Thursday, February 12, 2009

Good News from the Coretta Scott King Award Committee!

Okay, I admit, it's been a while since my last update, Oct. '08 in fact, but rest assured my pencils and paintbrushes have not been resting on their laurels! I recently finished a project for Random House, Who Will I Be, Lord?, set for an Oct. '09 pub date. It's a little different than most of my previous books, but more about it later. I'm also busy working on a couple other projects that will appear on bookshelves in 2010. But the real "giant" (hint, hint) news that I'm happy to report, is that I received the Coretta Scott King Award Honor for Before John Was A Giant! The call came early Monday morning Jan. 26th and I'm a little embarrassed to say that I was still in bed when a very enthusiastic Coretta Scott King Award committee announced the news over the phone.

Oh no, maybe I'm still sleeping and this is all a dream...The Coretta Scott King Award was given to Floyd Cooper for The Blacker The Berry. Kadir Nelson: We Are the Ship and Jerry Pinkney: The Moon Over Star were also given honors and Shadra Strickland won the John Steptoe New Talent Award for Bird. I'm so honored to be included with such talented people! The video for the announcements can be seen here - awards video. And if you're interested, here's a video of the ALA Committees calling the various award winners. View award calls here. - pretty cool.
In addition, Before John Was a Jazz Giant was also named an ALA Notable book for 2009.

2 comments:

Selina Alko said...

WOO HOO!!! Can't wait for ALA. You rock!

Paul Hoppe said...

Hey Sean!
Congrats again for the CSK Award. That's just so cool.
And thanks for your nice post on my little blog!
Hope to see you guys again at the next event!