Be a Changemaker wins a Crystal Kite Award!

It’s a huge hon­or to announce that Be a Change­mak­er has won the Soci­ety of Chil­dren’s Book Writ­ers & Illus­tra­tors’ (SCBWI) Crys­tal Kite Award for the West divi­sion, which includes Washington/Oregon/Alaska/Idaho/Montana/North Dakota/South Dako­ta! This award is vot­ed on by oth­er SCBWI mem­bers, who are also authors and illus­tra­tors, so it’s espe­cial­ly reward­ing to be recognized.
Win­ning is a bit bit­ter­sweet, though. First, there were so many great books in the over­all list of eli­gi­ble titles (includ­ing the one I vot­ed for, which did­n’t make the finals). Sec­ond, the oth­er three final­ists are all fan­tas­tic books, writ­ten by a trio of love­ly authors whom I’m glad to call my friends. I hon­est­ly would’ve been just as hap­py to see any of these fine books win as I am to see my own. If you haven’t seen these yet, please check them out!

This year’s Crys­tal Kite Award announce­ment was excit­ing for anoth­er rea­son, too. My friend and agent-sis­ter Tara Dair­man won the South­west divi­sion with her book, All Four Stars! I love All Four Stars, and I’m thrilled to see it get this recog­ni­tion. Con­grat­u­la­tions, Tara!

It was also pret­ty great to see so many awe­some non­fic­tion books mak­ing the list this year. Here are some of my favorites:

California/Hawaii	New Eng­land	New York

 
Thank you to all who vot­ed! For a com­plete list of all the 2015 win­ners, click here.