenue of $52 million in 2005. “She’s been a cornerstone of our success,” said Karen Lotz, Candlewick’s president and publisher.
Even so, the superstitious, feisty, self-deprecating and very funny Miss DiCamillo herself still seems stunned by all the hoopla. “One-twentieth of me is gratified; nineteen-twentieths of me is horrified,” she said at dinner just before the Valentine’s Day event. “I keep thinking that the next thing is going to be the thing that catches me out as the fraud I am.”
Something tells me that’s not likely to be the case…