The American Library Association announced its annual children’s book awards today, and they’ve given Representative John Lewis a number of well-deserved honors.
March, a biographical trilogy written by Andrew Aydin and Lewis and illustrated by Nate Powell, is a memoir about the civil rights leader. It’s already won a Robert F. Kennedy Award, an Eisner Award, and the National Book Award. After Trump criticized Lewis over Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend for being “all talk,” March went temporarily out of stock at Amazon and reached the bestsellers list. Now, the graphic series can add 4 more awards to its list.
Rep. Lewis and Aydin won the Coretta Scott King Award for March: Book Three. The Coretta Scott King (Author) Book Award recongizes “an African-American author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults.” The book was also awarded the Michael L. Printz Award for “excellence in literature written for young adults,” the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award for “most distinguished informational book for children,” and the YALSA Award for “excellence in nonfiction for young adults.”
It’s the most an author has won in a single year. Hopefully, these awards mean that March will find its way into more bookshelves and hands. The way we’ve incorporated the history of the civil rights movement within the United States into school curriculums often leaves much to be desired, so I hope the ALA awards might encourage not only readership, but also for publishers to release more books like it.
You can check out the full list of ALA award winners here. If you enjoyed March, you might be interested in books that were selected as Honor Books in the same categories like Jason Reynolds’ As Brave As You or in similar categories like Javaka Steptoe’s Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist which won the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Book Award.
(via NPR, Image via Top Shelf Productions)
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