Jacqueline Woodson on Monday won the Hans Christian Andersen Award, “the highest international distinction given to authors and illustrators of children’s books,” which should surprise exactly no one, as it was one of the few major awards in children’s literature this amazing author and poet—and a queer mom—had not yet won.
The award, which Publisher’s Weekly calls “the Nobel Prize for children’s literature,” was given by the the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) during the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, held virtually this year. Woodson won the award for literature, while Swiss artist Albertine won for illustration. IBBY said of Woodson, “Her thirty-three books and thirteen short stories range in subjects from foster care to interracial relationships, from drug abuse to the witness protection programme, but all share the common features of lyrical language, powerful characters, and an abiding sense of hope.”
Woodson served as Young People’s Poet Laureate from 2015 to 17 and the National Ambassador for Children’s Literature from 2018 to 19. She has also won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the world’s largest award for children’s and young adult literature, the Margaret A. Edwards Award “for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature,” and the Children’s Literature Legacy Award (then known as the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award) for ” a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children.” Her 2014 Brown Girl Dreaming
Because this is a queer parenting website, however, I’ll also highlight a few things she’s said over the years about being a queer parent. In a 2014 interview with NPR’s Terry Gross, Woodson said:
I don’t want my kids to have to ever explain having two moms. Like, it just is. And if you don’t understand it, then it’s the work you have to do, not that my kids have to do…. And, you know, my son’s school, he has four other kids who have two moms in his family. My daughter can introduce her sister, who is half-Korean, and no one bats an eye. Instead, they say, oh, yeah, you guys both have your father’s dimples, you know? So I think there is this way in which there’s energy I don’t want them to have to put out into the world in terms of explaining who they are. You know, and I want them to know how amazingly fabulous they are. And I want the world to echo that.
And in a 2019 piece in the New York Times, she reflects on “Africa, America, and Slavery’s Fierce Undertow,” in a terrific piece on learning from our ancestors, teaching our children, intersectional identities, and systemic oppressions. When the Ghanian government launched a campaign aimed at those whose ancestors had been enslaved, inviting them to come back and visit the country, she was drawn to the offer, though she wondered, “But was Ghana drawn to me? And to my queer family? My white partner, Juliet, and our biracial children who, at 11 and 17, know half their DNA traces them to western Africa.” A summary hardly does this lengthy piece justice, but if you have not yet read it, I encourage you to do so. It’s different from her children’s books, but will nevertheless give you a sense of her writing. Then go find her books to add to your (and your kids’) reading list, if they’re not there already.
Congratulations to her on a well-deserved honor.
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