Awards & Honors

Awards & Honors 

Book Honors

The Snowy Day
Caldecott Medal from the American Library Association, 1963 (Ezra’s Caldecott Acceptance Speech)
Film version wins Venice Film Festival Lion of Saint Mark Award for best short film for children, 1965
The New York Public Library’s Books of the Century, 1996
The Library of Congress’s Books that Shaped America, 2012
Adapted by Amazon Studios into an animated holiday special, 2016, winning two Daytime Emmys® (out of five nominations) for Outstanding Preschool Children’s Animated Program and Music Direction and Composition, 2017
Snowy Day Forever stamps (set of four) issued by the U.S. Postal Service, 2017

In a Spring Garden
Library of Congress Books of the Year, 1965

Goggles!
Caldecott Medal Honor Book, 1970

Hi, Cat!
Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for illustration, 1970

Apt. 3 and The King’s Fountain
School Library Journal’s Best Books, 1971

The Trip
Children’s Choices Award, International Reading Association and the Children’s Book Council, 1977

Child Study Association of America’s Children’s Books of the Year:

The Little Drummer Boy, 1968
A Letter to Amy, 1968
Goggles! 1969
Hi, Cat! 1970
Two Tickets to Freedom, 1971
The King’s Fountain, 1971
Apt. 3, 1971
Pet Show! 1972
Over in the Meadow, 1972
Dreams, 1974
Louie, 1975
Jennie’s Hat, 1986
Apt. 3, 1986
Regards to the Man in the Moon, 1987

Personal Honors

UNICEF invited Keats to design the agency’s first set of greeting cards (theme: peace); over one million five-card sets were sold, 1966

Guest of Honor, Second Tehran International Festival of Films for Children, where an animated film of Whistle for Willie was shown, 1967

Member of White House Forum on Child Development and the Mass Media, 1970

“Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” on PBS featured Keats as a guest four times, 1971-1974

Harvard University Gutman Library housed selected papers and illustrations of Keats, the first children’s book author-illustrator asked to donate his papers to the library, 1974-1975

University of Southern Mississippi, Silver Medallion for Outstanding Service in the Field of Children’s Literature, 1980

Keats Archives established by the de Grummond Collection of Children’s Literature, at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, 1985

UNICEF Ezra Jack Keats International Award for Excellence in Children’s Book Illustration established, 1985-1994

Ezra Jack Keats New Writers Award established by the New York Public Library, 1986

Ezra Jack Keats Bookmaking Competition established by the New York City Department of Education in collaboration with the Foundation, 1986

‟Sesame Street” featured an appearance by First Lady Barbara Bush reading aloud Peter’s Chair, 1990

American Library Association, Posthumous Honoree for Outstanding Advocacy for Libraries in the 20th Century, 2000

Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Award established by the New York Public Library, 2001

Ezra Jack Keats Family Concert established by Brooklyn Recreation, Information and Culture (BRIC) as part of its annual Celebrate Brooklyn! summer series, 2005

Society of Illustrators, Posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award, 2006

‟Ezra Jack Plot” composed by Thomas Meadowcroft, based on and featuring video stills from The Snowy Day, 2007

Induction into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame, presented by Empire State Center for the Book and the Empire State Book Festival, 2015

Locations Dedicated to Keats

Ezra Jack Keats Room, the Warrensville, Ohio, branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library, 1971-2012

Skating rink in Kiyose, Japan, named after Keats in honor of his book “Skates,” opened 1974

Ezra Jack Keats stepping-stone on the Celebrity Walk in the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, dedicated 1985

Ezra Jack Keats International School (P.S. 253) in Brooklyn, New York, attended by children from over 40 countries, renamed 1988

Bronze statue of Peter and Willie, a storytelling site in the Imagination Playground of Prospect Park, dedicated 1997, designated an honorary Literary Landmark 2016

Brass plaque commemorating Keats at the Arlington Library, in Brooklyn, where he read as a child, dedicated 1997

District 28 Pre-K Center, at four sites in Queens, New York, renamed Ezra Jack Keats Pre-K Center, 2016

Important Exhibitions

International touring exhibition organized by the United States Department of State, 1971

Ohanashi Caravan (mobile storytelling and puppetry program) tour of Japan in honor of Keats, 1973

De Grummond Children’s Literature Collection, “Hopes and Dreams: The Art of Ezra Jack Keats,” University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, 1989

Rotunda Gallery, in Brooklyn, New York, “Children’s Book Illustrators,” 1993

California African American Museum, in Los Angeles, “Lasting Impressions: Illustrating African American Children’s Books”; traveled to Cleveland, Washington, D.C., Detroit, Las Vegas, Baltimore, and New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1993-1996

New York Public Library, “An Artist’s View of Childhood: An Ezra Jack Keats Retrospective,” 1994

Brooklyn Public Library, “Children’s Artist of the City: An Ezra Jack Keats Retrospective,” 1995

Traveling exhibition to four museums in Japan, “Hope and Dreams: The Art of Ezra Jack Keats,” 1995-1996

Chrysler Museum, in Norfolk, Virginia, “Myth, Magic, and Mystery: One Hundred Years of American Children’s Book Illustration”; traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, and Wilmington, Delaware, 1996-1997

National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature, Abilene, Texas, “Ezra Jack Keats: Artscapes,” 2000-2001; traveled around the U.S. through 2003

Children’s Museum of Manhattan, “Hopes and Dreams: The Art of Ezra Jack Keats,” 2001

De Grummond Children’s Literature Collection, University of Southern Mississippi, “Collage: An Ezra Jack Keats Retrospective,” 2002

Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, New York, “Children Should Be Seen: The Image of the Child in American Picture-Book Art”; traveled to Amherst, Massachusetts, and Los Angeles, 2007-2008

Traveling exhibition, “The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats,” organized by The Jewish Museum, in New York. Toured from September 2011–September 2014, with stops at: Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, Massachusetts;  Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco; Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio; National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia; and Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles

Source: Ezra Jack Keats Foundation