40th NAACP Image Awards for Literature

The NAACP Image Awards is the NAACP’s premier event celebrating the outstanding achievements and performances of people of color in the arts (motion picture, television, recording, and literature), as well as those individuals or groups who promote social justice through their creative endeavors.

Outstanding Literary Work – Fiction

“Blood Colony: A Novel” – Tananarive Due (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster)
“Going Down South: A Novel” – Bonnie J. Glover (Random House/One World/Ballentine)
“In the Night of the Heat: A Tennyson Hardwick Novel” – Blair Underwood, Tananarive Due, Steven Barnes (Atria Books/ Simon & Schuster)
“Just Too Good to Be True” – E. Lynn Harris (Doubleday)
“Song Yet Sung” – James McBride (Riverhead Books)

Outstanding Literary Work – Non-Fiction

“Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom” – Cornel West (Smiley Books)
“Letter to My Daughter” – Maya Angelou (Random House)
“Moving to Higher Ground” – Wynton Marsalis, Geoffrey Ward (Random House)
“The Sea is So Wide And My Boat Is So Small” – Marian Wright Edelman (Hyperion)
“There’s No Traffic on the Extra Mile: Lessons on the Road From Dreams to Destiny” – Rickey Minor (Gotham Books)

Outstanding Literary Work – Debut Author

“Barack, Race, and the Media: Drawing My Own Conclusion” – David Glenn Brown (David G. Brown Studios)
“The Beautiful Struggle” – Ta-Nehisi Coates (Spiegel and Grau)
“Homeroom Heroes: Freshman Edition” – Michael B. Jordan, Rahfeal Gordan (RahGor Publishing)
“No Way Home” – Carlos Acosta (Scribner)
“War of the Blood In My Veins” – Dashaun “Jiwe” Morris (Scribner)

Outstanding Literary Work – Biography/Auto-Biography

“21 Nights” – Prince (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster)
“Baldwin’s Harlem: A Biography of James Baldwin” – Herb Boyd (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster)
“The Black List” – Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Elvis Mitchell (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster)
“The Legs Are The Last To Go” – Diahann Carroll (Amistad)
“Maya Angelou: A Glorious Celebration” – Marcia Ann Gillespie, Rosa Johnson Butler, Richard A. Long (Doubleday)

Outstanding Literary Work – Instructional

“32 Ways To Be A Champion In Business” – Earvin “Magic” Johnson (Crown Business)
“The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life” – Kevin Powell (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster)
“Dining In” – G. Garvin (Meredith Books)
“Good is not Enough and Other Unwritten Rules for Minority Professionals” – Keith R. Wyche (Portfolio/Centennial)
“Tapping the Power Within: A Path To Self-Empowerment For Women” – Iyanla Vanzant (Smiley Books)

Outstanding Literary Work – Poetry

“Hardheaded Weather” – Cornelius Eady (Marian Wood Books)
“Hip Hop Speaks To Children: A Celebration of “Poetry With A Beat” – Nikki Giovanni (Source Books/Jabberwocky)
“Honoring the Ancestors” – James Cherry (Third World Press)
“Things I Must Have Known” – A B Spellman (Coffee House Press)
“Warhorses” – Yusef Komunyakaa (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Outstanding Literary Work – Children

“Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem” – Maya Angelou (illustrators – Lou Fancher & Steven Johnson) (Schwartz & Wade)
“Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope” – Nikki Grimes, (illustrator – Bryan Collier) (Simon & Schuster)
“Say a Little Prayer” – Dionne Warwick, David Freeman Wooley, Tonya Bolden, (illustrator – Soud) (Running Press)
“We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball” – Kadir Nelson (Disney Publishing)
“You Can Do It!” – Tony Dungy, (illustrator – Amy June Bates) (Simon & Schuster)

Outstanding Literary Work – Youth/Teens

“Beacon Hills High” – Mo’Nique Hicks, Sherri McGee McCovey (Amistad)
“Joseph” – Shelia P. Moses (Simon & Schuster)
“Letters To A Young Sister: Define Your Destiny” – Hill Harper (Gotham Books)
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s American Heroes: Robert Smalls, The Boat Thief” – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., (illustrator Patrick Faricy) (Disney Hyperion)
“Sugar Plum Ballerinas: Plum Fantastic” – Whoopi Goldberg, Deborah Underwood, (illustrator – Maryn Roos) (Disney Publishing)

2009 Coretta Scott King Book Awards

Monday, January 26, 2009
Announcing the 2009 Coretta Scott King Book Award Recipients

Given to African American authors and illustrator for outstanding inspirational and educational contributions, the Coretta Scott King Book Award titles promote understanding and appreciation of the culture of all peoples and their contribution to the realization of the American dream.

The award is designed to commemorate the life and works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and to honor Mrs. Coretta Scott King for her courage and determination to continue the work for peace and world brotherhood.
More about the Coretta Scott King Book Awards

Author Award

Kadir Nelson
We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball
published by Jump at the Sun/Hyperion Books for Children, an imprint of Disney Book Group

Author Honor Books

Hope Anita Smith
Keeping the Night Watch
published by Henry Holt and Company

Joyce Carol Thomas
The Blacker the Berry
published by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

Carole Boston Weatherford
Becoming Billie Holiday
published by Wordsong, an imprint of Boyds Mills Press, Inc

Illustrator Award

Floyd Cooper
The Blacker the Berry
published by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

Illustrator Honor Books

Kadir Nelson
We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball
published by Jump at the Sun/Hyperion Books for Children, an imprint of Disney Book Group

Jerry Pinkney
The Moon Over Star
published by Dial Books for Young Readers, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group

Sean Qualls
Before John Was a Jazz Giant
published by Henry Holt and Company

John Steptoe Awards for New Talent

These books affirm new talent and offer visibility to excellence in writing or illustration at the beginning of a career as a published book creator.

Shadra Strickland
Bird
published by Lee & Low Books

Ashley Bryan: Words to My Life’s Song

Ashley Bryan: Words to My Life’s Song
by Ashley Bryan (Illustrator), Bill McGuinness (Photographer)

Available 01/06/09

Ashley’s autobiography is full of art, photographs, and the poignant never-say-never tale of his rich life, a life that has always included drawing and painting. Even as a boy growing up during the Depression, he painted — finding cast off objects to turn into books and kites and toy and art. Even as a solder in the segregated Army on the beaches of Normandy, he sketched — keeping charcoal crayons and paper in his gasmask to draw with during lulls. Even as a talented, visionary art student who was accepted and then turned away from college upon arrival, the school telling Ashley that to give a scholarship to an African American student would be a waste, he painted — continuing to create art when he could have been discouraged, continuing to polish his talents when his spirit should have been beaten. Ashley went on to become a Hans Christian Anderson Award nominee, a May Hill Arbuthnot lecturer, and a multiple Coretta Scott King award winner. As you might imagine, his story is powerful, bursting with his creative energy, and a testament to believing in oneself. It’s a book every child in America should have access to and it does what the very best autobiographies do; it inspires!