Tag Archives: Walter Dean Myers

About Us, CSK Award History, CSK Award Winners, Past Events and Important People

CSK By the Numbers

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As the Coretta Scott King Book Awards enter the second half of their first century, the John Steptoe Award for New Talent is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary, and the Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement is celebrating ten years. This seems like a natural time to review the history of the awards. 

Even though the Steptoe award is twenty-five years old, it has only been awarded to seventeen authors and twelve illustrators. There were six years (2013, 2012, 2001, 2000, 1998, and 1996) that no one received the award – neither author or illustrator – and another seven years that no one received the illustrator award.

Of the twenty-nine Steptoe winners, seven have gone on to win additional CSK awards. That’s twenty-four percent. Five for writing (Hope Anita Smith, Jason Reynolds, Kekla Magoon, Sharon Draper, and Sharon Flake) and two for illustration (Ekua Holmes and Frank Morrison). 


Image Sources: Hope Anita Smith/MacMillian Publishers; Jason Reynolds/SLJ; Kekla Magoon: Author’s Website; Sharon Draper/Author’s Website; Ekua Holmes/Author’s Website; Frank Morrison/Harper Collins Publishers

Walter Dean Meyers has won the most CSK Author Awards with five. Three people are tied with the most CSK Author Honors: Walter Dean Myers, Virginia Hamilton, and James Haskins. All of these writers have won six CSK Honors.

Bryan Collier has won the most CSK Illustrator Awards with six. Ashley Bryan has the most CSK Illustrator Honors with seven.

Nineteen people have won at least five times. Ashley Bryan has been recognized the most with a total of thirteen times, while Walter Dean Meyers comes in a close second with twelve wins. In fact, fifty authors or illustrators (or thirty-one percent) of the total number of CSK winners have multiple awards/honors. Patricia McKissack has actually garnered ten CSK Awards or Honors. Eight of them were co-awarded with her husband Fredrick and displayed on the chart below. The other two were awarded to her as an individual writer and not reflected below. This makes her the most recognized female in CSK history with a total of ten CSK Awards or Honors.



Image Credit: Ashley Bryan/Emma Lee; Patricia and Frederick McKissack/The St. Louis American; Walter Dean Myers/Constance Myers

The CSK Awards jury handbook specifies that zero to three CSK Honors may be given for author and illustrator. However, this rule must have started after 1984, since prior to this year as many as eight author honors had been awarded in a single year.  When considering the most common number of honors given out, it turns out that three recognitions is the most common for CSK Author Honors. On nineteen occasions, three CSK Author Honors were given out. On the other hand, two is the most common for CSK Illustrator Honors. On seventeen occasions, two illustrator honors were given out compared to only eleven occasions when three honors were. Of course, each committee is its own entity and can recognize however many titles up to three titles during one award year.

Other interesting facts include the following:

  • Every time Rita Williams-Garcia won the author award Bryan Collier won the illustrator award (2011, 2014, and 2016).

  • R. Gregory Christie has received six CSK Illustrator Honors, but has not yet won the CSK Illustrator Award.

  • Kadir Nelson and Ashley Bryan are the only people who have received recognition as  both author and illustrator. In 2009, Kadir Nelson won the CSK Author Award and a CSK Illustrator Honor for We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball. In 1987, Ashley Bryan won a CSK Illustrator Honor and a CSK Author Honor for Lion and the Ostrich Chicks and Other African Folk Tales.

  • The most CSK Honors given out in one year is eight. That was in 1971, the second year of the award and before the CSK Illustrator Award was even started.

  • Four times (1970, 1972, 1973, and 1975) no CSK Author Honors were awarded.

  • Ten times no CSK Illustrator Honors were named, the most recent being in 1991.

  • In 1975, no CSK Author or CSK Illustrator Honors were awarded.

  • 1974 was the first year for the  CSK Illustrator award to be given out.

  • Three people have won two awards in the same year for different books. In 2016, Jason Reynolds won honors for different books (All American Boys and The Boy in the Black Suit) In 1980, James Haskins won honors for Andrew Young: Young Man with a Mission and James Van Der Zee: The Picture Takin’ Man. In 1995,  Patricia C. & Fredrick L. McKissack won the award for Christmas in the Big House, Christmas in the Quarters and an honor for Black Diamond: Story of the Negro Baseball League.

  • A total of 338 awards have been given out to 163 individuals.

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Keary Bramwell is a member of the CSK Technology Committee and children’s librarian in the Chicago suburbs.


CSK Award History

CSK Through the Decades: The 1980s

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In the 1980s, the Coretta Scott King Book Awards became an official ALA award as African American literature evolved and transformed the landscape of children’s literature.  The work of authors Walter Dean Myers and Virginia Hamilton, as well as that of illustrators Jerry Pinkney, John Steptoe, and Ashley Bryan, forever changed the face of children’s literature. These literary giants claimed their rightful place by producing some of the best in children’s literature.  All have received multiple CSK Book Awards during this period that played a significant role in propelling their careers.

Walter Dean Myers

Walter Dean Myers, a pioneer of young adult fiction, won his first CSK Book Award for the groundbreaking Young Landlords in 1980.  Myers captured two more CSK Author Award wins in 1985 for Motown and Didi: A Love Story and in 1989 for Fallen Angels, a Vietnam conflict saga.  Some 80-plus titles later, Myers’ books have stood the test of time as moving, tough stories for and about black male teens.  Myers has won more CSK Book Awards than any other author, garnering five wins and six honors.  He is the recipient of numerous other book awards. He also served as the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, a post appointed by the Library of Congress.  Most recently, he posthumously became the winner of ALSC’s Children Literature Legacy Award.   

    

Virginia Hamilton

Virginia Hamilton had already ignited the children’s book world by becoming the first African American author to win a Newbery Medal in 1975 for M. C. Higgins, the Great, for which she also won the National Book Award. In the eighties, her talent continued to soar, and she captured two CSK Book Awards, in 1983 for Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush, and in 1986 for The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales. The 1980s also brought Hamilton four CSK Honor book awards: The Magical Adventures of Pretty Pearl (1984), A Little Love (1985), Junius Over Far (1986), and Anthony Burns: The Defeat and Triumph of a Fugitive Slave (1989).  Hamilton was one of the most distinguished authors of twentieth-century children’s literature.  She received nearly every award in the field during her 35-year career, including the Hans Christian Andersen Award and the MacArthur Fellowship, becoming the first author of books for youth to do so.  In 2010 the Coretta Scott King–Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award was named in her honor.

John Steptoe

John Steptoe was only 18-years-old when his first book, Stevie, received national attention in 1969. The eighties witnessed Steptoe winning two CSK Illustrator Awards: Mother Crocodile: An Amadou Tale from Senegal written by Rosa Guy in 1983, and Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters: an African Tale in 1988. He also won a CSK Illustrator Honor award in 1983 for All the Colors of the Race.  Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters became his breakthrough book; the African tale is still widely used today, appearing on school reading lists and a favorite among storytellers.  In his 20-year career, Steptoe illustrated 16 picture books, 12 of which he also wrote. With the permission of his family, the John Steptoe New Talent Award was established by the CSK Book Awards committee to affirm new talent and offer visibility to excellence in writing and/or illustration. The award has existed since 1995 but began bearing the Steptoe name in 1999.

Jerry Pinkney

Jerry Pinkney’s career as a book illustrator was launched at a critical time in African American children’s literature evolution. When the Council on Interracial Books for Children (CIBC) was established, dedicated to integrating the content of children’s books and also securing more African American writers and illustrators to create these books, Pinkney was there as a greeting card designer and creator of the first black stamps. His initial work with CIBC included book cover art and illustrations in fiction titles. Pinkney reviewed his first CSK nod in 1981 with an Illustrator Honor for Count on Your Fingers African Style. That was followed by three CSK Book Awards wins Mirandy and Brother Wind (1989), Half a Moon and One Whole Star (1987), and The Patchwork Quilt (1986).  There is no doubt that the CSK Book Awards was instrumental in bringing visibility and recognition to his work. Pinkney’s career now spans some fifty-plus years, and he has received numerous awards and honors.  In 2010, he captured the Caldecott Medal for his adaption of the classic tale The Lion and the Mouse.  He had previously won five Caldecott honors.   With more than a hundred books to his credit,   Pinkney has made an incredible contribution to the world of children’s books and has helped advance multiculturalism and African American themes.

Ashley Bryan

Author and artist Ashley Bryan could be called the “grandfather’’ of African American children’s book illustrators because he has inspired many up-and-coming illustrators.  In the 1980s, Bryan met his stride, his talent was revealed, and the CSK Book Awards acknowledged and rewarded his work. He received four CSK Illustrator Honors during the 1980s: Beat the Story Drum, Pum-Pum (1981), I’m Going to Sing: Black American Spirituals (1983), Lion and the Ostrich Chicks and Other African Folk Tales (1987), and What a Morning! The Christmas Story in Black Spirituals (1988).  Bryan’s remarkable career has spanned half a century, and he has published over 50 titles.  Motivated by the black oral tradition, many of Bryan’s books were influenced by African American spirituals and African folktales.  He has been the recipient of the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award and the Laura Ingalls Wilder/Legacy Award; he has been a May Hill Arbuthnot lecturer and the recipient of countless other awards and recognitions.   It is gratifying to know that Bryan’s legacy and his lifelong collection of letters, books, and artwork will be preserved at the University of Pennsylvania for generations to come.

As you can see, this vanguard of black children’s book creators achieved literary success, bringing African American children’s literature to the forefront and providing much needed diversity to children’s literature.

Carolyn Garnes is Chair of the CSK Marketing Committee, past CSK Committee Chair 1990-1994, & CSK Book Awards Jury, 1987-1994.

Personal Reflections

CSK Titles: Combating the Single Narrative of the Black Experience

I am currently pursuing my doctoral degree in Educational Leadership and I had been going back in forth in my mind on what my dissertation focus would be.  But, finally, I just gave in to what is most dear to my heart—books that mirror the lives of black and brown children; and CSK plays a significant role in pushing such titles to the forefront.  So now, the working title of my dissertation is:  “Avoiding the Single Story: University Professionals Explore Narratives of the Black Experience through Coretta Scott King Book Award Titles.”  I have selected four CSK titles for university faculty and/or leaders to read over the course of the fall semester via a virtual book club: Piecing Me Together, We Are the Ship, Crown, and The Crossover.  I wanted to choose titles that told varied narratives of the black experience.

I will never forget my experience as a little black girl perusing through books in the public library in search of titles that mirrored people, places, and experiences familiar to me.  Allow me to briefly take a stroll down memory lane to recall some of the friends I have met through CSK titles like Cassie, from Mildred D. Taylor’s Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry. Her ability to maintain her spunky personality and witty nature all while dealing with racism and social ills made me feel like we were best friends.  My heart ached for Gayle from Rita Williams-Garcia’s Like Sisters on the Homefront as she went through the trials and tribulations of being a teen mom. And I was terrified for Steve as he stood trial in a world that only saw him as a villain and not as the young, black teen or human he was, but instead, as a monster (Could art be imitating life today?)—an unforgettable character from the late, great Walter Dean Myers’ novel, Monster.  I could go on, and on.

I am honored, and I view it as a service to my community, to serve on the Coretta Scott King Book Awards jury. I know how important it is for little black and brown children to see themselves, their culture, their neighborhoods, and their language in literature.  But it is equally important for little white boys and girls to see that there are many stories that contribute to the black experience and that having only one narrative of the black experience is what contributes to unfair and inaccurate narratives that lead to stereotyping of black people, prejudice, and racial profiling—all of which we are witnessing in today’s political climate.   Through my research, I will challenge university faculty and leaders to open up their hearts and their bookshelves to not only this year’s winners but to go back and read previous CSK award-winning titles, in order to expose themselves to the plethora of narratives that contribute to the black experience. Libraries may transform lives, but the Coretta Scott King Book Award titles have the power to modify your spirit and to change your heart.  I’ll be sure to report my findings to the blog next year.  See you all in NOLA and happy reading!

LaKeshia Darden is a 2017-2019 member of the Coretta Scott King Book Awards Jury.  She is the Curriculum Materials/Media Librarian at  Campbell University.

Author Award, Author Honor, CSK Award Winners, Past Events and Important People, Virginia Hamilton Award

Walter Dean Myers Inducted into New York State Writers Hall of Fame

Connie Myers                                                Photo Credit: Sara Kelly Johns

Walter Dean Myers was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame, Class of 2017, at the New York Center for the Book Induction ceremony on Monday, June 5,2017,  at the Princeton Club in New York City.

Master-of-Ceremonies William Schwalbe noted that among Myers’ many accomplishments are  five Coretta Scott King Awards as well as two Newbery Honors, the first Printz Award and the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement. Myers, the author of over 100 books, was also appointed by the Library of Congress as the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, a post he held from 2012- 2013.

Phoebe Yeh                                                        Photo Credit: Leonardo Mascaro

Phoebe Yeh, publisher of Crown Books, Random House, delivered a moving tribute, speaking of Myers connections to New York, where he was raised by his father’s first wife, Florence Dean, after the death of his mother.

Accepting the plaque in Myer’s memory was his widow, Connie Myers.  Also in attendance were Andrea Davis Pinkney, Vice President and Editor-at-Large of Scholastic Press, Emily Heddleson, Senior Manager of Library and Educational Marketing for Scholastic, and Jessica MacLeish, Editor at HarperCollins.

This is the not the first recognition of Walter Dean Myers by the Empire State Center for the Book. In 2015 during Children’s Book Week, the Center for the Book together with United for Libraries and the Children’s Book Council honored Myers with the dedication of a Literary Landmark at the George Bruce Branch of the New York Public Library, the library Myers frequented as a child.

Rocco Staino, Director of the Empire State Center for the Book, notes that in Myers’ memoir, Bad Boy, Myers wrote, “Harlem is the first place called ‘home’ that I can remember.” This sense of New York as home is reflected in Myers’ writing, including the picture book Harlem and the novels Monster and Darius & Twig.  Staino also notes that Florence Dean taught Myers to read in their kitchen, and when he began attending Public School 125, he could read at a second grade level.

Other writers in the Class of 2017 include Lillian Ross, Frederick Law Olmsted, Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow, Christopher Morley and William Kennedy.

By Susan Polos