Ezra Jack Keats Award Winners Unveiled

Children's book author David Ezra Stein and illustrator Jonathan Bean are winners of the 2008 Ezra Jack Keats Book Award, jointly sponsored by the New York Public Library and the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation.

Stein is recipient of the New Writer Award for Leaves (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2007), and Bean will receive the New Illustrator Award for The Apple Pie that Papa Baked (S&S, 2007). Leaves looks at the changing seasons through the eyes of a bear. Apple Pie is the tale of apples, a pie, and the papa who baked it.

The awards, to be presented during a ceremony at the library on May 15, honor new authors and illustrators who portray "the goals and values of the late Ezra Jack Keats as expressed in his multicultural books including: the universal qualities of childhood, a strong belief in family and community, and creativity and love of learning," according to a foundation statement.

The Keats foundation is dedicated to fostering the talent of artists and authors.