Milton Meltzer

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Milton Meltzer (born May 8, 1915) is an American historian and author best known for his history nonfiction books on Jewish, African-American and American history. Since the 1950s he has been a leading author of history books in the children's literature and young adult literature genres.

Meltzer was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. He was educated at Columbia University, and currently lives in New York City. He has written over 80 books, including:

• The Black Americans: A History in their own words
• The Jewish Americans: A History in their own words
• The American Revolutionaries: A History in their own words
• All Times, All Peoples: A World History of Slavery
• Never to forget: The Jews of the Holocaust
• Columbus: and the World Around Him
• Brother, Can You Space a Dime?

Meltzer's books often chronicle people's struggles for freedom, such as the American Revolution, the antislavery movement of the nineteenth century United States, and the movement against antisemitism. He has written several biographies, including one of Langston Hughes, and though most of his books are nonfiction, he has written at least one historical novel, "The Underground Man", about a white abolitionist in the 1800s United States who is imprisoned for helping escaped slaves. Meltzer has won many awards, both for individual books and his lifetime achievements, including the 2001 Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal.