Walter Dean Myers

Juan Arredondo for The New York Times

The award office is back and ready for a very exciting 2012! In this first blog post of 2012, we´d like to congratulate Walter Dean Myers, the new national ambassador for young people’s literature in the US. He succeeds author Katherine Paterson (2006 ALMA recipient), and is the third person to be appointed to the post. Walter Myers is an acclaimed author of books for young people. His award-winning body of work includes “Sunrise Over Fallujah,” “Fallen Angels,” “Monster,” “Somewhere in the Darkness” and “Harlem.” The NY Times:

As an African-American man who dropped out of high school but built a successful writing career – largely because of his lifelong devotion to books – Mr. Myers said his message would be etched by his own experiences.

“I think that what we need to do is say reading is going to really affect your life”, he said in an interview at his book-cluttered house here in Jersey City, adding that he bhoped to speak directly to low-income minority parents. “You take a black man who doesn´t have a job, but you say to him, ´Look, you can make a difference in your child’s life, just by reading to him for 30 minutes a day.´ That´s what I would like to do.”

Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award