Virginia Esther Hamilton
March 12, 1936 – February 19, 2002
The first African American woman to receive the coveted Newbery Award for M.C. Higgins, the Great, for which she also received the National Book Award and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award.
First Children Author to receive the McArthur Foundation Genius Grant
She was an American children’s books author. She wrote 41 books, including M. C. Higgins, the Great (1974), for which she won the U.S. National Book Award in category Children’s Books, and the Newbery Medal in 1975.
Hamilton’s lifetime achievements include the international Hans Christian Andersen Award for writing children’s literature in 1992 and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for her contributions to American children’s literature in 1995.
Hamilton died of breast cancer on February 19, 2002, in Dayton, Ohio, aged 65. Three books have been published posthumously: Bruh Rabbit and the Tar Baby Girl (2003), Wee Winnie Witch’s Skinny (2004), and Virginia Hamilton: Speeches, Essays, and Conversations, edited by Arnold Adoff and Kacy Cook (2010).
HONORS
The first African American woman to receive the coveted Newbery Award for M.C. Higgins, the Great, for which she also received the National Book Award and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award.
First Children Author to receive the McArthur Foundation Genius Grant
Coretta Scott King Awards
The Laura Ingalls Wilder Award
The Catholic Library Association’s Regina Medal
The University of Southern Mississippi de Grummond Medal
The National Book Seal Award
The John Newbery Medal
The Edgar Allan Poe Award
New York Times Children Best Seller