Christopher Paul Curtis is an American children's book author. His first novel, The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963, was published in 1995 and brought him immediate national recognition, receiving the Coretta Scott King Honor Book Award and the Newbery Honor Book Award in addition to numerous other awards. In 2000, he became the first person to win both the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Award—prizes received for his second novel Bud, Not Buddy—and the first African-American man to win the Newbery Medal. His novel The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 was made into a television film in 2013.
The Coretta Scott King Award is an annual award presented by the Ethnic & Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table, part of the American Library Association (ALA). Named for Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King Jr., this award recognizes outstanding books for young adults and children by African Americans that reflect the African-American experience. Awards are given both to authors and to illustrators.
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 2018–19. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2020.
Sharon Mills Draper is an American children's writer, professional educator, and the 1997 National Teacher of the Year. She is a five-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Award for books about the young and adolescent African-American experience. She is known for her Hazelwood and Jericho series, Copper Sun,Double Dutch, Out of My Mind and Romiette and Julio.
Nikki Grimes is an American author of books written for children and young adults, as well as a poet and journalist.
Ashley Frederick Bryan was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. Most of his subjects are from the African-American experience. He was U.S. nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2006 and he won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for his contribution to American children's literature in 2009. His picture book Freedom Over Me was short-listed for the 2016 Kirkus Prize and received a Newbery Honor.
Eloise Greenfield was an American children's book and biography author and poet famous for her descriptive, rhythmic style and positive portrayal of the African-American experience.
Henrietta M. Smith was an American academic, librarian, and storyteller, who edited four editions of the Coretta Scott King Award collection published by the American Library Association. In 2008, she was honored with the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes significant contributions to library service to children and ALSC. She is also the recipient of the 2011 Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement for her body of work as a significant and lasting literary contribution. She was honored during the 2014 Carle Honors Celebration by the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art for her life's work as a champion of diversity in children's literature.
Elijah of Buxton is a 2007 children's novel by Christopher Paul Curtis. The book won critical praise and was a Newbery Honor book and the winner of the Coretta Scott King Award. It also was a children's book bestseller.
Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane is a children’s picture book by American author and critic Carole Boston Weatherford. It tells the story of a young John Coltrane growing up in the South in the 1930s. The book, published by Henry Holt in 2008, was illustrated by Sean Qualls.
Kwame Alexander is an American writer of poetry and children's fiction.
Jason Reynolds is an American author of novels and poetry for young adult and middle-grade audience. Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in neighboring Oxon Hill, Maryland, Reynolds found inspiration in rap and had an early focus on poetry, publishing several poetry collections before his first novel in 2014, When I Was The Greatest, which won the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent.
Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is a 2016 picture book biography by Javaka Steptoe about Jean-Michel Basquiat. Using a style similar to Basquiat's, the book tells the story of his childhood and early career. It won the 2017 Caldecott Medal and Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for its illustrations.
Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut is a 2017 picture book by Derrick Barnes, illustrated by Gordon C. James. The book, Barnes' first picture book, is a poem describing a boy's feelings and experience while getting a haircut. James, who was not the first choice to be the illustrator, wanted the oil color illustrations to have the feel of fine art.
Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets is a 2017 collection of poems for children's by Kwame Alexander with co-authors Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth and illustrated by Ekua Holmes. The book won the 2018 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award. Each of the 20 poems is written in tribute to and in the style of a well known poet.
Let the Children March is a 2018 children's picture book written by Monica Clark-Robinson and illustrated by Frank Morrison, originally published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The historical fiction work is set during the Birmingham Children's Crusade in 1963. The book was named a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book in 2019.
Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968 is a 2018 children's picture book told in poetry and prose by writer Alice Faye Duncan and illustrator R. Gregory Christie, published by Calkins Creek.
Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave is a 2010 picture book written by Laban Carrick Hill. Illustrator Bryan Collier won the Coretta Scott King Award and Caldecott Medal in 2011 for his artwork in the book. It was originally published by Little, Brown and Company.
Richard Gregory Christie is an American author and illustrator of picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, and album covers best known for his Coretta Scott King Award-winning books No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller, Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U. S. Marshal, and Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan, Only Passing Through, and the NAACP Image Award-winning Our Children Can Soar: A Celebration of Rosa, Barack, and the Pioneers of Change.
Hope Anita Smith is an American poet and author of children's books, best known for her Coretta Scott King Award-winning middle grade novel Keeping the Night Watch.
