David: The thing about the process of writing is that every book is your favorite while you are working on it. The creative mind needs to be in love in order to work that hard, sometimes for years, to breathe life into an idea. By the time a book comes out I’m miles from the scene and my mind is in love with some new sweet young thing of an idea. After enough time passes, certain titles have a way of standing out from the group. The Boy With a Drum is a favorite because it was my first experience in publishing a book for children. It was the one that set my compass. The Book of Giant Stories won a Christopher Award and gave me bragging rights at the national level. Somebody Catch My Homework was my first book of poems and established me as a poet. Cave Detectives is a favorite among my nonfiction books because it chronicles the discovery and exploration of Riverbluff Cave near Springfield, Missouri, which turned out to hold a treasure trove of the oldest ice age fossils found so far on the North American continent. I even had a fossil named after me for that one: Physetocrinus Harrisoni. Pirates is a book of poems but the American Library Association named it to its Nonfiction Honor List in 2009, and in 2013 the Missouri Center for the Book chose it to represent Missouri at the National Book Fair in Washington D.C. And I’m proud of Mammoth Bones and Broken Stones (about the search for the earliest migrants to this continent), because it was nominated by an archaeologist for the Society for American Archaeology’s 2010 Book of the Year.
Julie: David, you are such a kind man--always willing to visit with your fans and pose for pictures. Your books have received many honors, and you’ve had many personal honors bestowed upon you. Which awards/honors have meant the most to you?
David: Julie, I love them all! But here goes.
Book awards: Several titles have been nominated or selected for state reading awards and approved lists, including Texas Bluebonnet, Kentucky Blue Grass, Kansas, Michigan, Arizona, S. Dakota, Hawail, Missouri, Indiana, and Virginia, some more than once. Two have been on the IRA/CBC Children’s Choice lists and two were named by National Council for Teachers of English as Notable Poetry Books. I was tickled when the Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and Dayton Ballet II in Dayton, Ohio, featured a book of mine called Bugs. They perform in a magnificent hall! And I loved it when one of my poems (“My Book!”) was sandblasted into the sidewalk of the Burton Barr Central Library’s Children Garden in Phoenix, and in Pueblo, Colorado, it decorated a bookmobile that serves outlying areas.
Personal awards: International Reading Association Community Service Award for "Sky High on Reading" literacy project, 2001; Celebrate Literacy Award, Missouri State Reading Association, 1994; Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Missouri State University, 2006; Missouri Library Association’s Literacy Award for Body of Work, 2008; Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Drury University, 2009; David Harrison Elementary School named and opened in Springfield, Missouri, 2010; Pioneer in Education award presented by Missouri DESE and Missouri State Board of Education, 2014; David Harrison Day proclaimed by Springfield, Missouri, city council, April 2, 2014; Finalist for Paul Morris Award for Community Service presented by Missouri School Board Association, 2014.
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