The 'Academy Awards'of Children's Literature

Author Richard Peck and illustrator David Small are the 2001 winners of the Newbery and Caldecott Medals, the highest honors in children's literature.

Peck's novel "A Year Down Yonder" (ages 9-12) is an evocative series of vignettes about a young girl from Chicago, who during the Great Depression, spends a year in rural Illinois with her feisty grandmother.

Small's illustrations for "So You Want to Be President?" (ages 9-12) drew praise from the committee for "liberat[ing] the presidents from years of bulletin-board duty" with his expressive drawings.

This year's Coretta Scott King Awards for best works by African-Americans went to Jacqueline Woodson, author of "Miracle Boys" (ages 9-12), a story of brothers in contemporary Harlem, and to Bryan Collier, illustrator of "Uptown" (ages 4-8), a story that brings Harlem to life through paint and photo collages.

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Publishing Society