Carter G. Woodson Book Award Winners

Carter G. Woodson Book Award and Honor* Book Recipients

2008

Elementary Level Award Winner
Louis Sockalexis: Native American Baseball Pioneer
Bill Wise
Ill. Bill Farnsworth
Published by Lee & Low Books, Inc.

Elementary Level Honor Book
Surfer of the Century
Ellie Crowe
Ill. Richard Waldrep
Published by Lee & Low Books, Inc.

Middle Level Award Winner
Black and White Airmen: Their True History
John Fleischman
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company

Middle Level Honor Book
Sophisticated Ladies: The Great Women of Jazz
Leslie Gourse
Ill. Martin French
Published by Dutton Children’s Book
(Division of Penguin Young Readers Group)

Secondary Level Award Winner
Don’t Throw Away Your Stick Till You Cross the River: The Journey of an Ordinary Man
Vincent Collin Beach (with Anni Beach)
Published by Five Star Publications, Inc.

Secondary Level Honor Book
United States v. Amistad: Slave Ship Mutiny
Susan Dudley Gold
Published by Marshall Cavendish Benchmark

2007

Elementary Level Honor Book
Gordon Parks: No Excuses by Ann Parr, Photographs by Gordon Parks
(Pelican Publishing Col, Gretna, LA)

Middle Level Award Winner
Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Russell Freedman
(Holiday House Publishers, New York, NY)

Middle Level Honor Book
Up Before Daybreak: Cotton and People in America by Deborah Hopkinson
(Scholastic, Inc., New York, NY)

Secondary Level Award Winner
Dear Miss Breed: True Stories of the Japanese-American Incarceration During World War II and a Librarian Who Made a Difference by Joanne Oppenheim
(Scholastic, Inc., New York, NY)

Secondary Level Honor Book
Growing Season: The Life of a Migrant Community Photographs by Gary Harwood, Text by David Hassler
(The Kent State University Press, Kent, OH)

2006

Elementary Level Honor Book
Roberto Clemente: Pride of the Pittsburgh Pirates by Jonah Winter,
illustrated by Raúl Colón
(Atheneum Books for Young Readers, New York, NY)

Middle Level Award Winner
César Chávez: A Voice for Farmworkers by Bárbara Cruz
(Enslow Publishers, Inc., Berkeley Heights, NJ)

Middle Level Honor Book
Roberto Clemente: Baseball’s Humanitarian Hero by Herón Márquez
(Carolrhoda Books, Inc., Minneapolis, MN)

Secondary Level Award Winner
No Easy Answers: Bayard Rustin and the Civil Rights Movement by Calvin Craig Miller
(Morgan Reynolds Publishing, Inc., Greensboro, NC)

Secondary Level Honor Book
Uh Huh! The Story of Ray Charles by John Duggleby
(Morgan Reynolds Publishing, Inc., Greensboro, NC

2005

Elementary Level Award Winner Book
Jim Thorpe’s Bright Path by Joseph Bruchac, illustrated by S.D.Nelson (Lee and Low Books)

Elementary Level Honor Book
Alec’s Primer by Mildred Pitts Walter, illustrated by Larry Johnson (The Vermont Folklife Center)

Middle Level Award Winner Book
The Voice that Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights by Russell Freedman (Clarion Books)

Middle Level Honor Book
The Power of One: Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine by Judith Bloom Fradin and Dennis Brindell Fradin (Clarion Books)

Secondary Level AwardBook
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 Edited by Rober H. Mayer (Greenhaven Press, an imprint of Thomson Gale)

Secondary Level Honor Book
Alvin Ailey: Celebrating African-American Culture in Dance by Barbara C. Cruz (Enslow Publishers)

2004

Elementary Level Honor Book
Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by Yuyi Morales (Harcourt, Inc.)

Middle Level Award Winner
In America's Shadow by Kimberly Komatsu and Kaleigh Komatsu, Forword by Kevin Starr and Essay by Mitchell T. Maki (Thomas George Books)

Middle Level Honor Book
Sojourner Truth: From Slave to Activist for Freedom by Mary G. Butler (The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.)

Secondary Level Award Winner
Early Black Reformers by James Tackach (Greenhaven Press)

Secondary Level Honor Book
Gwendolyn Brooks: Poet from Chicago by Martha E. Rhynes (Morgan Reynolds Publishing, Inc.)

2003

Elementary Level Honor Book
The Daring Escape of Ellen Craft, by Cathy Moore, illustrations by Mary O'Keefe Young (Carolrhoda Books, Inc., Lerner Publishing)

Middle Level Award Winner
Remembering Manzanar: Life in a Japanese Relocation Camp, by Michael L. Cooper (Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin)

Middle Level Honor Book
Strong Right Arm: The Story of Mamie "Peanut" Johnson, by Michelle Y. Green (Dial Books for Young Readers, Penguin Putnam, Inc.)

Secondary Level Award Winner
The "Mississippi Burning" Civil Rights Murder Conspiracy Trial: a Headline Court Case, by Harvey Fireside (Enslow Publishers, Inc.)

Secondary Level Honor Book
Atlas of Asian-American History, by Monique Avakian and Media Projects, Inc. (Facts On File, Inc.)

2002

Honor Book
Children of the Civil Rights Era by Catherine A. Welch (Carolrhoda Books, Inc.)

Middle Level Award Winner
Prince Estabrook: Slave and Soldier by Alice Hinkel (Pleasant Mountain Press)

Honor Book
Matthew Henson: Co-Discoverer of the North Pole by Laura Baskes Litwin (Enslow Publishers Inc.)

Secondary Level Award Winner
Multiethnic Teens and Cultural Identity by Barbara C. Cruz (Enslow Publishers Inc.)

Honor Book
Ella Fitzgerald: First Lady of Song by Katherine Krohn (Lerner Publications Co.)

2001

Honor Book
Children of the Relocation Camps by Catherine A. Welch (Carolrhoda Books, Inc.)

Middle Level Award Winner
Let it Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Stephen Alcorn (Gulliver Books, Harcourt, Inc.)

Honor Book
Carter G. Woodson: The Man Who Put "Black" in American History by Jim Haskins and Kathleen Benson, illustrated by Melanie Reim (The Millbrook Press)

Secondary Level Award Winner
Tatan'ka Iyota'ke: Sitting Bull and His World by Albert Marrin (Dutton Children's Books)

Honor Book
Issues in Racism by Mary E. Williams (Lucent Books)

2000

Honor Books
Magic Windows/Ventanas Magicas written and illustrated by Carmen Lomas Garza (Children's Book Press)
Children of the Tlingit written and photographed by Frank Staub (Carolrhoda Books, Inc.)

Secondary Level Award Winner
Princess Ka'iulani: Hope of a Nation, Heart of a People by Sharon Linnea (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers)

Honor Books
The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow: The African-American Struggle Against Discrimination, 1865-1954 by Richard Wormser (Franklin Watts)
Black Hands, White Sails: The Story of African-American Whalers by Patricia C. McKissack and Fredrick L. McKissack (Scholastic Press)

1999

Honor Books
Celebrating Chinese New Year by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith, photos by Lawrence Migdale (Holiday House)
The Riches of Oseola McCarty by Evelyn Coleman, illustrated by Daniel Minter (Albert Whitman & Co.)

Secondary Level Award Winner
Edmonia Lewis: Wildfire in Marble by Rinna Evelyn Wolfe (Dillon Press)

Honor Books
Life in a Japanese American Internment Camp by Diane Yancey (Lucent Books)
Women of Hope: African Americans Who Made a Difference by Joyce Hansen (Scholastic Press)

1998

Honor Books
Buffalo Days by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith, photographs by Lawrence Migdale (Holiday House)
I Am Rosa Parks by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins, illustrated by Wil Clay (Dial Books/Penguin Putnam)
Princess of the Press: The Story of Ida B. Wells-Barnett by Angela Shelf Medearis (Penguin Putnam)

Secondary Level Award Winner
Langston Hughes by Milton Meltzer, illustrated by Stephen Alcorn (Millbrook Press)

Honor Books
The Flight of Red Bird: The Life of Zitkala-Sa by Doreen Rappaport (Dial Books/Penguin USA)
Slavery Time: When I Was Chillun by Belinda Hurmence (G.P. Putnam's Sons/Putnam & Grosset)

1997

Honor Books
The Life and Death of Crazy Horse by Russell Freedman (Holiday House)
Celebrating Hanukkah by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith (Holiday House)
Maya Angelou: More Than a Poet by Elaine Slivinski Lisandrelli (Enslow Pubilshers, Inc.)

Secondary Level Award Winner
The Harlem Renaissance by Jim Haskins (The Millbrook Press)

Honor Books
The Tuskegee Airmen: Heroes of World War II by Jacqueline Harris (Dillon Press)
The Japanese American Family Album by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler (Oxford University Press)
The Children of Topaz: The Story of a Japanese-American Internment Camp by Michael O. Tunnell and George W. Chilcoat (Holiday House)

1996

Outstanding Merit Book
Konnichiwa! I am a Japanese-American Girl by Tricia Brown (Henry Holt & Co.)

Secondary Level Award Winner
A Fence Away from Freedom: Japanese Americans and World War II by Ellen Levine (G P Putnam's Sons)

Outstanding Merit Book
Red-Tail Angels: The Story of the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II by Patricia and Frederick McKissack

1995

Outstanding Merit Books
Master of Mahogany: Tom Day, Free Black Cabinetmaker by Mary E. Lyons (Charles Scribener's Sons)
Dear Benjamin Banneker by Andrea Davis Pinkney (Gulliver Books, Harcourt Brace & Company)

Secondary Level Award Winner
Till Victory is Won: Black Soldiers in the Civil War by Zak Mettger (Lodestar Books)

Outstanding Merit Books
Harriet: The Life and World of Harriet Beecher Stowe by Norma Johnston (Four Winds Press, Macmillan)
Battlefields and Burial Grounds: The Indian Struggle to Protect Ancestral Graves in the United States by Roger C. Echo-Hawk and Walter R. Echo-Hawk (Lerner Publications)

1994

Outstanding Merit Books
Celebrating Kwanzaa by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith (Holiday House)
The Great Migration by Paintings by Jacob Lawrence, Museum of Modern Art, The Phillips Collection

Secondary Level Award Winner
The March on Washington by James Haskins (Harper Collins Publishers)

Outstanding Merit Books
Sequoyah's Gift: A Portrait of the Cherokee Leader by Janet Klausner (Harper Collins Publishers)
Many Thousand Gone: African Americans From Slavery to Freedom by Virginia Hamilton (Alfred A. Knopf)

1993

Outstanding Merit Books
How My Family Lives in America by Susan Kuklin (Bradbury Press)
Hoang Anh: A Vietnamese-American Boy by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith (Holiday House)

Secondary Level Award Winner
Mississippi Challenge by Mildred Pitts Walter (Bradbury Press)

Outstanding Merit Books
Thurgood Marshall: A Life for Justice by James Haskins (Henry Holt)
The Year They Walked by Beatrice Siegel (Four Winds Press)

1992

Outstanding Merit Books
Pueblo Storyteller by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith with photographs by Lawrence Migdale (Holiday House)
Carter G. Woodson: The Father of Black History by Patricia and Frederick McKissack, illustrated by Ned O. (Enslow Publishers)

Secondary Level Award Winner
Native American Doctor: The Story of Susan LaFlesche Picotte By Jeri Ferris (Carolrhoda Books, Inc.)

Outstanding Merit Books
Now is Your Time: The African-American Struggle for Freedom by Walter Dean Myers (Harper Collins)
Outward Dreams: Black Inventors and their Inventions by James Haskins (Walker Publishing Group)

1991

Outstanding Merit Books
Teammates by Peter Golenback (Guillver/Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich)
Hector Live in the U.S. Now by Joan Hewett (Lippincott)

Secondary Level Award Winner
Sorrow's Kitchen: The Life and Folklore of Zora Neal Hurston by Mary Lyons (Scribner's Books for Young Readers/Macmillan Publishing Company)

Outstanding Merit Books
W.E.B. DuBois by Patricia and Frederick McKissack (Franklin Watts)
Breaking the Chains by William Katz (Atheneum)

1990

Outstanding Merit Books
Wilma Martinez by Corrin Codye (Raintree Publishers)
Artic Explorers by Jeri Ferris (Carolrhoda Books, Inc.)

Secondary Level Award Winner
Paul Robeson by Rebecca Larsen (Franklin Watts)

Outstanding Merit Books
New Kids on the Block by Janet Bode (Franklin Watts)
A Long Hard Journey by Patricia and Frederick McKissack (Walker and Co.)

1989

Outstanding Merit Book
Buffalo Hunt by Russel Freedman (Holiday House)

Secondary Level Award Winner
Marian Anderson by Charles Patterson (Franklin Watts)

Outstanding Merit Books
Hispanic Voters by Judith Harlan (Franklin Watts)
Pride Against Prejudice: The Biography of Larry Doby by Joseph Moore (Praeger)

1988

Outstanding Merit Books
Into a Strange Land by Brent Ashabranner and Melissa Ashabranner (Dodd Mead)
American Indians Today by Judith Harlan (Lerner)
You May Plow Here by Thorids Simonsen (Simon and Schuster)

1987

Outstanding Merit Books
Children of the Maya by Brent Ashabranner (Dodd Mead)
Living in Two Worlds by Maxine B. Rosenberg (Lothrop)

1986

Outstanding Merit Book
Issues in American History: Racial Prejudice by Elaine Pasco (Franklin Watts, Inc.)

1985

Outstanding Merit Book
Our Golda: The Story of Golda Meir by David Adler (Viking Press)

1984

1983

1982

1981

Outstanding Merit Book
The Hardest Lesson: Personal Accounts of a School Desegregation Crisis by Pamela Bullar and Judith Stoia (Little, Brown and Company)

1980

Outstanding Merit Books
A Cry From the Earth: Music of the North American Indians by John Bierhorst (Four Winds Press)
James Van Derzee: The Picture Takin' Man by Jim Haskins (Dodd, Mead and Company)

1979

1978

1977

1976

1975

1974

* At its 1996 November meeting, the Carter G. Woodson Book Award Subcommittee changed the designation "Outstanding Merit" to "Honor Book."

** In 1989, the committee began to distinguish between books for young (elementary) and young adolescent (secondary) readers.

* * * In 2001, the committee began to recognize an award winner and an honor book for each of three book categories: elementary, middle, and secondary grade level books.