2012 Ezra Jack Keats Book Award
Writer Award
Tía Isa Wants a Car, Meg Medina, Candlewick Press
A young girl in Queens, New York, and her aunt Isa save up for a car that will take them to the beach—and remind them of the family that is still far away.
“I’m about strong girls, tough circumstances, and the connecting power of culture,” says Meg Medina about her books for young people. Her first picture book, which brings Meg the EJK New Writer Award for 2012, is based on her own memories of growing up in a storytelling Cuban family in New York. She was drawn to the genre, she says, because of its hopefulness. Meg lives with her family in Richmond, Virginia. Her latest book, The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind, was published in early 2012.
Illustrator Award
Same Same but Different, Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw, Christy Ottoviano/Henry Holt
Elliott, an American schoolboy, is a pen pal of Kailash, in India. Through their drawings and letters, these best friends share the similarities and differences of their worlds.
“Same, same but different” is a phrase Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw learned while teaching in Nepal and traveling in India and Thailand—a way of looking at different cultures and of bridging the distance between them. Jenny Sue has traveled extensively in Asia and currently lives in northern New Mexico with her family. She wrote and illustrated Same, Same but Different, which earns her both the EJK New Illustrator Award and a New Writer Honor.
2012 Ezra Jack Keats Book Award Committee
- Rita Auerbach, Chair
- Miriam Lang Budin
- Nina Crews
- Pat Cummings
- Barbara Genco
- Ginny Moore Kruse
- Marisabina Russo
- Karen Patricia Smith
- Lisa Von Drasek
Ex Officio Members
- EJK Foundation: Deborah Pope
- USM, Curator, de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection: Ellen Ruffin
- USM, Dean of University Libraries: Carole Kiehl
