Keats Illustrator Award Goes to Shadra Strickland

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By Rocco Staino -- School Library Journal, 02/16/2009

Shadra Strickland was recently named the Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator of 2009, just weeks after receiving the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award on January 26, 2008 for her illustrations in the picture book Bird (Lee & Low, 2008).

Shadra Strickland was recently named the Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator of 2009.

The honors were the furthest things from Strickland’s mind when she and I first met last June on a return flight to New York from the American Library Association conference in San Diego. At the time, she was an enthusiastic young passenger sharing the proofs of her drawings for Bird with her seatmate.

Written by Zetta Elliot, Bird is the name of a young boy whose loving family, friends, and a gift for drawing help him cope with the death of his grandfather and his drug-addicted brother.

In an SLJ review, the late Kate McClelland said the book’s illustrations “rendered with a delicate touch in watercolor, gouache, charcoal, and pen emphasize the textual theme of resilience in adversity.”

The Ezra Jack Keats Book Award for authors, established in 1985, and the illustrator award, created in 2001, recognizes and encourages authors and illustrators new to the field of children’s books and is jointly awarded by the New York Public Library and the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation.

Shortly after the book won the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award , Lee & Low had exhausted its first 5,000-copy print run, and the book is now in its second printing.

Another benefit of winning the awards was that Strickland saw the number of her friends on Facebook “double overnight,” she told SLJ. And authors and publishers are seeking her out for more work. “In addition to all the recognition to my work, my biggest thrill was having Jacqueline Woodson request me to illustrate one of her books!”

In the meantime, Strickland is working on a book for Candlewick entitled White Water, followed by a book for Random House with the working title Hurricane.

Despite all the accolades for her work, her work was not accepted into the 2008 Society of Illustrators annual show. But she'll have another shot in 2009.

Stian Hole, of Norway, won the Ezra Jack Keats New Author Award of 2009 for his book Garmann's Summer (Eerdman, 2008), which deals with how a boy copes with his fears at the beginning of school. The book was also named a Batchelder Honor and won the Bologna Ragazzi Award for excellence in international children's book publishing.

The Ezra Jack Keats award, a silver medal, and a $1,000 honorarium, will be presented in New York City on April 30th.