The Youth Media awards were announced yesterday at the midwinter ALA convention. You can find a recap of all the winners and honorees at the ALA site. The Coretta Scott King Award recipients are listed below. I’m eager to see Kyra Hicks’ analysis of the CSKs—each year she points to trends that force us to ask just what the award does to promote excellence in African American children’s literature. If the same people win the award year after year, are we really making progress? If the pool of black-authored books isn’t expanding, do we really know what excellence looks like? And are the CSKs making a difference? I’m still working on my analysis of black Canadian authors and it’s clear that since 2000, despite some black authors winning major literary prizes, only TWO debut authors entered the publishing arena. This would seem to disprove the theory that recognizing excellence leads to greater opportunities for all writers of color…
Coretta Scott King (Author) Book Award recognizing an African American author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults:
Kadir Nelson, author and illustrator of “Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans,” is the King Author Book winner. The book is published by Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Two King Author Honor Book recipients were selected: Eloise Greenfield, author of “The Great Migration: Journey to the North,” illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist and published by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers; and Patricia C. McKissack, author of “Never Forgotten,” illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon and published by Schwartz & Wade Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
Coretta Scott King (Illustrator) Book Award:
Shane W. Evans, illustrator and author of “Underground: Finding the Light to Freedom,” is the King Illustrator Book winner. The book is a Neal Porter Book, published by Roaring Brook Press, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings Limited Partnership.
One King Illustrator Honor Book recipient was selected: Kadir Nelson, illustrator and author of “Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans,” published by Balzar + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement:
Ashley Bryan is the winner of the Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime achievement. The award, which pays tribute to the quality and magnitude of beloved children’s author Virginia Hamilton.
Storyteller, artist, author, poet and musician, Bryan created his first children’s book in first grade. He grew up in the Bronx and in 1962, he became the first African American to both write and illustrate a children’s book. After a successful teaching career, Bryan left academia to pursue creation of his own artwork. He has since garnered numerous awards for his significant and lasting literary contribution of poetry, spirituals and story.
Do you know if they gave a John Steptoe New Talent Award this year? I didn’t see one mentioned.
Hey, Lyn. I just checked with Doret and she says the CSK committee elected not to give the Steptoe award this year.
Thanks for this recap – I hadn’t seen the full list. And your questions are important. While I would would offer big congratulations to the winners, they are all familiar names. Where are the new voices and new talents? Are they being published and just not yet recognised, or are the same people being published without room for many new voices? I’m also preparing for the conference in France, as well as the talk I’m giving tomorrow night, so wondering about these things.
In defence of the awards, I think they do make a difference. The UK doesn’t have any comparable awards that I’m aware of, and I think it’s part of the even larger lack in ethnic diversity in books published. The ALA has some power to speak on behalf of librarians, and to drive sales and attention (even if it’s to just a few books). I can’t think of the last time I saw a book featuring ethnically diverse characters was given one of the big awards in the UK. Though should look – and make sure about that.
Hey, Laura–we should be on the same panel! The thing is, you can’t have an award like the CSK unless you have a large enough pool of submissions. So in Canada, where 2-3 black kidlit authors are published each year, an award like this would be ridiculous. As it is, whenever an adult black-authored novel wins a major award, it carries an enormous burden b/c most people haven’t got any way to situate it in relationship to other black-authored books. It becomes, “Oh! a black person wrote a book–give them a prize!” which does more harm than good. The only way to guarantee that a black author isn’t being treated as a token is to enlarge the pool. The CSKs don’t seem to be concerned any long with the size of the pool–if they have a dozen picture books to consider, they’re fine. Even if 95% of those books are published by authors/illustrators who’ve won multiple awards already. They need to add a rule limiting winners to one award every THREE years.
I saw a book called a + e 4ever that won an award, and it made me think of m + o 4ever…
I saw that too! let me know if you read it.
I thought for sure that illustrator Elizabeth Zunon was going to win the John Steptoe Award. There were some very good MG and YA fiction by Black authors in 2011, so I was also very surprised that only pictured books were honored by the CSK
Doret, I was keeping my fingers crossed for Liz too. I think she may not have qualified because she has already published more than one book, unlike The EJK Award where you have a three book limit before you become an “old” illustrator. At any rate, I do hope that her work is recognized at some point. I also have my fingers crossed for Vanessa Brantley Newton