Blog Post
Fast Fact Friday: Which Jersey shore town saw the founding of a prestigious book award?
Tracey from Rhyme and Reason Books • February 5, 2021
The Miss America Pageant isn’t the only awards program to arise from Atlantic City, New Jersey. Fifty-two years ago the prestigious Coretta Scott King Book Award for children’s literature got its start in this city by the sea as well. It came about during the 1969 annual conference of the American Library Association.
The story goes that the day before the Newbery and Caldecott awards were to be announced, book publisher John Carroll overheard school librarians Glyndon Flynt Greer and Mable McKissick saying there should be a way to recognize the talents of Black authors. He suggested they establish their own award. As school librarians so often do, they worked their magic. They found sponsors, created a committee, and named the award in honor of the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King. The award would be given to “outstanding African American authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults that demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture and universal human values.”
The first recipient was Lillie Patterson, a Baltimore public school teacher with an exceptional gift for storytelling. She received the award at the New Jersey Library Association’s annual banquet in 1970 for her book, “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Man of Peace.” Over the course of her career, Patterson wrote 16 children’s books, many of them biographies. You can see a vintage copy of one of her books in my shop. This 1964 children’s book, “Frederick Douglass Freedom Fighter” is alight not just with the passion of the title character and Patterson’s prose, but also with the bright chartreuse and orange period design on the dust jacket.
Just like the Miss America title, the Coretta Scott King Award is presented elsewhere these days. Its recipients are named annually along with the Newbery and Caldecott winners at the American Library Association’s midwinter meeting, which moves from city to city each year. Last week, author Jacqueline Woodson and illustrator Frank Morrison became the latest recipients, joining the likes of Patterson, Toni Morrison, Mildred D. Taylor, Virginia Hamilton, and Jerry Pinkney.
About the author: Tracey fell in love with old children's books when she was nine, and that was that. Her shop, Rhyme and Reason Books, sells vintage children's books and ephemera on Etsy for collectors, crafters, and decorators. As a writer, literacy instructor, and library volunteer, she donates a portion of every sale to children's literacy initiatives to foster the next generation of readers.
I haven't posted for Fast Fact Friday in a long time, but while researching the origins of these antique cartes de visite this week, I learned about a fascinating early photographer and had to share! Cartes de visite are small photographs mounted on heavy card stock that were used in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as calling cards -- comparable to the business cards of today but for social purposes. The backs often featured the name and address of the photographer. I'm always curious about the items I buy for my vintage shop and try to learn as much about them as I can before I post them on Etsy. I noticed the photographer's name at the bottom of the photos. So I turned over the portrait of the couple. Nothing but the name of the woman in the photo, an ancestor of the person from whom I bought the photos. I checked the back of the portrait of the girl. Nothing. Then I turned over the photo in the center and found the most gorgeous business card for Maria Tesch's portrait studio. Don't you love the typography?
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Can you name the beloved children's book that opens with each of the lines below?