Charlotte Zolotow Award Books

The Charlotte Zolotow Award is named for Charlotte Zolotow, who edited children's books at Harper for thirty-eight years and wrote more than seventy picture books of her own, among them Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present and William's Doll. She spent both halves of that career on the same question — what the words in a picture book are doing — and the award follows suit. Established in 1998 by the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education, it is given each year to the author of the best picture book text published in the United States the year before.

That distinction is the whole point. Most picture book prizes reward the art, or the book as a single object; this one is decided on the writing alone, which means an illustrator's name never appears on the medal. Eligible books are for children from birth through age seven and may be fiction, nonfiction, or folklore, with translations, poetry collections, and easy readers ruled out. The committee names a winner, up to five honor books, and up to ten highly commended titles. It is the list to browse when the deciding factor is language — a text that holds up on the fortieth reading, not a cover that catches the eye once.

Information from the Cooperative Children's Book Center.