2021 Ezra Jack Keats Award

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Tricia Elam Walker

“My mother, a children’s librarian, desperately sought books that reflected the experiences of black people and was bereft at the dearth. She wanted them for all children because she believed the world would be a better place if our value was understood.

When The Snowy Day appeared, we celebrated the warm velvety brown of Peter and the quiet ordinariness of the story itself. It didn’t shout it’s arrival; it preferred a measured tone so readers gently learned the lessons of diversity and acceptance embedded in those pages. I thought of my mother first when I learned I won the EJK award.

Thank you EJK Award Committee. This means that my mission to illuminate and celebrate difference is appreciated and that perhaps more children of all colors will embrace it.”

Nana Akua Goes to School

It’s Grandparents Day for Zura’s class! Her classmates brag about their grandparents. But Zura worries her friends will be alarmed by the traditional West African marks on her beloved Nana’s face. This story focuses on how differences can inspire fear and how fear can be dispelled with understanding.

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Heidi Woodward Sheffield

“I don’t set out to write a particular story. The story finds me. Sometimes it starts with a word, a texture, or a picture. One day, passing by a construction site, I saw a bricklayer pick up a heavy cinder block and pause silhouetted against the sky. And a young boy’s voice came into my head: ‘My papi is strong. He’s a bricklayer. His arms are like stone.’ And Brick by Brick was born. The story of a young boy so proud of his papi and how they worked together to achieve their dreams bit by bit and brick by brick.”

“I am so incredibly honored to receive the Ezra Jack Keats Award. To me, the most powerful thing about Keats was his belief that all children need and deserve to see themselves represented in books, especially at this moment in time.”

Brick by Brick

Luis’s papi builds the buildings that make the city. Luis is proud of his papi’s strength and his family’s goals. This joyous story is beautifully told through clear, poetic text and vivid illustrations. The story’s culminating event confirms everything Luis has said about his papi and family.

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Writer Award Honoree
Raymond Antrobus
Can Bears Ski?
Illustrated by Polly Dunbar
Candlewick Press
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Writer Award Honoree
Jarrett & Jerome Pumphrey
The Old Truck
Norton Young Readers

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Illustrator Award Honoree
Victoria Tentler-Krylov
The Cyclops of Central Park
Written by Madelyn Rosenberg
G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers

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llustrator Award Award Honoree
Steve Small
I'm Sticking With You
Written by Smriti Prasadam-Halls
Godwin Books
2021 EJK Awards Poster.p1.pdf

2021 Ezra Jack Keats Award Committee:

Rita Auerbach, Chair

Jennifer Brown

Pat Cummings

Carmen Agra Deedy

Dr. Claudette McLinn

Vaunda Nelson

Melissa Sweet

Chris Raschka

Deborah Taylor