By The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
The Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards are given annually to the children’s picture books and longer books published the preceding year that effectively promote the cause of peace, social justice, world community, and the equality of the sexes and all races as well as meeting conventional standards for excellence.
The Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards have been presented annually since 1953 by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the Jane Addams Peace Association.
Winner of books for younger children:
Emma’s Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty, written by Linda Glaser with paintings by Claire A. Nivola, Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company is the winner in the Books for Younger Children category.
Emma Lazarus wrote a sonnet in 1883 that became one of our nation’s most familiar sonnets and one that accompanied the Statue of Liberty as well. Emma also helped to shape the heart of the nation in her urgent message to declare the statue as a welcome to all immigrants.
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Winner of books for older children:
A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story by Linda Sue Park, Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company is the winner in the Books for Older Children category.
This dual narrative features young Nya and young Salva in Sudan. Nya walks eight hours every day so her family has water. Salva is in school when shots are fired and he flees into the bush to begin his every day walking. How does their future impact the future of war-torn Sudan?
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Two books were named Honor Books in the Books for Younger Children category:
Ruth and the Green Book by Calvin Alexander Ramsey with Gwen Strauss and illustrated by Floyd Cooper, published by Carolrhoda Books, a division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., has been named an Honor Book for Younger Children.
In the 1950s, young Ruth and her parents travel south in their new car when she discovers her African American family is not always welcome along the way. An Esso attendant shows the family a Green Book as a way to safety in the Jim Crow era, enabling Ruth to relish the kindness of strangers.
Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Brian Pinkney and published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Hachette Book Group, has been named an Honor Book for Younger Children.
Four young black men stood up for civil rights in 1960 by sitting down at a Woolworth lunch counter with the sign WHITES ONLY and came up with the perfect recipe for a peaceful protest.
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Two books were named Honor Books in Books for Older Children category:
Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes, published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Hachette Book Group, has been named an Honor Book for Older Children.
Twelve-year-old Lanesha has only Mama Ya-Ya, and that’s just fine by her. Mama Ya-Ya’s visions of the arrival of hurricane Katrina busy the two in preparation, but Lanesha can’t imagine what she’s being prepared for.
Birmingham Sunday by Larry Dane Brimner, Calkins Creek, an imprint of Boyds Mills Press, Inc., has been named an Honor Book for Older Children.
In Alabama in the 1960s frequent racial bombings had been terrifying but not yet deadly before September 15, 1963, when six children lost their lives in the attack. Larry Dane Brimner highlights FBI files, police records, and multiple additional primary sources to tell the story of the church bombing on Birmingham Sunday, placing it in the historical context of the Civil Rights movement.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on May 18, 2011