Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction

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The Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction is an American award established in 1982 to encourage authors to focus on historical fiction. The award was created by Scott O’Dell in hopes of increasing young readers' interest in the history that shaped their nation and their world. Eligibility for the award requires that a book be written in English for children or young adults, published by an American publisher, and the author must be a United States citizen.

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[edit] Selection Committee

The annual selection from qualifying books is made by the O’Dell Committee. Zena Sutherland — who was Professor Emeritus of Children’s Literature at the University of Chicago — headed the committee from its formation in 1982 until her death in 2002. The committee currently consists of three people: Chairperson Hazel Rochman, Young Adults Book Editor, Booklist; Ann Carlson, Librarian at Oak Park and River Forest High School; and Roger Sutton, Editor-in-Chief of The Horn Book.

[edit] History

No award was given in 1982 and 1983, as the committee felt that “no books of sufficient merit had been published.” Elizabeth George Speare was the first recipient, receiving the award for her book, The Sign of the Beaver, a tale of wilderness survival. The award has been presented every year since 1984. O’Dell himself won the award in 1987 for Streams to the River, River to the Sea, his fictional retelling of the story of Sacagawea. No author has ever received the award more than once. The most recent winner is Ellen Klages, for her World War II novel, The Green Glass Sea.

[edit] Past winners

Year Recipient Book Title Publisher
2007 Ellen Klages The Green Glass Sea Viking Children's Books
2006 Louise Erdrich The Game of Silence Harper Collins Children's Books
2005 A LaFaye Worth Simon & Schuster
2004 Richard Peck The River Between Us Dial Press
2003 Shelley Pearsall Trouble Don't Last Alfred A Knopf
2002 Mildred D. Taylor The Land Phyllis Fogelman Books
2001 Janet Taylor Lisle The Art of Keeping Cool A Richard Jackson Book/Atheneum
2000 Miriam Bat-Ami Two Suns in the Sky Front Street/Cricket Books
1999 Harriette Robinet Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule Jean Fritz/Atheneum
1998 Karen Hesse Out of the Dust Scholastic
1997 Katherine Paterson Jip, His Story row 2, cell 4
1996 Theodore Taylor The Bomb Harcourt, Brace
1995 Graham Salisbury Under the Blood-Red Sun Delacorte
1994 Paul Fleischman Bull Run Laura Geringer/Harper-Collins
1993 Michael Dorris Morning Girl Hyperion
1992 Mary Downing Hahn Stepping on the Cracks Clarion
1991 Pieter Van Raven A Time of Troubles Charles Scribner's Sons
1990 Carolyn Reeder Shades of Grey Macmillan
1989 Lyll Becerra de Jenkins The Honorable Prison Lodestar/Dutton
1988 Patricia Beatty Charley Skedaddle Morrow
1987 Scott O'Dell Streams to the River, River to the Sea Houghton Mifflin
1986 Patricia MacLachlan Sarah, Plain and Tall Harper & Row
1985 Avi The Fighting Ground Lippincott
1984 Elizabeth George Speare The Sign of the Beaver Houghton Mifflin

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[edit] Books