Children’s Book Awards Highlight Race — and Politics
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Version 0 of 1. “March: Book Three,” a graphic memoir created by Representative John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell, has won four 2017 American Library Association Youth Media Awards, given annually to American authors and illustrators and widely regarded as the most prestigious children’s book prizes in the United States. The book, the final installment of a trilogy about Representative Lewis’s early life and work for the civil rights movement, took the Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults; the Coretta Scott King Award for an African-American author and illustrator of an outstanding book for children and young adults; the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award for most distinguished informational book for children; and the YALSA Award for excellence in nonfiction for young adults. “March” is published by Top Shelf Productions, an imprint of IDW Publishing. It was the first time a single book has won four A.L.A. awards, said Roger Sutton, the editor in chief of The Horn Book. “March: Book Three” also won the National Book Award for young people’s literature in November. The John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature went to “The Girl Who Drank the Moon,” a middle-grade novel written by Kelly Barnhill and published by Algonquin Young Readers. The Randolph Caldecott Medal, awarded to an illustrator for the year’s most distinguished American picture book, went to Javaka Steptoe for “Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat,” published by Little, Brown & Company. The awards, announced on Monday at the A.L.A.’s midwinter conference in Atlanta, were given to books published in 2016, a year in which sales of children’s books were strong, continuing to outpace books for adults. The winning titles reflected a vibrant and increasingly expansive children’s books landscape. After several years of calls for books reflecting more racial and gender diversity, for example, the three top awards — the Newbery, Caldecott and Printz — went to two African-American men, Lewis and Steptoe, and a white woman, Barnhill. Coming just a little more than a week after many were shocked by then-President-elect Trump’s sparring on Twitter with Representative Lewis, who is considered an icon of the civil rights movement, the awards for “March” seemed to make an especially strong impact on the Atlanta audience of librarians, educators and book publishing professionals. As each award for “March: Book Three” — chosen by separate committees that do not communicate with each other — was announced, it was cheered loudly. Many also noted the political overtones of the Newbery winner, “The Girl Who Drank the Moon,” a fantasy novel about a country that mistakenly believes it must sacrifice its youngest child to an evil witch every year. Barnhill’s book, said its editor, Elise Howard, the publisher of Algonquin Young Readers, is “about asking questions and making choices and daring to question an authoritarian version of the truth, which makes it a perfect book for our time.” The Caldecott Medal for Steptoe, who is the son of the seminal African-American children’s book author-illustrator John Steptoe, also elicited emotional responses. Steptoe worked on the book for six years, immersing himself in the settings of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s life. Without using any of Basquiat’s own work, Steptoe evoked the artist’s style and world by painting and making collages on large pieces of found wood from discarded Brooklyn Museum exhibits as well as the streets of Brooklyn, Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side. “If you are lucky enough to one day see the art in person,” said David Caplan, Little, Brown Kids’ vice president and creative director, “you can fully understand the care and patience Javaka took in creating this stunning imagery.” Newbery Honors went to “Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life,” a picture book by Ashley Bryan, published by Atheneum; “The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog” by Adam Gidwitz, illustrated by Hatem Aly, published by Dutton; and “Wolf Hollow,” by Lauren Wolk, published by Dutton. There were four Caldecott Honor Books: “Leave Me Alone!,” by Vera Brosgol, published by Roaring Brook; “Freedom in Congo Square,” illustrated by R. Gregory Christie, written by Carole Boston Weatherford, published by Little Bee; “Du Iz Tak?,” by Carson Ellis, published by Candlewick; and “They All Saw a Cat,” by Brendan Wenzel, published by Chronicle. “Juana & Lucas,” written and illustrated by Juana Medina and published by Candlewick Press, won the Pura Belpré Author Award, honoring children’s books about the Latino cultural experience. The Pura Belpré Illustrator Award went to “Lowriders to the Center of the Earth,” illustrated by Raúl Gonzalez and published by Chronicle Books. The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for the most distinguished beginning reader book went to “We Are Growing,” written and illustrated by Laurie Keller. The book, published by Hyperion Books for Children, is part of a new series, “Elephant & Piggie Like Reading,” overseen by Mo Willems, the author of the popular Elephant & Piggie beginning reader series. Stonewall Book Awards for children’s and young adult books relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender experience went to Rick Riordan’s “Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Hammer of Thor,” published by Disney Hyperion, and “If I Was Your Girl,” by Meredith Russo, published by Flatiron Books. The Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award went to “The Sun Is Also a Star,” by Nicola Yoon, and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children was given to the poet Nikki Grimes. |