Larry Dane Brimner (born November 5, 1949) is an American teacher, presenter, and writer of more than 150 children's books. They have ranged from fantasy-style stories for young children to non-fiction books for older children. Many of his books have civil rights themes; his book We Are One: The Story of Bayard Rustin won the 2008 Jane Addams Children's Book Award in the "older children" category. [1] This was followed by Birmingham Sunday, which received the Orbis Pictus Honor Book Award in 2011 from the National Council for Teachers of English and the Eureka! Gold Award from the California Reading Association. His 2011 title, Black & White: The Confrontation between Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Eugene "Bull" Connor, was given the Carter G. Woodson Book Award (The National Council for the Social Studies) [2] and named a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book (The Association for Library Service to Children/American Librarian Association). [3] More recently, Brimner has started writing about the migrant children he once taught with the publication of STRIKE! The Farm Workers' Fight for Their Rights (Calkins Creek Books), which received a starred review in Kirkus Reviews. [4]
Brimner was born in St. Petersburg, Florida. [5] His father was a military officer and Brimner spent much of his childhood on Kodiak Island in Alaska. There was no television and only sporadic radio, and so his parents read to him often. By the age of four, he was living in a rural suburb of San Diego, California, where his father had been reassigned. Brimner attended San Diego State University, graduating in 1971 with a B.A. in British Literature. [6] He earned an M.A. degree from San Diego State University in 1981. From 1974 to 1984, he was a writing and composition teacher at El Centro Union High School in El Centro, California, a desert farming community east of San Diego. He then went on to lecture at San Diego State University from 1984 to 1992 in the College of Education while pursuing a doctorate degree, before turning his attention to writing full-time. [5] He has been a full-time freelance writer since 1985. [7] He often visits schools to encourage and motivate young people to write. He has been a visiting author or an author-in-residence at schools on three continents. He also speaks at education and writing conferences. [8]
Brimner has won many awards for his writing, including the Teachers' Choice Award, Eureka! Silver Award, the Jane Addams Honor Book Award, the Norman A. Sugarman Award and Honor for Biography (Cleveland Public Library), Best Book for the Teen Age (New York Public Library), Best Children's Books of the Year List (Bank Street College), Junior Library Guild Selection, and others. [3]
While in college, Brimner discovered that he was gay. He was unable to find objective information about gay issues, and under pressure from his parents, he went to a psychiatrist and underwent electroshock treatments. These experiences led to his 1995 book for gay and lesbian teenagers, Being Different, which he did as a favor to his editor, E. Russell Primm. [9]
As of 2014, Cats!, an early-reader he did for Children's Press/Scholastic Library, has sold more than 300,000 copies and is still in print. Although Brimner enjoys the picture book format, it is his nonfiction, especially his social justice nonfiction, for which he is known. [10]
In 2018, his book Twelve Days in May: Freedom Ride 1961 won the Sibert Medal. [11]
Brimner lives in San Diego, California, but keeps a small writing studio in Tucson, Arizona. [3]
The Stonewall Book Award is a set of three literary awards that annually recognize "exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender experience" in English-language books published in the U.S. They are sponsored by the Rainbow Round Table (RRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) and have been part of the American Library Association awards program, now termed ALA Book, Print & Media Awards, since 1986 as the single Gay Book Award.
James John Patrick Murphy was an American author. He wrote more than 35 nonfiction and fiction books for children, young adults, and general audiences, including more than 30 about American history. He won the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 2010 for his contribution in writing for teens.
Pedro and Me is an autobiographical graphic novel by Judd Winick regarding his friendship with AIDS educator Pedro Zamora after the two met while on the reality television series The Real World: San Francisco. It was published in September 2000.
Susan Campbell Bartoletti is an American writer of children's literature whose work includes Kids on Strike! and Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow.
Russell A. Freedman was an American biographer and the author of nearly 50 books for young people. He may be best known for winning the 1988 Newbery Medal with his work Lincoln: A Photobiography.
Deborah Hopkinson is an American writer of over seventy children's books, primarily historical fiction, nonfiction and picture books.
Felice Picano is an American writer, publisher, and critic who has encouraged the development of gay literature in the United States. His work is documented in many sources.
Marijane Agnes Meaker was an American writer who, along with Tereska Torres, was credited with launching the lesbian pulp fiction genre, the only accessible novels on that theme in the 1950s.
An Na is a South Korea-born American children's book author. She gained success with her first novel A Step From Heaven, published by Front Street Press in 2001, which won the annual Michael L. Printz Award from the American Library Association recognizing the year's "best book written for teens, based entirely on its literary merit". It was also a finalist for the National Book Award, Young People's Literature, and later found its way onto numerous "best book" lists.
Jacqueline Woodson is an American writer of books for children and adolescents. She is best known for Miracle's Boys, and her Newbery Honor-winning titles Brown Girl Dreaming, After Tupac and D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way. After serving as the Young People's Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017, she was named the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, by the Library of Congress, for 2018 to 2019. Her novel Another Brooklyn was shortlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction. She won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2018. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2020.
Phillip M. Hoose is an American writer of books, essays, stories, songs, and articles. His first published works were written for adults, but he turned his attention to children and young adults to keep up with his daughters. His work has been well received and honored more than once by the children's literature community. He won the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, Nonfiction, for The Race to Save the Lord God Bird (2004), and the National Book Award, Young People's Literature, for Claudette Colvin (2009).
Rafael López is an internationally recognized illustrator and artist. To reflect the lives of all young people, his illustrations bring diverse characters to children's books. As a children's book illustrator, he has received three Pura Belpré Award medals from the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), and REFORMA in 2020 for Dancing Hands: How Teresa Carreño Played the Piano for President Lincoln,Drum Dream Girl in 2016 and Book Fiesta! in 2010. He created the National Book Festival Poster for the Library of Congress and was a featured book festival speaker at this event.
Marion Dane Bauer is an American children's author.
The Publishing Triangle, founded in 1988 by Robin Hardy, is an American association of gay men and lesbians in the publishing industry. They sponsor an annual National Lesbian and Gay Book Month, and have sponsored the annual Triangle Awards program of literary awards for LGBT literature since 1989.
Elizabeth Partridge is an American writer, the author of more than a dozen books from young-adult nonfiction to picture books to photography books. Her books include Marching for Freedom, as well the biographies John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth, This Land Was Made for You and Me: The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie, and Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange.
Virginia "Ginger" Wadsworth is an American writer of biographies, Western American history, science, and natural history for young readers. She is the author of 30 award-winning books.
Locomotive is a 2013 children's book written and illustrated by Brian Floca. A non-fiction book written primarily in free verse, the book follows a family as they ride a transcontinental steam engine train in summer of 1869. The book details the workers, passengers, landscape, and effects of building and operating the first transcontinental railroad. The book also contains prose about the earlier and later history of locomotives. The book took Floca four years to create, which included a change in perspective from following the crew of the train to following a family. Floca conducted extensive research including his own train ride and consultation with experts to ensure he had the details all correct.
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice is a 2009 young adult nonfiction book by Phillip Hoose, recounting the experiences of Claudette Colvin in Montgomery, Alabama, during the Civil Rights Movement.
Duncan Tonatiuh is a Mexican-American author and illustrator of several award-winning children's books. The illustrations in his books are influenced by Pre-Columbian art. The themes in his stories relate to the Latino experience, with subjects that include social justice issues, art, history, and immigration. He is an advocate and activist for workers’ rights.
Tanya Lee Stone is an American author of children's and young adult books. She writes narrative nonfiction for middle-grade students and young adults, as well as nonfiction picture books. Her stories often center women and people of color.
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