The Randolph Caldecott Medal, frequently shortened to just the Caldecott, annually recognizes the preceding year's "most distinguished American picture book for children". It is awarded to the illustrator by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). The Caldecott and Newbery Medals are considered the most prestigious American children's book awards. Beside the Caldecott Medal, the committee awards a variable number of citations to runners-up they deem worthy, called the Caldecott Honor or Caldecott Honor Books.
Ruth Sawyer was an American storyteller and a writer of fiction and non-fiction for children and adults. She may be best known as the author of Roller Skates, which won the 1937 Newbery Medal. She received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award in 1965 for her lifetime achievement in children's literature.
Elaine Lobl Konigsburg was an American writer and illustrator of children's books and young adult fiction. She is one of seven writers to win two Newbery Medals, the venerable American Library Association award for the year's "most distinguished contribution to American children's literature."
Ruth Ida Krauss was an American writer of children's books, including The Carrot Seed, and of theatrical poems for adult readers. Many of her books are still in print.
The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) is a division of the American Library Association.
Lane Smith is an American illustrator and writer of children's books. He is the Kate Greenaway medalist (2017) known for his eclectic visuals and subject matter, both humorous and earnest, such as the contemplative Grandpa Green, which received a Caldecott Honor in 2012, and the outlandish Stinky Cheese Man, which received a Caldecott Honor in 1992.
Julius Bernard Lester was an American writer of books for children and adults and an academic who taught for 32 years (1971–2003) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Lester was also a civil rights activist, a photographer, and a musician who recorded two albums of folk music and original songs.
JESNA is the Jewish federation system's educational coordinating, planning, and development agency. A national, non-profit agency, it was created in 1981. It closed in 2013.
Gail E. Haley is an American writer and illustrator. She has won the annual awards for children's book illustration from both the American and British librarians, for two different picture books. She won the 1971 Caldecott Medal for A Story a Story, which she retold from an African folktale, and the 1976 Kate Greenaway Medal for The Post Office Cat, her own historical fiction about a London post office.
The Lewis Carroll Shelf Award was an American literary award conferred on several books annually by the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education annually from 1958 to 1979. Award-winning books were deemed to "belong on the same shelf" as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, having enough of the qualities of his work.
Eric A. Kimmel is an American author of more than 50 children's books. His works include Caldecott Honor Book Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins, Sydney Taylor Book Award winners The Chanukkah Guest and Gershon's Monster, and Simon and the Bear: A Hanukkah Tale.
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.
Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky is an Associate at Mersky, Jaffe & Associates, a firm that specializes in financial resource development and executive search solutions for the nonprofit community. He has previously been the Executive Director of Big Tent Judaism, a United States independent organization dedicated to bringing Judaism to interfaith families and the unaffiliated.
Bryan Collier is an American writer and illustrator known best for illustrating children's books. He won both the Coretta Scott King Award, as illustrator, and the Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Award for Uptown, the first book he both wrote and illustrated. He has won six King Awards as illustrator and he is a four-time Caldecott Honor recipient.
Kar-Ben Publishing, an award-winning children's book publisher providing a growing Jewish library for children, is a division of Minneapolis-based Lerner Publishing Group. Similar publishers that also specialize in the genre include: Apples & Honey Press, Kalaniot Books and Green Beans Books.
The Harold Grinspoon Foundation (HGF) is a private foundation established in 1993 and located in Agawam, Massachusetts. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization charitable organization with the goal of "enhancing Jewish and community life in Western Massachusetts, North America, Israel, and beyond."
Sadie Rose Weilerstein was an American author of children's literature. Her works include What the Moon Brought and a series of stories featuring K'Tonton, a Jewish Tom Thumb. Rose Weilerstein was a Zionist, advocating for a Jewish homeland, and an environmentalist.
Harold Grinspoon is an American real estate developer and philanthropist. He is the founder of Aspen Square Management, but is perhaps even more widely known for his philanthropic flagship PJ Library, that together with worldwide partners, presents over 860,000 free books each month to children across 27 countries, in seven languages. PJ Library is just one program within the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, created by Grinspoon and his wife Diane Troderman in 1991 with a mission to use Grinspoon’s considerable wealth to enhance Jewish and community life in Western Massachusetts and around the world. In 2015, Grinspoon and Troderman signed The Giving Pledge, and joined a growing list of leading philanthropists who have made a commitment to dedicate at least 50% of their wealth to philanthropy.
Javaka Steptoe is an American author and illustrator. He won the 2017 Caldecott Medal as well as the Americas Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature, and the Coretta Scott King Book Award from the American Library Association for his picture book Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.
The 2019 Youth Media Awards were held by the American Library Association on January 28, 2019. The awards recognize books written for children and young adults and the authors and illustrators who create them.
