Award of the Week-Walter Dean Myers Awards

The Walter Dean Myers Award, also known as “The Walter,” is named for prolific children’s and young adult author Walter Dean Myers (1937-2014). Myers was the third National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, appointed in 2012 by the Library of Congress. He was a champion of diversity in children’s books. The Walter Awards honor Myers’ memory and his literary heritage, as well as celebrate diversity in children’s literature.

Walter Dean Myers Awards 2018 Walter Award, Teen Category
	Long Way Down By: Jason Reynolds As Will, fifteen, sets out to avenge his brother Shawn’s fatal shooting, seven ghosts who knew Shawn board the elevator and reveal truths Will needs to know.
2018 Walter Honors, Teen Category
	You Bring the Distant Near By: Mitali Perkins From 1965 through the present, an Indian American family adjusts to life in New York City, alternately fending off and welcoming challenges to their own traditions.
	Disappeared By: Francisco X. Stork Four months ago Sara Zapata’s best friend, Linda, disappeared from the streets of Juarez, and ever since Sara has been using her job as a reporter to draw attention to the girls who have been kidnapped by the criminals who control the city, but now she and her family are being threatened–meanwhile her younger brother, Emiliano, is being lured into the narcotics business by the promise of big money, and soon the only way for both of them to escape is to risk the dangerous trek across the desert to the United States border.
2018 Walter Award, Younger Readers Category
	Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library By: Carole Boston Weatherford Illustrated by: Eric Velasquez The true story of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, an Afro-Puerto Rican man who devoted his life to collecting books, letters, music, and art from Africa and the African culture, to highlight the accomplishments of people of African descent, and their contributions to history.
2018 Walter Honor, Younger Readers Category
	Forest World By: Margarita Engle Sent to Cuba to visit the father he barely knows, Edver is surprised to meet a sister, Luza, whose plan to lure their cryptozoologist mother into coming there, too, turns dangerous.