Louis Sachar is an American young-adult mystery-comedy author. He is best known for the Wayside School series and the novel Holes.
The John Newbery Medal, frequently shortened to the Newbery, is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), to the author of "the most distinguished contributions to American literature for children". The Newbery and the Caldecott Medal are considered the two most prestigious awards for children's literature in the United States. Books selected are widely carried by bookstores and libraries, the authors are interviewed on television, and master's theses and doctoral dissertations are written on them. Named for John Newbery, an 18th-century English publisher of juvenile books, the winner of the Newbery is selected at the ALA's Midwinter Conference by a fifteen-person committee. The Newbery was proposed by Frederic G. Melcher in 1921, making it the first children's book award in the world. The physical bronze medal was designed by Rene Paul Chambellan and is given to the winning author at the next ALA annual conference. Since its founding there have been several changes to the composition of the selection committee, while the physical medal remains the same.
Laurence Michael Yep is an American writer. He is known for his children's books, having won the Newbery Honor twice for his Golden Mountain series. In 2005, he received the Children's Literature Legacy Award for his career contribution to American children's literature.
Katherine Alice Applegate, known professionally as K. A. Applegate, is an American young adult and children's fiction writer, best known as the author of the Animorphs, Remnants, and Everworld book series. She won the 2013 Newbery Medal for her 2012 children's novel The One and Only Ivan. Applegate's most popular books are science fiction, fantasy, and adventure novels. She won the Best New Children's Book Series Award in 1997 in Publishers Weekly. Her book Home of the Brave has won several awards. She also wrote a chapter book series in 2008–09 called Roscoe Riley Rules.
Elaine Lobl Konigsburg was an American writer and illustrator of children's books and young adult fiction. She is one of six writers to win two Newbery Medals, the venerable American Library Association award for the year's "most distinguished contribution to American children's literature."
Irene Hunt was an American children's writer known best for historical novels. She was a runner-up for the Newbery Medal for her first book, Across Five Aprils, and won the medal for her second, Up a Road Slowly. For her contribution as a children's writer she was U.S. nominee in 1974 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international recognition available to creators of children's books.
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.
Eleanor Estes was an American children's writer and a children's librarian. Her book Ginger Pye, for which she also created illustrations, won the Newbery Medal. Three of her books were Newbery Honor Winners, and one was awarded the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award. Estes' books were based on her life in small-town Connecticut in the early 1900s.
Virginia Esther Hamilton was an American children's books author. She wrote 41 books, including M. C. Higgins, the Great (1974), for which she won the U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the Newbery Medal in 1975. Her works were celebrated for exploring the African-American experience, what she called "Liberation Literature."
Natalie Zane Babbitt was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. Her 1975 novel, Tuck Everlasting, was adapted into two feature films and a Broadway musical. She received the Newbery Honor and Christopher Award, and was the U.S. nominee for the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1982.
Nancy Willard was an American writer: novelist, poet, author and occasional illustrator of children's books. She won the 1982 Newbery Medal for A Visit to William Blake's Inn.
Cornelia Lynde Meigs (1884–1973) was an American writer of fiction and biography for children, teacher of English and writing, historian and critic of children's literature. She won the Newbery Medal for her 1933 biography of Louisa May Alcott, entitled Invincible Louisa. She also wrote three Newbery Honor Books.
Jean Guttery Fritz was an American children's writer best known for American biography and history. She won the Children's Legacy Literature Award for her career contribution to American children's literature in 1986. She turned 100 in November 2015 and died in May 2017 at the age of 101.
Walter Dean Myers was an American writer of children's books best known for young adult literature. He was born in Martinsburg, West Virginia, but was raised in Harlem, New York City. A tough childhood led him to writing and his school teachers would encourage him in this habit as a way to express himself. He wrote more than one hundred books including picture books and nonfiction. He won the Coretta Scott King Award for African-American authors five times. His 1988 novel Fallen Angels is one of the books most frequently challenged in the U.S. because of its adult language and its realistic depiction of the Vietnam War.
Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler's Shadow is a non-fiction children's book written by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, and published in 2005. It received the Newbery Honor medal in 2006.
The Boy Who Dared is a 2008 novel by American children's author Susan Campbell Bartoletti. It is based upon the true story of Helmuth Hübener, the youngest person to be sentenced to death by the Nazis during World War II. He was arrested and executed by guillotine on October 27, 1942.
Carver: A Life in Poems is a 1997 collection of poems written by the American poet Marilyn Nelson about George Washington Carver.
Steve Sheinkin is an American author of suspenseful history books for young adults. A former textbook writer, Sheinkin began writing full-time nonfiction books for young readers in 2008. His work has been praised for making historical information more accessible.
Summer Edward is a Trinidadian American writer, children's editor, educator, literary activist and children's literature specialist based in the USA. In 2010, at the age of 24, she founded Anansesem ezine, the first children's literature publication in the English-speaking Caribbean and served as its editor-in-chief for 10 years. At 26, she became one of the Caribbean's youngest literary editors. Anansesem has published some of the most distinctive and distinguished voices in Caribbean literature for young people including Floella Benjamin, Gerald Hausman, Ibi Zoboi, Itah Sadu, Lynn Joseph, Margarita Engle, Nadia L. Hohn, Olive Senior and Vashanti Rahaman.
Melissa Sweet is an American illustrator and writer of nearly 100 books for children and young readers.
