Historic Footnotes Nab Addams Book Awards
Rocco Staino -- School Library Journal, 10/19/2008 8:35:00 PM
Oney Judge and Bayard Rustin were two obscure historical footnotes until the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award committee singled ou the books they were featured in as the winners of year’stop award.
At an awards ceremony at the Jane Addams Peace Association’s headquarter across from the United Nations in New York City, seven authors and illustrators were recognized for books that embodied the ideals of Jane Addams.
The awards are given annually to the children's books published the preceding year that effectively promote the cause of peace, social justice, world community, and the equality of the sexes and all races
Emily Arnold McCully’s The Escape of Oney Judge: Martha Washington’s Slave Finds Freedom (Farrar, Straus) was selected winner in the Younger Children’s category. McCully stumbled upon Judge in a footnote in Henry Weincek’s book, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America (Farrar, Straus, 2003). And that discovery drove her to learn more about this slave of Martha Washington who fought for the right to have “no mistress but herself”.
In her acceptance speech, McCully stressed that “children have to learn to love history and the best way to instill that love is through story.”
Larry Dane Brimer also discovered the character for his We are One: The Story of Bayard Rustin (Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills Press) in a footnote of an article about the Civil Rights Movement. Rustin, organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, refused to move to the back of the bus years before Rosa Parks but few know his name.
“Forgotten man of the civil rights movement” was how Brimer in his acceptance speech described the hero of his book.
When SLJ asked award committee member Eliza Dresang about the coincidence of both award winners being obscure figures, she said, “The appeal to the committee was that they were both important lives and showed determination and courage”
The Jane Addams Children’s Book Award are announced in April to recognize the founding of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and are presented on the third Friday in October.
