NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature

Last updated
NSK Prize
PrizeMedalFeather.jpg
NSK Prize silver medallion
CountryUnited States
Presented by World Literature Today and the University of Oklahoma
First awarded2003;18 years ago (2003)
Website neustadtprize.org/the-nsk-prize

The NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature is an international children's literary award founded in 2003 and given every odd-number year by World Literature Today . The prize is an offshoot of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Nancy Barcelo, Kathy Neustadt, and Susan Neustadt Schwartz, the daughters of Walter Jr. and Dolores Neustadt and the granddaughters of Walter Sr. and Doris Westheimer Neustadt, established the prize to “enhance the quality of children's literature by recognizing writing that contributes to the quality of children's lives.” [1] [2]

It is one of few children's literature awards that is awarded for an author's entire body of work—the main criterion is the positive impact of a writer's work on the quality of children's literature and only living writers are eligible. To distinguish the prize from others such as the Newbery, Caldecott, and Hans Christian Andersen awards, the Neustadts decided there would be no limitations concerning age-range, genre, or media of the children's literature under consideration. [3]

Candidates for the award are nominated by a jury of children's literature writers, illustrators, and scholars, and the jury also selects the winner. The winner receives a check for $35,000, a silver medallion, and a certificate, in a public ceremony at the University of Oklahoma. [4]

Winners

To date, the winners of the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature include:

YearNameCountry
2003 Mildred D. Taylor United States
2005 Brian Doyle Canada
2007 Katherine Paterson United States
2009 Vera B. Williams United States
2011 Virginia Euwer Wolff United States
2013 Naomi Shihab Nye United States
2015 Meshack Asare Ghana
2017 Marilyn Nelson United States
2019 Margarita Engle United States

Related Research Articles

Pulitzer Prize Award for achievements in journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States

The Pulitzer Prize is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher, and is administered by Columbia University. Prizes are awarded yearly in twenty-one categories. In twenty of the categories, each winner receives a certificate and a US$15,000 cash award. The winner in the public service category is awarded a gold medal.

Katherine Paterson Chinese-born American writer (born 1932)

Katherine Womeldorf Paterson is a Chinese-born American writer best known for children's novels, including Bridge to Terabithia. For four different books published 1975-1980, she won two Newbery Medals and two National Book Awards. She is one of four people to win the two major international awards; for "lasting contribution to children's literature" she won the biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing in 1998 and for her career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense" she won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council in 2006, the biggest monetary prize in children's literature. Also for her body of work she was awarded the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature in 2007 and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal from the American Library Association in 2013. She was the second U.S. National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, serving 2010 and 2011.

Naomi Shihab Nye American writer

Naomi Shihab Nye is a poet, songwriter, and novelist. Born to a Palestinian father and an American mother, she began composing her first poem at the age of six. In total, she has published or contributed to over 30 volumes of poetry. Her works include poetry, young-adult fiction, picture books, and novels. Nye received the 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature in honor of her entire body of work as a writer, and in 2019 the Poetry Foundation designated her the Young People's Poet Laureate for the 2019–21 term.

Hans Christian Andersen Award

The Hans Christian Andersen Awards are two literary awards given the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), recognising one living author and one living illustrator for their "lasting contribution to children's literature". The writing award was first given in 1956, the illustration award in 1966. The former is sometimes called the "Nobel Prize for children's literature".

Mia Couto Mozambican writer

António Emílio Leite Couto, better known as Mia Couto, is a Mozambican writer. He won the Camões Prize in 2013, the most important literary award in the Portuguese language, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 2014.

Neustadt International Prize for Literature American literary award

The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is a biennial award for literature sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and its international literary publication, World Literature Today. It is considered one of the more prestigious international literary prizes, often compared with the Nobel Prize in Literature. The New York Times called the prize “The Oklahoma Nobel” in 1982 and the prize is sometimes referred to as the “American Nobel”. Since it was founded in 1970, some 30 of its laureates, candidates, or jurors have also been awarded Nobel Prizes. Like the Nobel, it is awarded to individuals for their entire body of work, not for a single one.

Meshack Asare is a popular African children's author. He was born in Ghana and currently resides in Degenfeld, Germany. On 15 July 2014, he was announced as a finalist for the prestigious international award, the 2015 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature, which he won on 24 October 2014, becoming the first African to receive the award. The Brassman's Secret was his representative text read by the nominating jury, and the award honors his entire body of work.

Assia Djebar Algerian novelist, translator and filmmaker

Fatima-Zohra Imalayen, known by her pen name Assia Djebar, was an Algerian novelist, translator and filmmaker. Most of her works deal with obstacles faced by women, and she is noted for her feminist stance. She is "frequently associated with women's writing movements, her novels are clearly focused on the creation of a genealogy of Algerian women, and her political stance is virulently anti-patriarchal as much as it is anti-colonial." Djebar is considered to be one of North Africa's pre-eminent and most influential writers. She was elected to the Académie française on 16 June 2005, the first writer from the Maghreb to achieve such recognition. For the entire body of her work she was awarded the 1996 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. She was often named as a contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Adam Zagajewski Polish poet

Adam Zagajewski was a Polish poet, novelist, translator, and essayist. He was awarded the 2004 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize Lifetime Recognition Award, the 2017 Princess of Asturias Award for Literature and the 2018 Golden Wreath of Poetry at the Struga Poetry Evenings. He was considered a leading poet of the Generation of '68, or Polish New Wave, and one of Poland's most prominent contemporary poets.

Sefi Atta

Sefi Atta is a prize-winning Nigerian-American novelist, short-story writer, playwright and screenwriter. Her books have been translated into many languages, radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC, and her stage plays have been performed internationally. Awards she has received include the 2006 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa and the 2009 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa.

Duo Duo or Duoduo is the pen name of contemporary Chinese poet, Li Shizheng (栗世征), a prominent exponent of the Chinese Misty Poets (朦胧诗). Duo Duo was awarded the 2010 Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

Peter Sís

Peter Sís is a Czech-born American illustrator and writer of children's books. As a cartoonist his editorial illustrations have appeared in Time, Newsweek, Esquire, and The Atlantic Monthly. For his "lasting contribution" as a children's illustrator he received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 2012.

<i>World Literature Today</i> American magazine of international literature and culture

World Literature Today is an American magazine of international literature and culture, published at the University of Oklahoma, Norman. The magazine presents essays, poetry, fiction, interviews, and book reviews from all over the world in a non-academic format accessible to a broad audience. It was founded as Books Abroad in 1927 by Roy Temple House, chair of the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Oklahoma. In January 1977, the journal assumed its present name, World Literature Today.

Virginia Euwer Wolff is an American author of children's literature. Her award-winning series Make Lemonade features a 14-year-old girl named LaVaughn, who babysits for the children of a 17-year-old single mother. There are three books. The second, True Believer, won the 2001 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. The second and third, This Full House (2009), garnered Kirkus Reviews starred reviews. She was the recipient of the 2011 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature, honoring her entire body of work.

Vera Baker Williams was an American children's writer and illustrator. Her best known work, A Chair for My Mother, has won multiple awards and was featured on the children's television show Reading Rainbow. For her lifetime contribution as a children's illustrator she was U.S. nominee in 2004 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. Additionally, she was awarded the 2009 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature.

Roger Myerson American mathematician

Roger Bruce Myerson is an American economist and professor at the University of Chicago. He holds the title of the David L. Pearson Distinguished Service Professor of Global Conflict Studies at The Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts in the Harris School of Public Policy, the Griffin Department of Economics, and the College. Previously, he held the title The Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor of Economics. In 2007, he was the winner of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel with Leonid Hurwicz and Eric Maskin for "having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory." He was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019.

Marilyn Nelson

Marilyn Nelson is an American poet, translator, and children's book author. She is a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, and the former poet laureate of Connecticut, She is a winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature, and the Frost Medal. From 1978 to 1994 she published under the name Marilyn Nelson Waniek. She is the author or translator of over twenty books and five chapbooks of poetry for adults and children. While most of her work deals with historical subjects, in 2014 she published a memoir, named one of NPR's Best Books of 2014, entitled How I Discovered Poetry.

Margarita Engle American childrens writer, columnist, poet

Margarita Engle is a Cuban American poet and author of many award-winning books for children, young adults and adults. Most of Engle's stories are written in verse and are a reflection of her Cuban heritage and her deep appreciation and knowledge of nature. She became the first Latino awarded a Newbery Honor in 2009 for The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom. She was selected by the Poetry Foundation to serve from 2017–2019 as the sixth Young People's Poet Laureate. On October 9, 2018, Margarita Engle was announced the winner of the 2019 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature. She was nominated by 2019 NSK Prize jury member Lilliam Rivera.

Newman Prize for Chinese Literature Award

The Newman Prize for Chinese Literature was established in 2008 by Peter Gries, director of the Institute for U.S.-China Issues at the University of Oklahoma. The first major American award for Chinese literature, the Newman Prize is awarded every two years. It is granted solely on the basis of literary merit, and any living author writing in Chinese is eligible for recommendation. The Prize honors Harold J. and Ruth Newman, whose generosity enabled the establishment of the OU Institute for US-China Issues.

Mildred DeLois Taylor is a Newbery Award-winning American young adult novelist. She is best known for her novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, part of her Logan family series.

References

  1. Simon, Daniel (May 2004). "Introducing the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature". World Literature Today. 78 (2): 5–6. doi:10.2307/40158383. JSTOR   40158383.
  2. Neustadt Hankin, Kathy (May 2008). "The First Five Years of the NSK Prize". World Literature Today. 82 (3): 26–27. JSTOR   40159725.
  3. Simon, Daniel (May 2004). "Introducing the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature". World Literature Today. 78 (2): 5–6. doi:10.2307/40158383. JSTOR   40158383.
  4. "NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature". World Literature Today. 2013-07-26.