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About Margaret Edwards
The Margaret A. Edwards Award, established in 1988, honors an author, as well as a specific body of his or her work, for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature. The annual award is administered by YALSA and sponsored by School Library Journal magazine. It recognizes an author's work in helping adolescents become aware of themselves and addressing questions about their role and importance in relationships, society, and in the world.Link to this page using its short URL, www.ala.org/yalsa/edwards
Use this Power Point game about past Edwards winners with teens in your library!
See what previous winners had to say about the Edwards Award in honor of its 20th anniversary.
Laurie Halse Anderson is the winner of the 2009 Margaret A. Edwards Award for Catalyst, Fever 1793, and Speak. Read her acceptance speech (PDF).
These gripping and exceptionally well-written novels, through various settings, time periods, and circumstances, poignantly reflect the growing and changing realities facing teens. Iconic and classic in her storytelling and character development, Anderson has created for teens a body of work that continues to be widely read and cherished by a diverse audience.
In Catalyst, published by Viking Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, overachiever Kate Malone is forced to confront unresolved issues when girl bully Terri and her family move into her home. Fever 1793, published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, shows how Mattie Cook’s dreams for the future are reduced to a day-to-day struggle for survival as a yellow fever epidemic fills the streets of Philadelphia. In Speak, a 2000 Printz Honor Book, published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, Melinda Sordino is silenced by a trauma and ostracized by her classmates until she once again faces her attacker and finds the strength to fight back
“Laurie Halse Anderson masterfully gives voice to teen characters undergoing transformations in their lives through their honesty and perseverance while finding the courage to be true to themselves,” said Edwards Committee Chair David Mowery.
Laurie Halse Anderson will be honored at the YALSA Edwards Award Luncheon and presented with a citation and cash prize of $2,000 during the 2009 ALA Annual Conference to be held in Chicago, July 9 - 15.
The Margaret A. Edwards Award is sponsored by School Library Journal and administered by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the ALA.
Members of the 2009 Edwards Committee are: Chair David Mowery, Brooklyn (N.Y.) Public Library; Stephen Crowley, Putnam County Library System, Palatka, Fla.; Kristine Mahood, Timberland Regional Library, Tumwater, Wash.; Sharon Rawlins, New Jersey State Library, Trenton; and Stephanie Squicciarini, Fairport (N.Y.) Public Library.