New York Times best-selling author Laurie Halse Anderson is the winner of the Tulsa Library Trust’s 2017 Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers’ Literature. She will accept the award at a public presentation at Hardesty Regional Library’s Connor’s Cove, 8316 E. 93rd St., Friday, May 5, at 7 p.m. She also will present awards to winners of the 2017 Young People’s Creative Writing Contest at the ceremony.
Tulsa County teachers are invited to attend Mr. Henry’s Books Teacher Workshop, Jan. 28, 2017, 9-11 a.m., at Central Library, Fifth Street and Denver Avenue, Pocahontas Greadington Learning and Creativity Center. Registration is $10 and includes a continental breakfast, 50 copies of Chains by Anderson and lesson plans on how to incorporate the work of Anderson in school subjects. One lucky participant will win a classroom visit from Anderson on May 5, 2017. For more information on registering for the workshop, call TulsaKids Magazine, 918-582-8504.
Anderson is being recognized for writing more than 18 books of fiction and nonfiction for “children of all ages” that address life’s challenges with honesty, humor and sensitivity.
Speak, her first young adult novel published in 1999, won the Edgar Allen Poe Award and the Los Angeles Time Book Prize, and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Actress Kristen Stewart starred the film of the same name in 2005, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Anderson has a cameo in the film as the lunch lady.
Chains, a book in her trilogy of the American Revolution, was awarded the 2009 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction and chosen as a 2008 National Book Award finalist. Forge and Ashes complete the Seeds of America trilogy.
Wintergirls was selected as an American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults. Readers and reviewers welcomed its honest portrayal of anorexia.
For her 2013 book, The Impossible Knife of Memory, Anderson details the challenges of post-traumatic stress disorder and the long-term effects it can have on a family.
The American Library Association presented her with the Margaret A. Edwards Award in 2009. This award recognizes an author for their lasting achievements in young adult literature.
The Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers’ Literature gives formal recognition, on behalf of the Tulsa County community, to a nationally acclaimed author who has made a significant contribution to the field of literature for young adults. The award, presented by the Tulsa Library Trust, consists of a $7,500 cash prize and an engraved crystal book.
Past winners include: Gordon Korman (2016), Sharon Draper (2015), Jack Gantos (2014), Jim Murphy (2013), Jacqueline Woodson (2012), Kathryn Lasky (2011), Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (2010), Christopher Paul Curtis (2009), Louis Sachar (2008), Kate DiCamillo (2007), Sharon Creech (2006), Avi (2005), Susan Cooper (2004), Russell Freedman (2003), Richard Peck (2002), E.L. Konigsburg (2001), Jerry Spinelli (2000), Jane Yolen (1999), Cynthia Voigt (1998), Gary Paulsen (1997), Walter Dean Myers (1996), Lois Lowry (1994), Katherine Paterson (1993), Madeleine L’Engle (1992) and S.E. Hinton (1991).
For more information on the Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers’ Literature or Mr. Henry’s Books Teacher Workshop, call the AskUs Hotline, 918-549-7323, or visit the library’s website, www.tulsalibrary.org.
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