Today we reveal the answers to the Children’s Author Trivia Volume 28.
58. This children’s author broke through a number of barriers in her career. She was the first African-American author to win the Newbery Medal, with M.C. Higgins the Great. She was the first children’s book author to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. She won many awards, including the Hans Christian Andersen Award. Do you know who she is?
Virginia Hamilton wrote over 40 award-winning books for children and young adults.
Although she passed away in 2002, Open Road Media is publishing several of her books as e-books, including Cousins, The House of Die’s Drear, Anthony Burns, Zeeley, Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush, M.C. Higgins the Great, and The Planet of Junior Brown. They supplied this lovely video about Virginia Hamilton’s inspiring career.
Note: I do not have an affiliation with Open Road Media.
59. Our second illustrator and author also has had numerous awards, including Caldecott Honors. Her mother had studied medical illustration, but our subject didn’t take up illustration until after trying several other careers, including a degree in French and a reporting stint that ended when she was fired. She started illustrating folktales, and then later she branched out into writing her own stories. Recently this author has been writing science books, and in 2010 one of her children’s picture books won the AAAS/Subaru SB & F Prize for Excellence in Science Books. Any idea who this illustrator and author might be?
Molly Bang‘s Living Sunlight: How Plants Bring the Earth to Life won the AAAS/Subaru SB & F Prize for Excellence in Science Books in 2010 (with Penny Chisholm).
More information about books by Molly Bang at Amazon’s author page.