This month’s cover subject was a fairly easy choice. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Margaret A. Edwards Award. So we took the opportunity in the June issue, dedicating much of the feature well to a celebration of young adult literature. Illustrator Caitlin Kuhwald, who depicted some historical figures of note in our January 2018 story “History Has Its Eyes on Her,” got the cover assignment. Six winners of the Edwards Award are pictured, along with the honor’s namesake. They are:

1. S.E. Hinton (who won the inaugural Edwards Award in 1988)
2. Walter Dean Myers (1994)
3. Judy Blume (1996)
4. Ursula LeGuin (2004)
5. Jacqueline Woodson (2006)
6. Angela Johnson (2018)
7. Margaret A. Edwards  

The annual Margaret A. Edwards award honors an author for her or his “significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature” and is administered by YALSA (the Young Adult Library Services Association) and sponsored by School Library Journal. SLJ’s coverage: The Margaret A. Edwards Award and 30 Years of Young Adult Literature  Margaret Edwards Award Winner Angela Johnson Just Wants To Tell a Good Story From “The Outsiders” to “The First Part Last”: A Margaret A. Edwards Award Time Line  The Legacy of Margaret A. Edwards and the Birth of an Award   To see Kuhwald’s initial cover sketches, visit our Instagram.