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Laurie Ann Thompson

Awards

An ALA Schneider Family Award for Emmanuel’s Dream

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Schneider Award
This is old news at this point, but I’ve been so busy that I’m just now FINALLY get­ting around to post­ing it here. So, just in case you’ve been too busy to keep up with the news in the chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture indus­try, Emmanuel’s Dream has won the Schnei­der Fam­i­ly Book Award from the Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion! The pur­pose of this spe­cial award is to “hon­or an author or illus­tra­tor for the artis­tic expres­sion of the dis­abil­i­ty expe­ri­ence for child and ado­les­cent audi­ences,” so I’m extreme­ly hon­ored that the com­mit­tee select­ed Emmanuel’s Dream.
Emmanuels Dream cover with stickerThis and oth­er Youth Media Awards were announced on Jan­u­ary 11, 2016, dur­ing the Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion (ALA) Mid­win­ter Meet­ing & Exhibits in Boston and via live stream. Here in the Pacif­ic North­west, we have to get up at 5am to catch them, but it was def­i­nite­ly worth it! The award itself will be pre­sent­ed in Orlan­do dur­ing the ALA Annu­al Con­fer­ence & Exhi­bi­tion in June, and both Sean and I are both expect­ing to be able to attend.
Recip­i­ents are select­ed in three cat­e­gories: birth through grade school (age 0–8), mid­dle grade (age 9–13) and teens (age 14–18). Emmanuel’s Dream won the award for young chil­dren, which was the very first award to be announced in the entire pro­gram. Next up was Fish in a Tree, which won a mid­dle-grade award. This only added to my excite­ment, as it was writ­ten by my friend and agency sis­ter Lyn­da Mul­laly Hunt!
Schneider Award flowersThank you to all of the mem­bers of the 2016 Schnei­der Fam­i­ly Book Award com­mit­tee, includ­ing Alyson Beech­er (com­mit­tee chair), Nan­cy L. Bau­mann, Bet­sy Fras­er, Beth McGuire, Elsworth Rock­e­feller, Joan­na Tam­plin, Car­o­line Ward, and Jill Gar­cia! I’m espe­cial­ly grate­ful to Kather­ine Schnei­der and the Schnei­der fam­i­ly for spon­sor­ing this impor­tant award. It is such a huge hon­or to receive it, and I hope it will help the book find its way into the hands of more kids who need to hear its mes­sage. Thank you also to my fan­tas­tic agent, Ammi-Joan Paque­tte, for believ­ing in this sto­ry; to Sean Qualls, for illus­trat­ing it so beau­ti­ful­ly; and to every­one at Schwartz & Wade/Random House for all of their hard work and ded­i­ca­tion, which made it into the book it is today. And look, they even sent me some gor­geous flow­ers to celebrate!
Notables SealOn the heels of the Schnei­der Fam­i­ly Award, it was also announced that Emmanuel’s Dream was includ­ed on the ALA ALSC’s Notable Chil­dren’s Books list. Each year a com­mit­tee of the Asso­ci­a­tion for Library Ser­vice to Chil­dren (ALSC) iden­ti­fies the best of the best in chil­dren’s books. Accord­ing to the Nota­bles Cri­te­ria, “notable” is defined as: Wor­thy of note or notice, impor­tant, dis­tin­guished, out­stand­ing. As applied to chil­dren’s books, notable should be thought to include books of espe­cial­ly com­mend­able qual­i­ty, books that exhib­it ven­ture­some cre­ativ­i­ty, and books of fic­tion, infor­ma­tion, poet­ry and pic­tures for all age lev­els (birth through age 14) that reflect and encour­age chil­dren’s inter­ests in exem­plary ways. It’s an incred­i­ble hon­or to see Emmanuel’s Dream on that list of amaz­ing books! Thank you, ALSC!
 

Two more awards for Be a Changemaker!

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Be a Changemaker cover

Be a Changemaker cover
Be a Change­mak­er was recent­ly award­ed two more pres­ti­gious awards:
Moonbeam AwardFirst, it was rec­og­nized last month with a Moon­beam Award! These awards were cre­at­ed “to bring increased recog­ni­tion to exem­plary children’s books and their cre­ators, and to sup­port child­hood lit­er­a­cy and life-long read­ing.”  You can see the full list of win­ners here. Be a Change­mak­er was select­ed as a Gold Award win­ner in the Mind-Body-Spir­it/­Self-Esteem cat­e­go­ry. They even sent a gor­geous (and seri­ous­ly heavy) medal to wear around my neck!

Burgess Award seal
And, just today I found out it has also been award­ed a 2015 Gelett Burgess Award, too! The Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award “high­lights excel­lence in fam­i­ly-friend­ly books cov­er­ing the broad expanse of a child’s exis­tence, help­ing them grow social­ly, emo­tion­al­ly, eth­i­cal­ly, intel­lec­tu­al­ly, and phys­i­cal­ly.” Be a Change­mak­er was select­ed as the win­ner in the Lifestyle cat­e­go­ry for “Help­ing Oth­ers & Phil­an­thropy.” Look how pretty!
Burgess Award Be a Changemaker display

Eureka! Nonfiction Honor Award for Emmanuel’s Dream

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EMMANUEL'S DREAM cover

EMMANUEL'S DREAM cover
I’m thrilled to announce that Emmanuel’s Dream: The True Sto­ry of Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah has been select­ed to receive a 2015 Eure­ka! Hon­or Book Award from the Cal­i­for­nia Read­ing Asso­ci­a­tion.
The Cal­i­for­nia Read­ing Asso­ci­a­tion has estab­lished this award to cel­e­brate and hon­or non­fic­tion children’s books. The Eure­ka! Non­fic­tion Children’s Book Award will assist teach­ers, librar­i­ans, and par­ents in iden­ti­fy­ing out­stand­ing non­fic­tion books for their stu­dents and children.
And, it means a shiny new stick­er for the cover! 🙂
Eureka Honor AwardEmmanuel’s Dream is in some excel­lent com­pa­ny, too! Click here for the full list of win­ners. I guar­an­tee you find some great non­fic­tion for kids (which means it’s great for adults, too!).

Be a Changemaker wins COVR Book of the Year!

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BaC at COVR awards-DSC_5012-2Each year the Coali­tion of Vision­ary Resources gives Vision­ary Awards to win­ners select­ed from the best prod­ucts in the Mind/Body/Spirit mar­ket­place. The 18th Annu­al Vision­ary Awards were announced at the INATS Awards Ban­quet on June 27, 2015.BaC at COVR awards-DSC_4627
I’m beyond thrilled to share that Be a Change­mak­er: How to Start Some­thing that Mat­ters was select­ed not only as the Best Chil­dren’s and Teen’s Book, but it was also named COV­R’s Book of the Year!

BaC COVR BotY

 

Whit­ney Dif­f­endor­fer, Mar­ket­ing Direc­tor at Beyond Words, with the award

First Book selects Emmanuel’s Dream for #StoriesForAll

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Emmanuel's Dream cover

FirstBook logoFirstBook.org is an orga­ni­za­tion that helps kids in need get access to new books of their very own. I’m a huge fan of what they do and have per­son­al­ly sup­port­ed their mis­sion for a long time, so it’s an incred­i­ble hon­or to have one of my books select­ed for their mar­ket­place. It’s an even big­ger hon­or to have one of my books select­ed for their new diver­si­ty cam­paign, called Sto­ries for All. Accord­ing to their webpage,

First Book’s Sto­ries for All Project™ Arms Edu­ca­tors with Diverse, Inclu­sive Children’s Books to Fuel Learn­ing, Pro­mote Edu­ca­tion­al Equi­ty.

With Sup­port from Top Busi­ness Lead­ers, Non­prof­it Launch­es 60,000 New-to-Paper­back Books, as Part of its Mar­ket-Dri­ven Solu­tion to Make Diverse Sto­ries Afford­able and Rel­e­vant for Those Serv­ing Chil­dren in Need.

Emmanuel's Dream coverWhat that means is that teach­ers and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als who work with under­priv­i­leged chil­dren can now request a spe­cial edi­tion of Emmanuel’s Dream for just $3.30, which means more chil­dren will get a chance to read about Emmanuel’s sto­ry and hope­ful­ly be inspired to fol­low their own dreams!
Short­ly after the announce­ment, First­Book host­ed a Twit­ter chat about diver­si­ty in chil­dren’s books with fel­low #Sto­ries­ForAll author Jes­sixa Bagley and I. You can read the tran­script here.
Please help me cheer on First­Book, along with their spon­sors and part­ners, for rec­og­niz­ing the need for diverse books for kids and their ongo­ing com­mit­ment to get­ting books into the hands of the chil­dren who need them most. And, if you wish to make a finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion, you can do so here. Thanks!

Be a Changemaker wins a Crystal Kite Award!

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Be a Changemaker cover

Be a Changemaker coverIt’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.

Be a Changemaker is a Cybils award finalist!

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I woke up this morn­ing to news that Be a Change­mak­er made the list of final­ists for the 2014 Chil­dren’s and Young Adult Blog­ger’s Lit­er­ary Award, bet­ter known as the Cybils, in the Non­fic­tion for Young Adults cat­e­go­ry. What a way to kick off 2015!
The nom­i­na­tions in this cat­e­go­ry were var­ied and impres­sive, and the books that made the final­ist list are tru­ly among the best I’ve read all year. It’s an incred­i­ble hon­or to have my book in such amaz­ing company!

Alice + Freda cover Alice + Fre­da For­ev­er: A Mur­der in Mem­phis by Alex­is Coe
Be a Changemaker cover Be a Change­mak­er: How to Start Some­thing That Mat­ters by Lau­rie Ann Thompson
Beyond Magenta cover Beyond Magen­ta: Trans­gen­der Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin
Popular cover Pop­u­lar: Vin­tage Wis­dom for a Mod­ern Geek by Maya Van Wagenen
Family Romanov cover The Fam­i­ly Romanov: Mur­der, Rebel­lion, and the Fall of Impe­r­i­al Rus­sia by Can­dace Fleming
Freedom Summer Murders cover The Free­dom Sum­mer Mur­ders by Don Mitchell
Port Chicago 50 cover The Port Chica­go 50: Dis­as­ter, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civ­il Rights by Steve Sheinkin

Thanks, Pat Ziet­low Miller, for nom­i­nat­ing it in the first place. Thanks, Stephanie Charlefour at Love. Life. Read., for the final­ist write-up, and to the entire pan­el (also includ­ing Aaron Mau­r­er from Cof­fee for the Brain, Michelle Lock­wood from Blogs Like a Girl, Karen Ball from Mrs. B’s Favorites, and Danyelle Leach from Book­shelves in the Cul-de–Sac) for read­ing, con­sid­er­ing, and ulti­mate­ly select­ing it. I’ve been a first round Cybils judge twice and am a sec­ond round judge in a dif­fer­ent cat­e­go­ry this year, so I know what a lot of hard work and ded­i­ca­tion goes into it! Final­ly, thanks to the peo­ple who keep the Cybils run­ning. It’s one of my favorite awards in chil­dren’s books as a read­er, author, and judge. I’m always glad to be a part of it, so hav­ing my own book make that final­ist list means even more to me. Kidlit blog­gers ROCK! 🙂

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