Content area
Full Text
A young lawyer-turned-novelist and a veteran illustrator yesterday won the top awards for best children's books of the year.
Rebecca Stead was awarded the John Newbery Medal, given to the best-written children's book, for her novel "When You Reach Me" (Random House, $15.99, ages 9-12), while Jerry Pinkney won the Randolph Caldecott Medal, given to the best-illustrated children's book, for his picture book, "The Lion & the Mouse" (Little, Brown, $16.99, ages 4-10).
In a fitting tribute to yesterday's Martin Luther King holiday, Pinkney, who has been creating children's books for more than four decades, became the first individual African-American illustrator to win the Caldecott Medal since it was established in 1938, according to children's book expert Anita Silvey. An interracial couple, Leo and Diane Dillon, have won two Caldecott Medals, but Pinkney is the first individual African-American artist to do so.
"It's very confirming," Pinkney, 70, said in an interview. "I've always thought about myself and about my work as a being a role model and a teacher."
The Caldecott and Newbery medals, awarded annually by the American Library Association, are considered the Academy Awards of the children's book world. The awards confer fame and fortune on winning authors and illustrators, as medal-winning books become instant best-sellers and rarely go out of print.
The awards' financial power was demonstrated yesterday when "The Lion & the Mouse," which ranked No. 929 in sales at 9 a.m....