Author Virginia Hamilton Dies at 65

Virginia Hamilton, one of America's most honored writers for children and young adults, died on February 19 in Dayton, OH, after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 65. Hamilton wrote more than 35 books, many of which won important awards. In 1975, she received the Newbery Medal, the first given to an African-American writer, for M. C. Higgins the Great (Macmillan). That same year, the novel also received the National Book Award. Two more of her books, Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush (Philomel, 1982) and In the Beginning: Creation Stories from Around the World (Harcourt, 1988), were chosen as Newbery Honor books. And three of Hamilton's novels won the Coretta Scott King Award for writing: Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush; The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales (Knopf, 1985); and Her Stories (Scholastic/Blue Sky Press, 1995).