Award-winning friends of Gordon

above: ask Gordon’s librarians how many of this year’s award-winning titles are already in the collection

While we were shoveling snow, the American Library Association was celebrating four friends of Gordon at their annual Youth Media Awards.

Karina Yan Glaser, Gordon’s 2022 Karla Harry Visiting Author, won a Newbery Honor for her Middle Grade novel The Nine Moons of Han Yu and Luli.
 

Traci Sorell, Gordon’s 2024 Karla Harry Visiting Author, won an Odyssey Award for the audiobook of her Click, Clack! Smack! a Cherokee Stickball Story which she narrated with an all-Native cast of teachers and students from the Cherokee Nation Immersion School.
 

Kwame Alexander, Gordon’s 2018 Karla Harry Visiting Author, was announced as the 2027 Association for Library Service to Children’s annual lecturer.
 

And Simran Jeet Singh, who visited Gordon in 2021, had his latest book A Vaisakhi to Remember named as an Asian American Picture Book honor title.

Since it opened in 2002, Gordon’s Joukowsky Family Library has actively cultivated relationships with dozens of professional authors, illustrators and publishers, from internationally known award winners to fledgling writers doing their first-ever school visit. By connecting students with these creators, Gordon illuminates—and demystifies—the process of authorship with the aim of inspiring the next generation of writers, artists and publishing professionals.