Children's Book Author Patricia McKissack Awarded the PEN/Steven Kroll Award
The National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance is thrilled to congratulate board member Patricia McKissack who was won the PEN/Steven Kroll Award. The PEN/Steven Kroll Award honors the author of an illustrated children's book; McKissack has been granted the award for her book Never Forgotten (Schwartz and Wade/Random House). This annual award is being conferred for the first time in 2012 and comes with a prize of $5,000. Judges for the Kroll Award were Carmen Agra Deedy, Susan Kuklin and Vera B. Williams.
The PEN Awards are the most comprehensive literary awards program in the country. This year marks PEN’s 90th anniversary. For more than 50 of those years PEN’s Literary Awards program has honored many of the most outstanding voices in literature.
For more information about the PEN awards, click here.
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Pat and Fred McKissack at the 2011 National Book Festival.
Photo by Rocco Staino. |
Patricia McKissack’s picture book, Mirandy and Brother Wind, was awarded a Caldecott Honor Medal. In addition to writing her own books, Patricia often writes as a team with her husband Fredrick McKissack. Together they have written over one hundred books for young readers, including picture books, beginning readers, information books, and biographies. Their book, A Long Hard Journey: The Story of the Pullman Porter, was awarded both the Coretta Scott King Award and the Jane Addams Peace Award. Patricia and Fred McKissack feel strongly that all young people need good literature by and about African Americans and have stated a dual goal of improving the self-image of African-American children and of encouraging an open attitude in all children toward cultures different from their own.
