I am overjoyed to be in the company of all of these fine book creators. Congrats to you all! Many thanks to both the Boston Globe and the Horn Book, and congratulations on the Horn Book’s hundredth anniversary!

A heart-filled “thanks, mush” to judges Cathryn Mercier, Katrina Hedeen Eftekhari, and Rodney Fierce. I am awed and grateful that you chose our book for this incredible honor. It means more than you can know.

Our picture book begins, “Start with a spore, a sort of seed,” and like a mushroom fruiting from spores, our book is the fruit of a vast mycelial network of creators and collaborators.

Spores of gratitude to Diana Sudyka! I’ve long been a fan of Diana’s, but she wowed me beyond my imagination with the absolutely breathtaking art that she created. What a joy it is to be a picture-book author and co-create with such talented folks! Hyphal threads of thanks to our brilliant editor, Andrea Welch, who asked all the right questions, and to art director Lauren Rille and #TeamFungi at Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster. I’m grateful to my tireless agent, Ammi-Joan Paquette, and for my critique partners.

[Read Horn Book reviews of the 2024 BGHB Nonfiction and Poetry winners.]

Our book is an ode of sorts, celebrating both poetry and STEM-azing stuff, the weird and wonder-full world of fungi: fungus using radioactivity as an energy source — hello, Hulk bugs! And zombie ant fungus commandeering an ant’s brain so that after death, a mushroom pops from its head, raining spores and infecting the ant colony below! Yikes! Shaggy-ink mushrooms that sprout through cement! Boing! Mushrooms with mycoremediation superpowers, digesting powerful pollutants, chemical waste, and heavy metals. Kapow! And enchanting and evocative mushroom names: velvet foot, wood ears, fairy cups, witch’s butter…

All of my books are celebrations — a way of sharing joy, curiosity, and wonder, and of voicing gratitude for all kinds of beings and creatures in the natural world, and the myriad ways our lives are so enriched by their presence. I was a shy girl, more at home in the woods or among animals than with people. It’s no surprise that I write about nature as a way to give voice to that ever-present inner child.

Our book also honors the hidden world, the miles of mycelium beneath our feet, only visible when digging beneath the leaf litter or overturning a stone — a wood-wide web of connecting trees, fungi, microbes, and more. It is my hope that my own joy and wonder serve as spores of inspiration for kids to be curious, to slow down, observe, explore, and experience all the ways that we are connected — in nature, and as a community of readers and book lovers.

“Thanks, mush” to everyone who has shared our book with their friends and families, and in their classrooms and communities. A resounding shout-out to the courageous librarians and educators fighting book bans. Every kid deserves to be seen and feel seen in books. Thank you for your service, and “may the spores be with you!”

From the January/February 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine. For more on the 2024 Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards, click on the tag BGHB24.