Margaret Edwards Award
The Margaret A. Edwards Award is an American Library Association literary award that annually recognizes an author and "a specific body of his or her work, for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature". It is named for Margaret A. Edwards, the pioneer, longtime director of young adult services at Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore.
The award was inaugurated in 1988 as the biennial "School Library Journal Young Adult Author Award/Selected and Administered by the American Library Association's Young Adult Services Division". After 1990 it was renamed and made annual. It continues to be sponsored by School Library Journal and administered by the Young Adult Library Services Association, descendant of YASD. The winner is announced during the ALA midwinter meeting and the citation and $2000 cash prize are presented at a luncheon during the ALA annual conference.
Angela Johnson is the 29th Edwards Award winner, announced February 12, 2018.
History and criteria
The "young adult" class of books developed in library collections and publisher promotions, and young adult literature became a "respected field of study", in the second half of the twentieth century. When School Library Journal initiated the award for YA writers, the ALA awards program recognized the YA class only by annual lists of recommended books, the Best Books for Young Adults and a list "for the reluctant YA reader". Chief editor Lillian N. Gerhardt determined that SLJ should merely sponsor the award and recruited the ALA Young Adult Services Division to administer it.The official name of the award approved in 1986 was unusually long even with initialisms, "The SLJ Young Adult Author Award/Selected and Administered by the ALA's YASD". In the 1988 and 1990 award citations as presented online decades later, it is called the "Young Adult Services Division/School Library Journal Author Achievement Award". During the third cycle it was made annual and renamed for the recently deceased Edwards.
As of the fourth cycle, 1991/1992, the committee was charged to select "a living author or co-author whose book or books, over a period of time, have been accepted by young people as an authentic voice that continues to illuminate their experiences and emotions, giving insight into their lives." Among other specific criteria, the body of work should have "acceptable literary quality" and be "currently popular with a wide range of young adults in the many different parts of the country". Furthermore, the winner must "agree to personally accept the award at the following Annual Conference", about five months after the selection.
SLJ editor Gerhardt covered the award at least once, in an editorial at the time of inaugural presentation to S. E. Hinton. For some time beginning 1990, the June issue of SLJ covered the current award and carried an interview with the preceding winner.
Winners
The award has been conferred 25 times in the 26 years through 2013. The honored writers have been natives and lifelong residents of the United States except Anne McCaffrey, Terry Pratchett, Susan Cooper, and Markus Zusak.| Year | Author | Body of work |
| 2020 | Steve Sheinkin | The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism, & Treachery |
| 2019 | M.T. Anderson | Feed ' ' |
| 2018 | Toning the Sweep Heaven Looking for Red The First Part Last Bird Sweet, Hereafter | |
| 2017 | Keeping the Moon Dreamland This Lullaby The Truth About Forever Just Listen Along for the Ride What Happened to Goodbye | |
| 2016 | Boy Meets Boy The Realm of Possibility Wide Awake Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist How They Met, and Other Stories Love is the Higher Law | |
| 2015 | Tears of a Tiger Forged by Fire Darkness Before Dawn Battle of Jericho Copper Sun November Blues | |
| 2014 | The Book Thief Fighting Ruben Wolfe Getting the Girl I Am the Messenger | |
| 2013 | The Song of the Lioness • ' • In the Hand of the Goddess • The Woman Who Rides Like a Man • Lioness Rampant Protector of the Small • First Test • Page • Squire • Lady Knight | |
| 2012 | The Dark Is Rising Sequence • Over Sea, Under Stone • The Dark Is Rising • Greenwitch • The Grey King • Silver on the Tree | |
| 2011 | The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents The Wee Free Men A Hat Full of Sky Going Postal The Colour of Magic Guards! Guards! Equal Rites Mort Small Gods | |
| 2010 | The Great Fire ' The Long Road to GETTYSBURG BLIZZARD! The Storm That Changed America An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 | |
| 2009 | Speak Fever, 1793 Catalyst | |
| 2008 | Ender's Game Ender's Shadow | |
| 2007 | The Giver | |
| 2006 | I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun If You Come Softly Lena Miracle's Boys | |
| 2005 | Weetzie Bat Witch Baby Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys Missing Angel Juan Baby Be-Bop | |
| 2004 | A Wizard of Earthsea The Left Hand of Darkness The Tombs of Atuan The Farthest Shore The Beginning Place Tehanu | |
| 2003 | Annie on My Mind | |
| 2002 | The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds: A Drama in Two Acts The Pigman My Darling, My Hamburger The Pigman's Legacy The Pigman & Me | |
| 2001 | The Contender The Brave The Chief One Fat Summer | |
| 2000 | Running Loose Stotan! The Crazy Horse Electric Game Chinese Handcuffs Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes | |
| 1999 | Dragonflight The Ship Who Sang Dragonquest Dragonsong Dragonsinger The White Dragon Dragondrums | |
| 1998 | Meet the Austins A Wrinkle In Time A Swiftly Tilting Planet A Ring of Endless Light | |
| 1997 | Dancing Carl Hatchet The Crossing The Winter Room Canyons Woodsong | |
| 1996 | Forever | |
| 1995 | Homecoming Dicey's Song A Solitary Blue Building Blocks The Runner Jackaroo Izzy, Willy-Nilly | |
| 1994 | Hoops Motown and Didi Fallen Angels Scorpions | |
| 1993 | Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! Gentlehands Me Me Me Me Me: Not a Novel Night Kites | |
| 1992 | ||
| 1991 | The Chocolate War I Am the Cheese After the First Death | |
| 1990 | Are You in the House Alone? The Ghost Belonged to Me Ghosts I Have Been Father Figure Secrets of the Shopping Mall Remembering the Good Times | |
| 1989 | ||
| 1988 | The Outsiders That Was Then This Is Now Tex Rumble Fish |
Multiple awards
No one has won both the Edwards Award and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, which the ALA children's division awards for "substantial and lasting contributions to children's literature".Four Edwards winners have been selected by ALSC to deliver its annual May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture: Susan Cooper in 2001, Ursula K. Le Guin in 2004, Walter Dean Myers in 2009, and Lois Lowry in 2011. ALSC considers the Arbuthnot selection, inaugurated in 1970, another career award for contribution to children's literature. The lecturer prepares and delivers —currently about 16 months after selection— "a paper considered to be a significant contribution to the field of children's literature", which is also published in the ALSC journal.