SC&I Dean Jorge Reina Schement presented acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers with the Rutgers SC&I Award for Distinguished Literature for Children and Young Adults at an April 27 ceremony in The Zimmerli Art Museum. The event commemorated the 10th anniversary of the New Jersey Center for the Book.
Myers is considered a towering presence whose fiction, nonfiction and poetry redefined young African American males in literature by opening to the world their confrontation with urban life and their survival against the odds. He has been called, “one of today’s most important authors of literature for youth” and “a giant among children’s and young adult authors” and "one of the most important writers of books for youth of our age.” His work has earned many accolades. His first book, “Where Does the Day Go?” was selected by the Council on Interracial Books for its Children's Award. Other works on seven occasions were among the American Library Association Notable Books for Children and five times among the ALA Best Books for Young Adults. The Child Study Association of America has twice awarded his fiction the Children’s Book of the Year. He has six times received the Coretta Scott King Award, was a Newbery Honor Book recipient twice; and, with his illustrator son Christopher, a Caldecott Honor Book recipient twice. The author was honored with two Lifetime Achievement Awards for the entire scope of his work, the first sponsored by School Library Journal, and the second by the American Library Association through the Margaret A. Edwards Foundation.
