The Phoenix Award annually recognizes one English-language children's book published twenty years earlier that did not then win a major literary award. It is named for the mythical bird phoenix that is reborn from its own ashes, signifying the book's rise from relative obscurity.[
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The award was established and is conferred by the Children's Literature Association (ChLA), a nonprofit organization based in the United States whose mission is to advance "the serious study of children's literature". The winner is selected by an elected committee of five ChLA members, from nominations by members and outsiders. The token is a brass statue.[
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The inaugural, 1985 Phoenix Award recognized The Mark of the Horse Lord by Rosemary Sutcliff (Oxford, 1965). Beginning 1989, as many as two runners-up have been designated "Honor Books", with 34 named for the 29 years to 2017.
A parallel award for children's picture books, the Phoenix Picture Book Award was approved in 2010 and inaugurated in 2013. There are two awards if the writer and illustrator are different people. "Books are considered not only for the quality of their illustrations, but for the way pictures and text work together to tell a story (whether fact or fiction). Wordless books are judged on the ability of the pictures alone to convey a story."[
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Phoenix Award winners
There have been 35 Award winners and 35 Honor Books announced since 1985 (1965 to 1998 publications).[
]| +Phoenix Award 1985 to present
!Year
!Author
!Title
!Result
!Ref. |
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| | Brother Can You Spare a Dime? | Honor | |
| | Pistol | Honor | |
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| | Ravensgill | Honor | |
| | Sing Down the Moon | Honor | |
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| | | Honor | |
| | | Honor | |
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| | | Honor | |
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| and Christopher Collier | My Brother Sam is Dead | Honor | |
| | Listen for the Fig Tree | Honor | |
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| | Tuck Everlasting | Honor | |
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| | Abel's Island | Honor | |
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| | | Honor | |
| | | Honor | |
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| | | Honor | |
| | Words by Heart | Honor | |
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| | | Honor | |
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| | | Honor | |
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| | Story for a Black Night | Honor | |
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| | | Honor | |
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| | Angel Square | Honor | |
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| | Fire and Hemlock | Honor | |
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| | | Honor | |
| | | Honor | |
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| | Waiting for the Rain | Honor | |
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| | | Honor | |
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| | Lucie Babbidge’s House | Honor | |
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| | Stepping on the Cracks | Honor | |
| | | Honor | |
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| | Morning Girl | Honor | |
| | | Honor | |
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| | Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary | Honor | |
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| | Under the Blood Red Sun | Honor | |
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| | Seedfolks | Honor | |
| | Habibi | Honor | |
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| | Imani All Mine | Honor | |
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| | 145th Street: Short Stories | Honor | |
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| | Whale Talk | Honor | |
| | Any Small Goodness | Honor | | |
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| | When My Name Was Keoko | Honor | |
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| | The Wright Sister: Katharine Wright and Her Famous Brothers | Honor | |
Multiple awards
As of 2021, there have been three two-time winners of the Phoenix Award:[
]
Mahy of New Zealand was also a runner up in 2006.
Several of the winners have also received the British Carnegie Medal for other books: Sutcliff (1959); Garner (1967); Garfield (1970); Southall (1971); Hunter (1974); Dickinson (1979, 1980); Mahy (1982, 1984); Doherty (1986, 1991).
Three of the winners have also won the American Newbery Medal for other books: Konigsburg (1968 and 1997); Paterson (1978, 1981); Hesse (1998).
Picture Book Award winners
The Phoenix Picture Book Award was first given in 2013, for books originally published in 1993.
+Phoenix Picture Book Award, 2013 to present
!Ref. |
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| | In the Small, Small Pond | Honor
| |
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| , illus. by Paul O. Zelinsky | Swamp Angel | Honor
| |
| | Good Night, Gorilla | Honor
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| | Would They Love a Lion? | Honor
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| , illus. by Stefano Vitale | When the Wind Stops (revised and newly illustrated, 1995) | Honor | |
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| , illus. by Jerry Pinkney | Sam and the Tigers | Honor
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| Demi | One Grain of Rice: A Mathematical Tale | Honor
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| , illus. by Robin Preiss Glasser | You Can’t Take A Balloon Into the Metropolitan Museum | Honor
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| , illus. by Floyd Cooper | Tree of Hope | Honor
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| | Wings | Honor
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| , illus. by Maya Christina Gonzalez | Iguanas in the Snow and Other Winter Poems/Iguanas en la nieve y otros poemas de inviero | Honor
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| | | Honor | |
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| , illus. by Maya Christina Gonzalez | Who’s Afraid of The Big Bad Book? | Honor
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| | What Charlie Heard | Honor | |
| , illus. by Joe Cepeda | Why Heaven is Far Away | Honor | |
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| | Just a Minute: A Trickster Tale and Counting Book | Honor
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| , illus. by Kadir Nelson | Thunder Rose | Honor | |
See also
Notes
External links
