Anita Silvey Wins Jeremiah Ludington Memorial Award
RSSBy Joan Oleck -- School Library Journal, 01/24/2008
Anita Silvey, an expert on children's literature, has won the 29th annual Jeremiah Ludington Memorial Award, the Educational Paperback Association (EPA) announced this week.
The Ludington Award, named after EPA's founder, is presented annually to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the paperback book business. Past winners have included Mary Pope Osborne, Marc Brown, Seymour Simon, Tomie dePaola, Richard Peck, Lois Lowry and Paula Danziger. Recipients receive a certificate, and EPA presents a $2,500 check to the charity of their choice.
Silvey is a professor in the Master of Arts in Children's Literature program at Simmons College. She is the former editor-in-chief of the Horn Book and the publisher of children's books at Houghton Mifflin. An acknowledged experts on literature for young people, she is the author of 500 Great Books for Teens (2006), 100 Best Books for Children (2004), and Children's Books and Their Creators (2002) (all Houghton).
Silvey, who will accept the award at the EPA's annual meeting in San Diego, CA, this week, has designated that her donation go to the James Marshall Fellowship at the University of Connecticut. Marshall grants are intended to encourage use of unique materials in the Northeast Children's Literature Collection (part of Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, U-Conn., in Storrs, CT). The grants also are intended to provide financial support to promising children's authors and iillustrators at the start of their careers.
