Winners of 2012 Horn Book Awards Announced at BookExpo America
Posted on June 11, 2012
The winners of the 2012 Horn Book Awards have been announced at BookExpo America. The awards will be given at the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards Ceremony, a part of The Horn Book at Simmons Colloquium (September 28 and 29, 2012) at Simmons College in Boston, MA. Here is a list of the winners:
- Fiction: No Crystal Stair, written by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie (Carolrhoda Lab, an imprint of Lerner)
- Nonfiction: Chuck Close: Face Book, written and illustrated by Chuck Close (Abrams Books for Young Readers)
- Picture Book: Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen (Balzer + Bray, a HarperCollins imprint)
No Crystal Stair is a documentary novel of the life and work of Lewis Michaux, a Harlem bookseller and civil rights activist and literacy pioneer. Lewis Michaux built the National Memorial African Bookstore in Harlem at the end of the Great Depression, starting with an inventory of five books. The bookstore soon became the intellectual center of Harlem, a refuge for everyone from the neighborhood's youth to artists to black leaders W. E. B. DuBois, Muhammad Ali, and Malcolm X.
Chuck Close: Face Book is an interactive autobiography by wheelchair-bound artist Chuck Close. Close discusses his story and art in the book through a question-and-answer format based on real kids' questions about his life and he work. Close also discusses the severe dyslexia and face blindness he has struggled with since childhood, as well as a collapsed spinal artery that left him nearly paralyzed at the age of 48.
The Horn Book editor in chief Roger Sutton and 2010 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award-winning author Rebecca Stead (When You Reach Me) announced the 2012 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winners at BookExpo. Take a look: