The Coretta Scott King Awards are presented annually by the American Library Association to honor African-American authors and illustrators who create outstanding books for children and young adults. Initially, the award was established in 1969 to recognize authors and then was expanded to include a separate award for illustrators in 1979. These awards are given to commemorate the life and work of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and to honor Mrs. Coretta Scott King for her continuing efforts in working for peace and civil rights issues.

Photo Credit: Vernon Merritt/LIFE, Copyright Time Inc. Coretta Scott King, 1969.

Directly below you will find a list of all of Coretta Scott King's Author and Illustrator Awards 1970 to Present -- an excellent start on your quest for the best in African-American literature for children.

Coretta Scott King Author Awards
 

2007 (click to see the other 2007 award winners)

Copper Sun
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by Sharon M. Draper

Reading level: Young Adult
Hardcover: 306 pages
Publisher: Atheneum (January 3, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0689821816

When pale strangers enter fifteen-year-old Amari's village, her entire tribe welcomes them; for in her remote part of Africa, visitors are always a cause for celebration. But these strangers are not here to celebrate. They are here to capture the strongest, healthiest villagers and to murder the rest. They are slave traders. And in the time it takes a gun to fire, Amari's life as she's known it is destroyed, along with her family and village.

Beaten, branded, and dragged onto a slave ship, Amari is forced to witness horrors worse than any nightmare and endure humiliations she had never thought possible -- including being sold to a plantation owner in the Carolinas who gives her to his sixteen-year-old son, Clay, as his birthday present.

Now, survival and escape are all Amari dreams about. As she struggles to hold on to her memories in the face of backbreaking plantation work and daily degradation at the hands of Clay, she finds friendship in unexpected places. Polly, an outspoken indentured white girl, proves not to be as hateful as she'd first seemed upon Amari's arrival, and the plantation owner's wife, despite her trappings of luxury and demons of her own, is kind to Amari. But these small comforts can't relieve Amari's feelings of hopelessness and despair, and when an opportunity to escape presents itself, Amari and Polly decide to work together to find the thing they both want most...freedom.

Grand and sweeping in scope, detailed and penetrating in its look at the complicated interrelationships of those who live together on a plantation, Copper Sun is an unflinching and unforgettable look at the African slave trade and slavery in America.

2006 (click to see the other 2006 award winners)

Day of Tears: A Novel in Dialogue
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by Julius Lester

Reading level: Ages 9-12
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Jump At The Sun;
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1423104099

In Day of Tears, Julius Lester exposes the devastating reality of the slave experience. The novel begins with the largest slave auction in American history (later known as The Weeping Time). During the auction, members of slave families are sold to different masters and must face the fact that they will never see each other again. Lester takes you into the minds of the slaves and masters as he follows a girl’s journey from slavery to a life of freedom.  adults read my YA books and never know that [they were] marketed for YA. I just write, and the books find the readers they’re supposed to have.

2005 (click to see the other 2005 award winners)

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.

2004 (click to see the other 2004 award winners)

The First Part Last
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Angela Johnson

ISBN: 0689849222
Format: Hardcover, 131pp
Pub. Date: June 2003
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's
Age Range: Young Adult

"Author Angela Johnson follows up her Coretta Scott King Award–winning novel, Heaven, with this absorbing prequel about a single teen struggling to accept his new paternal role."
—The Barnes & Noble Review

Bobby is a typical urban New York City teenager -- impulsive, eager, restless. For his sixteenth birthday he cuts school with his two best buddies, grabs a couple of slices at his favorite pizza joint, catches a flick at a nearby multiplex, and gets some news from his girlfriend, Nia, that changes his life forever: He's going to be a father. Suddenly things like school and house parties and fun times with friends are replaced by visits to Nia's pediatrician and countless social workers who all say that the only way for Nia and Bobby to lead a normal life is to put their baby up for adoption. Then tragedy strikes Nia, and Bobby finds himself in the role of single, teenage father. Because his child -- their child -- is all that remains of his lost love.

With powerful language and keen insight, Johnson tells the story of a young man's struggle to figure out what "the right thing" is and then to do it. The result is a gripping portrayal of a single teenage parenthood from the point of view of a young on the threshold of becoming a man.

2003 (click to see the other 2003 award winners)

Bronx Masquerade
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by Nikki Grimes

ISBN: 0803725698
Format: Hardcover, 176pp
Pub. Date: January 2002
Publisher: Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers

When Wesley Boone writes a poem for his high school English class, some of his classmates clamor to read their poems aloud too. Soon they're having weekly poetry sessions and, one by one, the eighteen students are opening up and taking on the risky challenge of self-revelation. There's Lupe Alvarin, desperate to have a baby so she will feel loved. Raynard Patterson, hiding a secret behind his silence. Porscha Johnson, needing an outlet for her anger after her mother OD's. Through the poetry they share and narratives in which they reveal their most intimate thoughts about themselves and one another, their words and lives show what lies beneath the skin, behind the eyes, beyond the masquerade.

2002 (click to see the other 2002 award winners)

The Land
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by Mildred D. Taylor

In a tale written for young adults, Mildred D. Taylor combines her personal family history with that of a country divided by racism, prejudice, and slavery. The events in The Land unfold through the eyes of Paul Logan, the son of a onetime slave and the white man who owned her. Paul's father treats him fairly and with kindness most of the time, frequently allowing him the same privileges he gives his legitimate sons. But as Paul grows older, certain harsh realities make him realize that he will never be considered a true equal to his white brothers -- or any white man, for that matter -- even if his skin is so light that he might be able to "pass."
Because of his ancestry, Paul feels that he is caught between two worlds, destined to be shunned by black folk as well as whites. The only person he can relate to at all is Mitchell, a black boy who used to torment Paul but who has now become a trusted friend. When the two run away together to escape their past and find their fortune -- which for Paul means realizing his dream of one day owning his own piece of land -- they encounter a world filled with heartbreaking betrayal, backbreaking labor, and rampant prejudice. As they come to trust only each other, their friendship grows ever stronger, until it seems that nothing -- not even a shared affection for the same woman -- can break the bond between them. But for two black men struggling to make something of themselves in a white-run world, life holds some tragic surprises in store.

In an author's note, Taylor explains that the character of Paul is based on one of her own descendants. The hardships he encounters in his struggle to become a landowner offer up a bittersweet lesson on the rewards of hard work and the destructive power of racism, providing Taylor's readers with an unforgettable look at the best, and worst, of humanity.

―Beth Amos (Barnes & Noble Editor)

2001 (click to see the other 2001 award winners)

Miracle's Boys
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by Jacqueline Woodson

ISBN: 0399231137
Format: Hardcover, 192pp
Pub. Date: March 2000
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

Jacqueline Woodson snagged the 2001 Coretta Scott King Author Award for Miracle's Boys, a moving tale of one family's struggle to make a better life for themselves despite overwhelming odds and terrible tragedy. Woodson is no stranger to award-winning fiction. Among the many awards she has received for her novels are two prior Coretta Scott King Honors.
The story of Miracle's Boys is told by 12-year-old Lafayette Bailey, the youngest of three brothers living in New York City. They are orphans, living under the care of the oldest brother, Ty'ree, 22, a whiz kid who was forced to give up on his dream of attending MIT so he could work full time and keep his family together. The boys' diabetic mother, Milagro (Miracle), died of insulin shock two years ago, and their father died before Lafayette was born, succumbing to hypothermia after his heroic rescue of a woman and a dog from a frozen lake. The middle brother, Charlie, 15, has been away at the Rahway Home for Boys for the past two years, serving a sentence for armed robbery. But now that Charlie's back home, it's all too clear to Lafayette that things will never be the same.

Charlie isn't the same tenderhearted and caring boy he used to be. Newcharlie, as Lafayette now calls him, is changed: bitter, angry, and mean. It's bad enough that the boys are struggling to survive against crushing poverty, oppressive grief, and the ever-present threat of gang violence. Newcharlie's penchant for finding trouble may prove to be a fatal chink in their already rusted armor, leading to a breakup that would send Lafayette and Charlie off to foster homes. In addition, each of the boys is toting a ton of emotional baggage: a collection of guilty secrets, private demons, and mind-numbing fears. Their journey out of the darkness is a step-by-step process toward an uncertain future, and the only thing helping them along is their hope, their dreams, and their love for one another -- "brother to brother to brother."

Woodson's talent for peeling away emotional layers and exposing the raw, unadulterated truth is both riveting and refreshing. Young readers should delight in the moving but funny voice of Lafayette as he deals with his grief, anger, and sense of alienation. And the story's gritty prose and complex characters provide a level of clarity and commonality that should speak well to readers from age nine on up.

―Beth Amos (Barnes & Noble Editor)

 

2000 (click to see the other 2000 award winners)

Bud, Not Buddy, Christopher Paul Curtis

Date Published: August 1998
Recommend Age Range: 9 to 12

Winner of the 2000 Newbery Medal, and the 2000 Coretta Scott King Award.

Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father--the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids.

Bud, Not Buddy is full of laugh-out-loud humor and wonderful characters, hitting the high notes of jazz and sounding the deeper tones of the Great Depression.

1999 (click to see the other 1999 award winners)

Title: Heaven, Angela Johnson

Date Published: August 1998

Winner of the 1999 Coretta Scott King Author Award. Marley has lived in heaven with her parents and her brother for 12 years since the accident. She can't imagine her life any other way, but she may have to. Does Marley have the perfect life, or is her life the perfect lie?

1998 1998
1998

Forged by Fire , Sharon Draper
After he was almost killed in an apartment fire while his mother went to buy drugs, Gerald was raised by his aunt. Then one day, six years later, his mother returns with her new husband and Angel, Gerald's little sister. As the children grow up, it becomes more and more apparent that Angel needs Gerald's protection from her father's abuse. But who will protect Gerald? Young Adult

1997
Slam!, Walter Dean Myers
Sixteen-year-old Greg "Slam" Harris can do it all on the basketball court. His grades aren't so hot, though. And when his teachers jam his troubles in his face, Slam blows up. He never doubted himself on the court until he found himself going one on one with his future

1996

Her Stories! African American Folktales, Fairy Tales and True Stories, Virginia Hamilton
For children ages 6 to 4.
In the tradition of Hamilton's The People Could Fly and In the Beginning, a dramatic new collection of 25 compelling tales from the female African American storytelling tradition. Each story focuses on the role of women--both real and fantastic--and their particular strengths, joys and sorrows. Full-color illustrations

1995

Christmas in the Big House, Christmas in the Quarters,
Patricia C. McKissack
For children ages 9 to 11.
In a poignant, heartwarming book rich in historical detail and careful research, two Coretta Scott King Award-winning authors movingly describe Christmas on a pre-Civil War plantation from two starkly different points of view--the big house and the slave quarters. Magnificent full-color illustrations, along with recipes, poems, songs, journal excerpts, and more add depth and authenticity to this extraordinary book.

1994

Toning the Sweep, Angela Johnson
One of the best-reviewed novels for young adults in 1993, this powerful debut is reminiscent of Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale. This story spans three generations of African-American women and their struggle to find a common ground for sharing love, friendship, and hardships. Young Adult.

1993
The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural, Patricia C. McKissack
For children ages 8 to 12.
With an extraordinary gift for suspense, the award-winning author of Mirandy and Brother Wind offers a collection of original spine-tingling tales inspired by African-American history and the oral storyteller tradition. A 1993 Coretta Scott King Award winner. A 1993 Newbery Honor Book.

1992
Now is Your Time! The African American Struggle for Freedom
Walter Dean Myers

1991
The Road to Memphis, Mildred D. Taylor
Set in Mississippi in 1941, The Road to Memphis describes three harrowing, unforgettable days in the life of an African-American high school girl dreaming of law school. Caught up in the center of tense racial dramas unfolding around her, Cassie Logan is forced to confront the adult world as never before. A Coretta Scott King Author Award Book.

1990
A Long Hard Journey: The Story of the Pullman Porter
Patricia C. McKissack & Fredrick McKissack

1989
Fallen Angels, Walter Dean Myers
For Young Adults.
The critically acclaimed story of one young man's tour of duty in Vietnam and a testament to the thousands of young people who lived and died during the war. This generation's most powerful Vietnam story. 1989 Coretta Scott King Author Award Book; ALA Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies.Ages Young Adult.

1988
The Friendship, Mildred D. Taylor
Cassie Logan and her brothers have been warned never to go to the Wallace store, so they know to expect trouble there. What they don't expect is to hear Mr. Tom Bee, an elderly black man, daring to call the white storekeeper by his first name. The year is 1933, the place is Mississippi, and any child knows that some things just aren't done. Black & white illustrations. 56 pp. 50,000 print.

1987
Justin and the Best Biscuits in the World, Mildred Pitts Walter
Mildred Pitts Walter
For children ages 8 to 12.
Justin thinks housework is for women, until his cowboy grandfather teaches him otherwise in this engaging modern-day cowboy story. Coretta Scott King Award.

1986
The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales, Virginia Hamilton
"The well-known author retells 24 black American folktales in sure storytelling voice: animal tales, supernatural tales, fanciful and cautionary tales, and slave tales of freedom."--School Library Journal, starred review. Full color.

1985
Motown and Didi: A Love Story
Walter Dean Myers

1984
Everett Anderson's Goodbye, Lucille Clifton

1983
Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush, Virginia Hamilton

1982
Let the Circle Be Unbroken, Mildred D. Taylor
Mildred D. Taylor
For children ages 12 to 4.
The year is 1935. The young Logan family watches as their friend is charged with murder and tried by an all-white jury. "A profoundly affecting novel."--Publishers Weekly. Coretta Scott King Award.

1981
This Life
Sidney Poitier

1980
The Young Landlords, Walter Dean Myers
Walter Dean Myers
For Young Adults.
The derelict Stratford Arms is turned over to the Action Group to be cleaned up. But then the group realizes that there is an outrageous bunch of tenants living in the building.

1979
Escape to Freedom; A Play about Young Frederick Douglass
Ossie Davis

1978
Africa Dream, Eloise Greenfield, author Carole Byard, illustrator
Eloise Greenfield, author Carole Byard, illustrator
For children ages 4 to 8.
An African-American child dreams of Africa, where she sees animals, shops in a marketplace, reads from a strange old book, and returns to the village where her granddaddy welcomed her so long ago.

1977
The Story of Stevie Wonder, James Haskins

1976
Duey's Tale, Pearl Bailey

1975
Legend of Africania
Dorothy Robinson, author Herbert Temple, illustrator

1974
Ray Charles
Sharon Bell Mathis, author George Ford, illustrator

1973
I Never Had It Made: The Autobiography of Jackie Robinson
Alfred Duckett

1972
17 Black Artists
Elton Fax

1971
Black Troubadour: Langston Hughes
Charlemae Rollins

1970
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Man of Peace
Lillie Patterson

Coretta Scott King Illustrator Awards

 2004 (click to see all the 2004 Illustrator Award Winners)

Beautiful Blackbird
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Ashley Bryan

ISBN: 0689847319
Format: Hardcover, 40pp
Pub. Date: December 2002
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's
Age Range: 1 to 7

Long ago, Blackbird was voted the most beautiful bird in the forest. The other birds, who were colored red, yellow, blue, and green, were so envious that they begged Blackbird to paint their feathers with a touch of black so they could be beautiful too. Although Black-bird warns them that true beauty comes from within, the other birds persist and soon each is given a ring of black around their neck or a dot of black on their wings -- markings that detail birds to this very day.

Ashley Bryan's adaptation of a tale from the Ila-speaking people of Zambia resonates both with rhythm and the tale's universal meanings -- appreciating one's heritage and discovering the beauty within. His cut-paper artwork is a joy.

 2000 (click to see all the 2000 Illustrator Award Winners)

In the Time of the Drums, Illustrated by Brian Pinkney, text by Kim L. Siegelson

Publisher: Hyperion Books for Children
Date Published: February  1999

 Mentu, an American-born slave boy, watches his beloved grandmother, Twi, lead the insurrection at Teakettle Creek of Ibo people arriving from Africa on a slave ship.

1999
I See the Rhythm, Toyomi Igus, Michele Wood (Illustrator)

Publisher: Children's Book Press
Date Published: April 1998

Winner of the 1999 Coretta Scott King Award for Illustrator (Michele Wood). A celebration of African-American music and the far-reaching impact it has had on the world, I See the Rhythm traces the progression of black music from its traditional roots in Africa to contemporary hip hop.

1998
In Daddy's Arms I am Tall: African Americans Celebrating Fathers,
Javaka Steptoe
For children ages 7 to 4.
In this collection of poetry by new and established African-American writers, fatherhood is celebrated with honor, humor and grace. Contributors include Carole Boston Weatherford, Michael Burgess, E. Ethelbert Miller, Lenard D. Moore, David Anderson, Angela Johnson, Sonia Sanchez and Davida Adedjouma. Full color.

1997
Minty: A Story of Young Harriet Tubman, Jerry Pinkney
For children ages 5 to 9.
Many people know about Harriet Tubman's adult life--how she helped hundreds of slaves escape to freedom along the Underground Railroad. But how know about Harriet Tubman's life as a little African-American girl? This dramatic portrayal will open the eyes of countless young readers and help them to know the little girl who would become one of America's greatest heroines. Full color.

1996
Middle Passage: White Ships/Black Cargo
Tom Feelings

1995
Creation
James Ransome
For children ages 4 to 8.
A poem based on the story of creation from the first book of the Bible.

1994
Soul Looks Back in Wonder
Tom Feelings

1993
The Origin of Life on Earth: an African Creation Myth
Kathleen Atkins Wilson

1992
Tar Beach
Faith Ringgold

1991
Aida
Leo Dillon & Diane Dillon

1990
Nathaniel Talking
Jan Spivey Gilchrist

1989
Mirandy and Brother Wind
Jerry Pinkney

1988
Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters
John Steptoe

1987
Half a Moon and One Whole Star
Jerry Pinkney

1986
The Patchwork Quilt
Jerry Pinkney

1985
No Award Given

1984
My Mama Needs Me
Pat Cummings

1983
Black Child
Peter Magubane

1982
Mama Crocodile
John Steptoe

1981
Beat the Story Drum, Pum-Pum
Ashley Bryan

1980
Cornrows
Carole Byard

1979
Something on My Mind
Tom Feelings
Tom Feelings




 

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