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Margaret Edwards Award facts for kids

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For the other awards granted by the American Library Association and named after Margaret Alexander Edwards, see Alex Awards.
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Margaret A. Edwards Award
Presented by Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association
Country United States
First awarded 1988

The Margaret A. Edwards Award is an American Library Association (ALA) literary award that annually recognizes an author and "a specific body of his or her work, for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature". It is named after Margaret A. Edwards (1902–1988), the pioneer, longtime director of young adult services at Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore.

The award was inaugurated in 1988 as the biennial "School Library Journal Young Adult Author Award/Selected and Administered by the American Library Association's Young Adult Services Division". After 1990 it was renamed and made annual. It continues to be sponsored by School Library Journal and administered by the Young Adult Library Services Association, descendant of YASD. The winner is announced during the ALA midwinter meeting and the citation and $2000 cash prize are presented at a luncheon during the ALA annual conference (June 27–July 2 in 2013).

History and criteria

The "young adult" class of books developed in library collections and publisher promotions, and young adult literature became a "respected field of study", in the second half of the twentieth century. When School Library Journal initiated the award for YA writers, the ALA awards program recognized the YA class only by annual lists of recommended books, the Best Books for Young Adults and a list "for the reluctant YA reader". (Indeed, the Printz Award for the year's best book was established only in 1999.) Chief editor Lillian N. Gerhardt determined that SLJ should merely sponsor the award and recruited the ALA Young Adult Services Division to administer it.

The official name of the award approved in 1986 was unusually long even with initialisms, "The SLJ Young Adult Author Award/Selected and Administered by the ALA's YASD". In the 1988 and 1990 award citations as presented online decades later, it is called the "Young Adult Services Division/School Library Journal Author Achievement Award". During the third cycle it was made annual and renamed for the recently deceased Edwards.

As of the fourth cycle, 1991/1992, the committee was charged to select "a living author or co-author whose book or books, over a period of time, have been accepted by young people as an authentic voice that continues to illuminate their experiences and emotions, giving insight into their lives." Among other specific criteria, the body of work should have "acceptable literary quality" and be "currently popular with a wide range of young adults in the many different parts of the country". Furthermore, the winner must "agree to personally accept the award at the following Annual Conference", about five months after the selection.

SLJ editor Gerhardt covered the award at least once, in an editorial at the time of inaugural presentation to S. E. Hinton (June 1988). For some time beginning 1990, the June issue of SLJ covered the current award and carried an interview with the preceding winner.

Winners

The award has been conferred 35 times in the 36 years through 2023. The honored writers have been natives and lifelong residents of the United States except Anne McCaffrey, Terry Pratchett, Susan Cooper, and Markus Zusak.

Edwards Award winners and cited works
Year Author Cited works Ref.
1988 S.E. Hinton
  • The Outsiders (1967)
  • That Was Then This Is Now (1973)
  • Tex (1982)
  • Rumble Fish (1983)
1989 (no award)  
1990 Richard Peck
  • Are You in the House Alone? (1976)
  • The Ghost Belonged to Me (1976)
  • Ghosts I Have Been (1977)
  • Father Figure (1978)
  • Secrets of the Shopping Mall (1979)
  • Remembering the Good Times (1985)
1991 Robert Cormier
  • The Chocolate War (1974)
  • I Am the Cheese (1977)
  • After the First Death (1979)
1992 Lois Duncan
  • Chapters, My Growth as a Writer (1982 autobiography)
  • Ransom (1966)
  • I Know What You Did Last Summer (1973)
  • Summer of Fear (1976)
  • Killing Mr. Griffin (1978)
  • The Twisted Window (1987)
1993 M. E. Kerr
  • Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! (1972)
  • Gentlehands (1978)
  • Me Me Me Me Me: Not a Novel (1983)
  • Night Kites (1986)
1994 Walter Dean Myers
  • Hoops (1983)
  • Motown and Didi (1985)
  • Fallen Angels (1988)
  • Scorpions (1988)
1995 Cynthia Voigt
  • Homecoming (1981)
  • Dicey's Song (1982)
  • A Solitary Blue (1983)
  • Building Blocks (1984)
  • The Runner (1985)
  • Jackaroo (1985)
  • Izzy, Willy-Nilly (1986)
1996 Judy Blume
  • Forever... (1975)
1997 Gary Paulsen
  • Dancing Carl (1983)
  • Hatchet (1987)
  • The Crossing (1987)
  • The Winter Room (1989)
  • Canyons (1990)
  • Woodsong (1990)
1998 Madeleine L'Engle
1999 Anne McCaffrey
  • Dragonflight (1968)
  • The Ship Who Sang (1969)
  • Dragonquest (1970)
  • Dragonsong (1976)
  • Dragonsinger (1977)
  • The White Dragon (1978)
  • Dragondrums (1979)
2000 Chris Crutcher
  • Running Loose (1983)
  • Stotan! (1986)
  • The Crazy Horse Electric Game (1987)
  • Chinese Handcuffs (1989)
  • Athletic Shorts: Six Short Stories (1991)
  • Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes (1993)
2001 Robert Lipsyte
  • The Contender (1967)
  • The Brave (1991)
  • The Chief (1993)
  • One Fat Summer (1977)
2002 Paul Zindel
  • The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds: A Drama in Two Acts (1965)
  • The Pigman (1968)
  • My Darling, My Hamburger (1969)
  • The Pigman's Legacy (1980)
  • The Pigman & Me (1992)
2003 Nancy Garden
  • Annie on My Mind (1982)
2004 Ursula K. Le Guin
2005 Francesca Lia Block
  • Weetzie Bat (1989)
  • Witch Baby (1991)
  • Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys (1992)
  • Missing Angel Juan (1993)
  • Baby Be-Bop (1995)
2006 Jacqueline Woodson
  • I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This (1994)
  • From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun (1997)
  • If You Come Softly (1998)
  • Lena (1999)
  • Miracle's Boys (2000)
2007 Lois Lowry
2008 Orson Scott Card
2009 Laurie Halse Anderson  
  • Speak (1999)
  • Fever, 1793 (2002)
  • Catalyst (2003)
2010 Jim Murphy
2011 Terry Pratchett
2012 Susan Cooper
  • The Dark Is Rising Sequence (first omnibus edition, 1984)
  • Over Sea, Under Stone (1965)
  • The Dark Is Rising (1968)
  • Greenwitch (1974)
  • The Grey King (1975)
  • Silver on the Tree (1977)
2013 Tamora Pierce
  • The Song of the Lioness
  • Alanna: The First Adventure (1983)
  • In the Hand of the Goddess (1984)
  • The Woman Who Rides Like a Man (1986)
  • Lioness Rampant (1988)
  • Protector of the Small
  • First Test (1999)
  • Page (2000)
  • Squire (2001)
  • Lady Knight (2002)
2014 Markus Zusak
  • The Book Thief (2006)
  • Fighting Ruben Wolfe (2001)
  • Getting the Girl (2001)
  • I Am the Messenger (2002)
2015 Sharon M. Draper
  • Tears of a Tiger (1994)
  • Forged by Fire (1997)
  • Darkness Before Dawn (2001)
  • Battle of Jericho (2004)
  • Copper Sun (2006)
  • November Blues (2007)
2016 David Levithan
  • Boy Meets Boy (2003)
  • The Realm of Possibility (2004)
  • Wide Awake (2006)
  • Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (2006)
  • How They Met, and Other Stories (2008)
  • Love is the Higher Law (2009)
2017 Sarah Dessen
  • Keeping the Moon (1999)
  • Dreamland (2000)
  • This Lullaby (2002)
  • The Truth About Forever (2004)
  • Just Listen (2006)
  • Along for the Ride (2009)
  • What Happened to Goodbye (2011)
2018 Angela Johnson
  • Toning the Sweep (1993)
  • Heaven (1998)
  • Looking for Red (2002)
  • The First Part Last (2003)
  • Bird (2004)
  • Sweet, Hereafter (2010)
2019 M. T. Anderson
  • Feed (2002)
  • The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1: The Pox Party (2006)
  • The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 2: The Kingdom of Waves (2008)
2020 Steve Sheinkin
2021 Kekla Magoon
  • X: A Novel (2015)
  • How It Went Down (2014)
  • The Rock and the River (2009)
  • Fire in the Streets (2012)
2022 King, A.S.A.S. King
  • Ask the Passengers (2012)
  • Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future (2014)
  • Please Ignore Vera Dietz (2010)
2023 Jason Reynolds
  • Long Way Down (2017)
  • All American Boys (2015)
  • When I Was the Greatest (2014)
2024 Neal Shusterman
  • The Arc of the Scythe: Scythe (2016), Thunderhead (2018) and The Toll (2019)
  • Bruiser (2010)
  • Challenger Deep (2015)
  • Everlost (2006)
  • Full Tilt (2003)
  • The Schwa Was Here (2004)

Multiple awards

No one has won both the Edwards Award and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, which the ALA children's division (ALSC) awards for "substantial and lasting contributions to children's literature" (from 1954, now annual).

Four Edwards winners have been selected by ALSC to deliver its annual May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture: Susan Cooper in 2001, Ursula K. Le Guin in 2004, Walter Dean Myers in 2009, and Lois Lowry in 2011. ALSC considers the Arbuthnot selection, inaugurated in 1970, another career award for contribution to children's literature. The lecturer prepares and delivers —currently about 16 months after selection— "a paper considered to be a significant contribution to the field of children's literature", which is also published in the ALSC journal.

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Premio Margaret Edwards para niños

  • Michael L. Printz Award, ALA book award for young-adult literature
  • Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, ALA lifetime award for children's literature
  • List of ALA awards
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