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The Ezra Jack Keats Book Awards have been around for 25 years, this will be the 25th
year and prior to this year they've been administered by the New York Public Library. This year
the Keats foundation decided to move it to the de Grummond collection because that's
where the archive is held. We are the repository for all the work of Ezra Jack Keats, and I
guess it's extremely appropriate because this is the first, this is the 50th anniversary
of The Snowy Day, the caldecott award winning book that Keats wrote that brought him into
children's literature. And the awards were started by the foundation in the spirit of
the work of Ezra Jack Keats, it's new author and new illustrator awards. Authors and illustrators
are not to have more than three published books in their repertoire. So it's, publishers
will send us, all of the committee members, there are 14 committee members around the
United States. We met in New Orleans on February, the first weekend of February and deliberated
on over 200 books that we received from publishers around the country. And this is also the first
year for us to have honor books. We have two winners, one author award and one illustrator
award, and then three honor books that are very exciting. It's as if a whole new tradition
has begun. April 11th through 13th are the dates of the children's book festival, the
Fay B. Kaigler children's book festival. It's the 45th year of that festival, and on the
12th of April the new award winners and honor recipients will be presented their awards
and they will have an opportunity to be a part of a terrific heritage with the book
festival. And they will have an audience to speak to, and they will be with world class,
world renowned authors and illustrators, so it's a great opportunity for everybody.