Coretta Scott King Author Award
 

Remember: The Journey to School Integration
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by Toni Morrison

ISBN: 061839740X
Format: Hardcover, 78pp
Pub. Date: May 2004
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Age Range: 9 to 12

"On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregated schools unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education. This pivotal decision ushered in an emotional and trying period in our nation's history, the effects of which still linger." Recalling this tumultuous time, Toni Morrison has collected archival photographs that depict the events surrounding school integration. These unforgettable images serve as the inspiration for Professor Morrison's text - a fictional account of the dialogue and emotions of the students who lived during the era of change in separate-but-equal schooling. Remember offers a unique pictorial and narrative journey that introduces children to a watershed period in American history and its relevance today.

Coretta Scott King Author Honor Books
 

The Legend of Buddy Bush
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By Shelia P. Moses

ISBN: 1416907165
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 224pp
Pub. Date: September 2005
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's
Age Range: Young Adult

National Book Award Finalist

The day Uncle Goodwin "Buddy" Bush came from Harlem all the way back home to Rehobeth Road in Rich Square, North Carolina, is the day Pattie Mae Sheals' life changes forever.

Pattie Mae adores and admires Uncle Buddy -- he's tall and handsome and he doesn't believe in the country stuff most people believe in, like ghosts and stepping off the sidewalk to let white folks pass. He unsettles the dust and brings fresh ideas to Rehobeth Road. But when Buddy's deliberate inattention to the protocol of 1947 North Carolina lands him in jail for a crime against a white woman that he didn't commit, Pattie Mae and her family are suddenly set to journeying on the long, hard road that leads from loss and rage to forgiveness and pride.

Shelia P. Moses tells a moving and lyrical story in The Legend of Buddy Bush that introduces the remarkable and memorable character of Pattie Mae Sheals -- a girl whose sense of humor, ability to get into "grown folks business," and determination to know the truth will endear her to readers everywhere.

 

Who Am I Without Him?: Short Stories about Girls and the Boys in Their Lives
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By Sharon G. Flake

ISBN: 0786806931
Format: Hardcover, 168pp
Pub. Date: May 2004
Publisher: Hyperion
Age Range: Young Adult

Teens Laugh, cry, scheme, and dream about the opposite sex in this fascinating short-story collection spanning the scope of adolescent love.
A girl seeks advice on how to steal her best friend's thug. A boy discovers what it means to be a man through his treatment of a woman. A teen's severe skin disorder makes her retreat inside her own room, inside her own head. These stories are often humorous, always on-point expositions of youth determined to find self-worth, any way they know how.

Confronted daily with tough issues that seem only to increase as the school day wears on, adolescents of all complexions struggle to make a place for themselves in society while defining their significance in terms of their allure to the other gender.

Sharon Flake's top-notch writing, delicate sensibility, and exceptional insight into the world of boys and girls turning into young men and women will keep readers riveted from beginning to end, consumed by the fast-paced, intelligent pages of Who Am I Without Him?
 

Fortune’s Bones: The Manumission Requiem
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By Marilyn Nelson

ISBN: 1932425128
Format: Hardcover, 32pp
Pub. Date: October 2004
Publisher: Boyds Mills Press
Age Range: Young Adult

There is a skeleton on display in the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Connecticut. It has been in the town for over 200 years. Over time, the bones became the subject of stories and speculation in Waterbury. In 1996 a group of community-based volunteers, working in collaboration with the museum staff, discovered that the bones were those of a slave named Fortune who had been owned by a local doctor. After Fortune's death, the doctor dissected the body, rendered the bones, and assembled the skeleton. A great deal is still not known about Fortune, but it is known that he was baptized, was married, and had four children. He died at about the age of 60, sometime after 1797.Marilyn Nelson was commissioned by the Mattatuck Museum and received a grant from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts to write a poem in commemoration of Fortune's life. The Manumission Requiem is that poem. Detailed notes and archival materials provide contextual information to enhance the reader's appreciation of the poem.

About the Author
Marilyn Nelson is the Poet Laureate of the State of Connecticut and a three-time National Book Award Finalist. She has won the Annisfield-Wolf Award and the 1999 Poets' Prize. She has also been a finalist for the PEN/Winship Award and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Dr. Nelson lives in Storrs, Connecticut.

 

Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award
 

Ellington Was Not a Street
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By Ntozake Shange, Illustration by Kadir A. Nelson

ISBN: 0689828845
Format: Hardcover, 40pp
Pub. Date: January 2004
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's
Age Range: 4 to 8

In a reflective tribute to the African-American community of old, noted poet Ntozake Shange recalls her childhood home and the close-knit group of innovators that often gathered there. These men of vision, brought to life in the majestic paintings of artist Kadir Nelson, lived at a time when the color of their skin dictated where they could live, what schools they could attend, and even where they could sit on a bus or in a movie theater.

Yet in the face of this tremendous adversity, these dedicated souls and others like them not only demonstrated the importance of Black culture in America, but also helped issue in a movement that "changed the world." Their lives and their works inspire us to this day, and serve as a guide to how we approach the challenges of tomorrow.

Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award
 

God Bless the Child
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Illustration by Jerry Pinkney
By Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr.

ISBN: 0060287977
Format: Hardcover, 32pp
Pub. Date: December 2003
Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books
Edition Description: Book and CD
Age Range: 4 to 8

"Mama may have,
Papa may have,
But God bless the child
That's got his own!
That's got his own."

The song "God Bless the Child" was first performed by legendary jazz vocalist Billie Holiday in 1939 and remains one of her enduring masterpieces. In this picture book interpretation, renowned illustrator Jerry Pinkney has created images of a family moving from the rural South to the urban North during the Great Migration that reached its peak in the 1930s. The song's message of self-reliance still speaks to us today but resonates even stronger in its historical context. This extraordinary book stands as a tribute to all those who dared so much to get their own. A free CD of Billie Holiday's timeless recording of "God Bless the Child" is included to enjoy along with the book.

About the Author
Billie Holiday is one of the most famous jazz singers of all time. She was born Eleanora Fagan Gough in 1915 in Baltimore, Maryland, but changed her name to Billie after her favorite film star, Billie Dove, and Holiday, which was her father's last name. As a child and in the beginning stages of her career, she endured many hardships but made her first recording in 1933 at the age of eighteen. She quickly rose to stardom, and six years later she introduced the world to two of her best-known songs: "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child." Billie Holiday's star burned brightly, but too briefly. She died in New York City at the age of forty-four.

 

The People Could Fly: The Picture Book
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Illustration, Leo and Diane Dillon
By Virginia Hamilton

ISBN: 0375824057
Format: Hardcover, 40pp
Pub. Date: November 2004
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 33,865
Age Range: For infants or children in preschool.

“THE PEOPLE COULD FLY,” the title story in Virginia Hamilton’s prize-winning American Black folktale collection, is a fantasy tale of the slaves who possessed the ancient magic words that enabled them to literally fly away to freedom. And it is a moving tale of those who did not have the opportunity to “fly” away, who remained slaves with only their imaginations to set them free as they told and retold this tale.

Leo and Diane Dillon have created powerful new illustrations in full color for every page of this picture book presentation of Virginia Hamilton’s most beloved tale. The author’s original historical note as well as her previously unpublished notes are included.
 

John Steptoe Award for New Talent
 

Missy Violet and Me
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By Barbara Hathaway

ISBN: 061837163X
Format: Hardcover, 112pp
Pub. Date: May 2004
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Age Range: 12 and up

During the early 1900s, eleven-year-old Viney spends her summer working for the local midwife and learns firsthand about birth, death, and "catchin' babies."

The summer that Viney is eleven years old is extraordinary. It takes her out of school and puts her under the wing of Missy Violet, a well-loved midwife whose wise and warm ways help teach Viney about the business of catchin’ babies. Suddenly, Viney must learn about roots and herbs and their medicinal purpose, understand the contents of Missy Violet’s “birthin’ bag,” and contend with a snooty peer and wild, irrepressible cousin—Charles Elister Paxton Nehemiah Windbush. And all this before she actually helps to deliver a single baby! At turns scary, funny, and exhilarating, the rhythm of Viney’s rural life in the South quickens as she embraces her apprenticeship and finds her own special place as Missy Violet’s “best helper girl.” Hot jiggetty!

 

Jazzy Miz Mozetta
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by Brenda C. Roberts, Illustrated by Frank Morrison

ISBN: 0374336741
Format: Hardcover, 32pp
Pub. Date: October 2004
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Age Range: 4 to 8

"Okay, young cats, let the beat hit your feet."

One fine evening, Miz Mozetta puts on her firecracker-red dress and heads outside to enjoy the moonlight. When she hears the neighborhood kids' music, she's inspired to dance, but her old friends have too many aches and pains to join her. The kids doubt that Miz Mozetta would be able to keep up with them. So she retreats to her parlor, where she dreams about the old days at the Blue Pearl Ballroom. Just when her feet are itching to get out there and do the jitterbug -- friends or no friends -- a knock comes on the door, and Miz Mozetta gets some welcome company.

Lively, colorful illustrations and a rhythmic text make for a jazzy dance party that readers will delight in attending again and again.





 

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