Phoenix Award facts for kids
The Phoenix Award annually recognizes one English-language children's book published twenty years earlier that did not then win a major literary award. It is named for the mythical bird phoenix that is reborn from its own ashes, signifying the book's rise from relative obscurity.
The award was established and is conferred by the Children's Literature Association (ChLA), a nonprofit organization based in the United States whose mission is to advance "the serious study of children's literature". The winner is selected by an elected committee of five ChLA members, from nominations by members and outsiders. The token is a brass statue.
The inaugural, 1985 Phoenix Award recognized The Mark of the Horse Lord by Rosemary Sutcliff (Oxford, 1965). Beginning 1989, as many as two runners-up have been designated "Honor Books", with 34 named for the 29 years to 2017.
A parallel award for children's picture books, the Phoenix Picture Book Award was approved in 2010 and inaugurated in 2013. There are two awards if the writer and illustrator are different people. "Books are considered not only for the quality of their illustrations, but for the way pictures and text work together to tell a story (whether fact or fiction). Wordless books are judged on the ability of the pictures alone to convey a story."
Latest rendition
The 33rd annual Phoenix Award and fifth Phoenix Picture Book Award were presented on June 24 2017 at the ChLA Annual Conference hosted by the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. The 2018 Phoenix Award winner has also been announced. The awards are included in the tables below.
Phoenix Award winners
There have been 35 Award winners and 35 Honor Books announced since 1985 (1965 to 1998 publications).
| Year | Winner | Honor Books |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Carolyn Coman, Many Stones | Walter Dean Myers, 145th Street: Short Stories |
| 2019 | Louise Erdrich, The Birchbark House | Connie Porter, Imani All Mine |
| 2018 | Elizabeth Partridge, Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange | |
| 2017 | James Heneghan, Wish Me Luck | Paul Fleischman, Seedfolks Naomi Shihab Nye, Habibi |
| 2016 | Andrew Clements, Frindle | (none) |
| 2015 | Kyoko Mori, One Bird | (none) |
| 2014 | Gary Soto, Jesse | Graham Salisbury, Under the Blood Red Sun |
| 2013 | Gaye Hiçyilmaz, The Frozen Waterfall | Walter Dean Myers, Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary |
| 2012‡ | Karen Hesse, Letters from Rifka | Michael Dorris, Morning Girl Frances Temple, Taste of Salt: A Story of Modern Haiti |
| 2011‡ | Virginia Euwer Wolff, The Mozart Season | Mary Downing Hahn, Stepping on the Cracks Eloise McGraw, The Striped Ships |
| 2010 | Rosemary Sutcliff, The Shining Company | (none) |
| 2009 | Francesca Lia Block, Weetzie Bat | Sylvia Cassedy, Lucie Babbidge’s House |
| 2008‡ | Peter Dickinson, Eva | Jane Yolen, The Devil's Arithmetic |
| 2007 | Margaret Mahy, Memory | Sheila Gordon, Waiting for the Rain |
| 2006 | Diana Wynne Jones, Howl's Moving Castle | Margaret Mahy, The Tricksters Philip Pullman, The Shadow in the Plate (The Shadow in the North) |
| 2005 | Margaret Mahy, The Catalogue of the Universe | Diana Wynne Jones, Fire and Hemlock |
| 2004‡ | Berlie Doherty, White Peak Farm | Brian Doyle, Angel Square |
| 2003 | Ivan Southall, The Long Night Watch | Cynthia Voigt, A Solitary Blue |
| 2002‡ | Zibby Oneal, A Formal Feeling | Clayton Bess, Story for a Black Night |
| 2001‡ | Peter Dickinson, The Seventh Raven | Kathryn Lasky, The Night Journey |
| 2000‡ | Monica Hughes, Keeper of the Isis Light | Jane Langton, The Fledgling |
| 1999 | E.L. Konigsburg, Throwing Shadows | Rosa Guy, The Disappearance Ouida Sebestyen, Words by Heart |
| 1998 | Jill Paton Walsh, A Chance Child | Robin McKinley, Beauty Doris Orgel, The Devil in Vienna |
| 1997 | Robert Cormier, I Am the Cheese | (none) |
| 1996 | Alan Garner, The Stone Book | William Steig, Abel's Island |
| 1995 | Laurence Yep, Dragonwings | Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting |
| 1994 | Katherine Paterson, Of Nightingales That Weep | James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier, My Brother Sam is Dead Sharon Bell Mathis, Listen for the Fig Tree |
| 1993 | Nina Bawden, Carrie's War | E.L. Konigsburg, A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver |
| 1992 | Mollie Hunter, A Sound of Chariots | (none) |
| 1991 | Jane Gardam, A Long Way from Verona | William Mayne, A Game of Dark Ursula K. Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan |
| 1990 | Sylvia Engdahl, Enchantress from the Stars | William Mayne, Ravensgill Scott O'Dell, Sing Down the Moon |
| 1989 | Helen Cresswell, The Night Watchmen | Milton Meltzer, Brother Can You Spare a Dime? Adrienne Richard, Pistol |
| 1988 | Erik Christian Haugaard, The Rider and his Horse | Honor books were instituted in 1989. |
| 1987 | Leon Garfield, Smith | |
| 1986 | Robert J. Burch, Queenie Peavy | |
| 1985 | Rosemary Sutcliff, The Mark of the Horse Lord |
- ‡ Seven acceptance speeches have been published online in one of two locations: Monica Hughes, 2000; Peter Dickinson, 2001; Zibby Oneal, 2002; Berlie Doherty, 2004; Peter Dickinson, 2008; Virginia Euwer Wolff, 2011; Karen Hesse, 2012.
Multiple awards
Three writers each won two of the 31 Phoenix Awards through 2017.
- Rosemary Sutcliff, 1985, 2010
- Peter Dickinson, 2001, 2008
- Margaret Mahy, 2005, 2007
Mahy of New Zealand was also a runner up in 2006.
Several of the winners have also received the British Carnegie Medal for other books: Sutcliff (1959); Garner (1967); Garfield (1970); Southall (1971); Hunter (1974); Dickinson (1979, 1980); Mahy (1982, 1984); Doherty (1986, 1991).
Three of the winners have also won the American Newbery Medal for other books: Konigsburg (1968 and 1997); Paterson (1978, 1981); Hesse (1998).
Picture Book Award winners
There were five Phoenix Picture Book Award winners and seven Honor Books named for 2013 through 2017.
The writer is listed first, the illustrator second if distinct.
| Year | Winner | Honor Books |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Christopher Myers, Black Cat | Amy Littlesuger and Floyd Cooper Tree of Hope |
| 2018 | Robert D. San Souci and Brian Pinkney, Cendrillon: A Caribbean Cinderella | Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman and Robin Preiss Glasser, You Can’t Take A Balloon Into the Metropolitan Museum |
| 2017 | Mary McKenna Siddals and Petra Mathers, Tell Me a Season | Demi, One Grain of Rice: A Mathematical Tale |
| 2016 | Molly Bang, Goose | Julius Lester and Jerry Pinkney, Sam and the Tigers |
| 2015 | Sara Fanelli, My Map Book | Charlotte Zolotow and Stefano Vitale, When the Wind Stops (revised and newly illustrated, 1995)‡ Kady MacDonald Denton, Would They Love a Lion? |
| 2014 | Raymond Briggs, The Bear | Peggy Rathmann, Good Night, Gorilla |
| 2013 | Kevin Henkes, Owen | Denise Fleming, In the Small, Small Pond |
- ‡ When the Wind Stops, written by Zolotow and illustrated by Vitale (HarperCollins, 1995), "revised and newly illustrated" . When the Wind Stops, written by Zolotow and edited by Ursula Nordstrom, was published in 1962 with illustrations by Howard Knotts (New York: Harper & Row, ) and by Joe Lasker (London: Abelard-Schuman, ).
See also
In Spanish: Premio Fénix de literatura para niños
