Newbery Medal Winner Recipient For Second Time

E.L. Konigsburg was awarded the 1997 Newbery Medal of the American Library Association on Monday for “The View From Saturday” (Jean Karl/Atheneum), a comic novel about a team of sixth-grade Academic Bowl competitors.

The association’s Caldecott Medal for illustration was won by David Wisniewski, the author and illustrator of “Golem” (Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin), a story of the giant brought to life by a rabbi in 16th-century Prague, told in a fool-the-eye cut-paper technique.

Konigsburg won the Newbery Medal, awarded for the most distinguished contribution to literature for children, in 1968 for her first novel, “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,” and an Honor Award the same year for her second novel, published in the same year, “Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth.”

Of the eight honor books named by the Newbery and Caldecott Committees, four were published by Orchard Books, a division of Grolier, and edited by three people who left the company for DK Publishing last year. Grolier has filed suit against the three editors and their new employer over the circumstances of their departure, and depositions are scheduled to begin this week.

“A Girl Named Disaster,” a novel by Nancy Farmer, and “The Paperboy,” by Dav Pilkey, were both edited by Richard Jackson. “The Graphic Alphabet,” by David Pelletier, was edited by Neal Porter, and “Hush! A Thai Lullaby,” written by Minfong Ho and illustrated by Holly Meade, was edited by Melanie Kroupa. The other Caldecott honor book is “Starry Messenger,” written and illustrated by Peter Sis (Frances Foster Books/Farrar, Straus & Giroux).

The other Newbery honor books are “Moorchild,” by Eloise McGraw (Margaret K. McElderry/ Simon & Schuster); “The Thief,” by Megan Whalen Turner (Greenwillow); and “Belle Prater’s Boy,” by Ruth White (Farrar, Straus & Giroux).

The Coretta Scott King Awards went to Walter Dean Myers for his novel “Slam!” (Scholastic) and Jerry Pinkney for the illustrations for “Minty: A Story of Young Harriet Tubman” (Dial). “Rebels Against Slavery: American Slave Revolts,” by Patricia C. and Frederick L. McKissak (Scholastic), was a King author-honor book.

Illustrator-honor books were “The Palm of My Heart: Poetry by African American Children,” illustrated by Gregory Christie (Lee & Low); “Running the Road to ABC,” illustrated by Reynold Ruffins (Simon & Schuster); and “Neeny Coming, Neeny Going,” illustrated by Synthia Saint James (Bridgewater Books).

The Mildred Batchelder Award for a book published in translation went to “The Friends,” by Kazumi Yumoto, translated from Japanese by Cathy Hirano (Farrar, Straus & Giroux).