Book Awards

Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart (Greenwillow) by Vera B. Williams received the Josette Frank Award. This annual award honors a book in which children cope with difficulties in a positive and realistic way and grow emotionally and morally. The book was also co-winner of the Claudia Lewis Award for poetry, along with Love That Dog (HarperCollins) by Sharon Creech. The Flora Stieglitz Award for nonfiction went to Carver: A Life in Poems (Front Street) by Marilyn Nelson.

Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine (Houghton) by Susan Campbell Bartoletti won the annual award for outstanding children's nonfiction presented by the National Council of Teachers of English.