Help Us Celebrate CSK Award Winners!

Elementary students award Kwame Alexander their own medal for distinguished writing.
Photo credit: Susan Polos

Call for Submissions for the CSK Blog

The CSK Technology Committee would like to hear from you. As we count down to our 50th anniversary celebration in Washington D.C., we would like to feature the many ways our community uses and engages with CSK award-winning books in their libraries. Our goal is to feature as many CSK Award-winning books on the blog from now until our big celebration.

Are you a school librarian who uses CSK winning titles in innovative lessons? Are you a public librarian using CSK winning titles for programs or storytimes? Do you have a connection to, a cool story about, or a unique artifact of, a CSK award winner? Whether you would like to write your submission or be interviewed about your work by a technology committee member, please get in touch with us at csktechcommittee at gmail dot com today! Be sure to include the CSK award winner that will be highlighted in the post. Additionally, if you have ideas on how we can feature older award-winners, we would love to hear about that, too.

Maegen Rose works as a middle school librarian at Rye Country Day School in Rye, NY. She is a member of the CSK Book Award Technology Committee.

Coretta Scott King Book Awards to Mark 50 Years of Honoring the Best in Children and Youth Literature Celebrating the Black Experience

It’s a celebration! The entire year of 2019 marks the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Coretta Scott King (CSK) Book Awards. What a milestone! The CSK Book Awards have enlarged the prominence of literature for children and youth about the Black experience and heightened the work of our author and illustrator winners and honorees. Your support has been unwavering, and you have empowered the CSK Book Awards to endure for 50 years.

We are excited to announce the CSK Books Awards: 50 Years Strong Anniversary website. Please visit often. You will find updates and announcements from the planning team. Feel free to access the Fact Sheet, Press Release template, Public Service Announcement (PSA) template, and Talking Points to use for your CSK 50 programs and presentations. If you are presenting a CSK 50 program, let us know via email at diversity@ala.org.

The CSK Book Awards: 50 Years Strong Anniversary website can be accessed in two ways: 1) Visit our CSK Book Awards Home page, http://www.ala.org/CSK, and click on the blue link 50th anniversary -or- 2) Visit directly at http://www.ala.org/rt/emiert/cskbookawards/csk50.

Using the hashtag #CSK50 on social media, share with us your favorite moments from past Coretta Scott King Book Awards breakfasts, Coretta Scott King Book Award titles that you and your library cherish, or what this award means to you as a library worker, educator, student, reader, or writer. Plan on attending ALA Annual 2019 in Washington, D.C., to celebrate with us in person!

We will have a Commemorative CSK 50th Anniversary T-Shirt on sale at the ALA store. The Commemorative CSK 50th Anniversary Lapel Pin (item #5302-1911) is presently on sale at the ALA store. The sixth edition of the CSK Book Awards publication will also be available at the ALA store soon. Purchase these beautiful keepsake items for you, colleagues, family, and friends. The ALA store website is https://www.alastore.ala.org/.

Let’s celebrate CSK 50 Years Strong!

Cheers,

Dr. Claudette S. McLinn, Chair

Coretta Scott King Book Awards Committee

Dr. Claudette McLinn is Chair of the Coretta Scott King Book Awards Committee. She is the Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Multicultural Children’s Literature.