Toni Morrison, the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities at Princeton, has been named a winner of the 2005 Coretta Scott King Award from the American Library Association.
The award, presented annually by the ALA's Ethnic Multicultural
Information Exchange Round Table, honors African-American authors and
illustrators of outstanding books for children and young adults.
Morrison is the author of "Remember: The Journey to School
Integration," published in 2004 by Houghton Mifflin. She was honored
along with Kadir Nelson, illustrator of "Ellington Was Not a Street."
"Remember" is Morrison’s first historical work for young people using
archival photographs to take the reader on a journey remembering "the
narrow path, the open door and the wide road" to integration. The
images serve as the inspiration for Morrison’s text -- a fictional
account of the dialogue and emotions of the children who lived during
the era of "separate but equal" schooling.
Also the recipient of major international honors, Morrison was awarded
the Nobel Prize in literature in 1993. She was the first
African-American winner and the first woman to win since 1938. She won
the 2000 National Humanities Medal for her contributions to American
cultural life and thought, the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for "Beloved" and
the National Book Critics Award in 1977 for "Song of Solomon." Her
other novels include "Love," "The Bluest Eye," "Sula," "Tar Baby,"
"Jazz" and "Paradise."
