Ezra Jack Keats Award Honor Books

Matthew Farina: Honor

From: Wisconsin; Now: Fort Greene, Brooklyn

6 Word Memoir: out looking: color, light, connection, relief

Activities: While I'd like to say my stories are rigorously researched projects, they begin from unshakable memories from my own childhood. 

Neat or messy: When I'm feeling most productive, a messy creative process has its own neatness and sense of promise.

Other Awards:

• Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection Award: Lawrence in the Fall 

Upcoming: Manuscript in development

Author bio stuff!

From: Columbus, OH; Now: Providence, RI

6 Word Memoir: I'm too wordy for six words.

Activities: I go to the art museum and listen to music but leaving the studio and living your life is the best mode of inspiration.

Neat or Messy?/Distractions: I aspire for neatness but it can get messy! Chatting with people is usually what gets me. I get the most work done when I am alone!

Other Awards:

• Caldecott Honor Award 2019
• Coretta Scott King John Steptoe New Talent Award 2019
• Anna Dewdney Read Together Award, 2019: Thank You, Omu!

Upcoming: Everybody and the Red Brick Building by Anne Wynter

From: Colorado Now: New York's Hudson Valley

6 Word Memoir: Always looking over the next mountain.

Activities: I love to travel and draw outside, spending time in nature

Distraction: I find that the best way to deal with distractions is to not have my phone with me! Whenever I'm drawing, and I'm away from my phone or computer, I find that I am much more present. 

Other Awards:

• 2017 New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Books List:  Muddy: The Story of Blues Legend Muddy Waters 
• 2017 Children's Africana Book Award: The Storyteller
• Lee Bennet Hopkins Poetry Honor: You Are Home: An Ode to the National Parks

Upcoming: A Thousand Glass Flowers: Marietta Barovier and the Invention of the Rosetta Bead, August 2020. The People’s Painter: Ben Shahn’s Artful Stories of Life in America, by Cynthia Levinson, 2021.

From:  West Chester, PA; Now: Brooklyn NY

6 Word Memoir: long baths help write short stories.

Activities: travel and read every street sign

Distraction/Procrastination: I AM the distraction!  Sorry, I have to check product reviews online now, I'll be back...

Other Awards:

• Publishers Weekly, starred review, : Now That I’m Here
• Kirkus, starred review: Take Me Out to the Yakyu
• Kirkus, starred review: Deliver

Upcoming: Tufts, Adirondack Life; Eating Well Magazines

Don Tate

From: Des Moines, IA; Now: Austin, TX

6 Word Memoir: In-person introvert. Online extrovert. Text me.

Activities: Swim. Bicep curl. Coffee with tiny pies.

How do you deal with distractions: Complain to my wife.

Other Awards:

• SCBWI Crystal Kite, a Christopher and a Texas Institute of Letters book prize: Poet

Upcoming: William Still’s Freedom Stories: Father of the Underground Railroad: Nov. 2020

From: St. Louis, MO; Now: Taos, New Mexico

6 Word Memoir: Barefoot in mountains, listening to stars

Activities: Read everyday and play with my kids

Distraction: First I clean, then I make a wild, colorful mess.

Other Awards:

• South Asian Book Award: Same, Same but Different
• CLC Book Award.
• Green Prize for Sustainable Literature: Luna & Me

Upcoming: Papa Brings Me the World, May 2020, Christy Ottaviano Books.

Micha Archer

From: Concord MA; Now: Leverett, MA
6 Word Memoir: From and for children I learn.
Activities: I walk in the mountains and plant trees and plants.
Procrastination: I am SO messy because I work in collage so my floor is covered in confetti I have snipped. When I procrastinate I make little fun collages with my scraps and wish I could just do that all day some days.
Other Awards:

• Dolly Parton Imagination Library Program: Daniel books

Upcoming: Manuscripts in development, 2021.