The 15th annual Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the world’s largest prize for children’s writing, will be awarded to author Jacqueline Woodson, BBC News reports. Woodson will receive the prize, which amounts to $600,000, in Stockholm this May.
Woodson has written over 30 books following teens as they grapple with the intimidating transition that is adolescence. Her 2014 National Book Prize-winning novel, “Brown Girl Dreaming,” is based on her own teenage experience that was shaped by the inequalities and civil rights movements of the 1960s and ‘70s. Most of her work explores and comments on racism, sexual identity, and injustice in various forms.
“Jacqueline Woodson introduces us to resilient young people fighting to find a place where their lives can take root,” the Lindgren jury emphasized. “[She] captures a unique poetic note in a daily reality divided between sorrow and hope.”
Woodson has emphasized the overarching motivation and intention behind her work. “It’s important to hold up mirrors for kids to see their experience is legitimate,” she said. “Too often those mirrors aren’t there for them.”
Woodson is currently a National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. She recently wrote Vanity Fair’s April 2018 cover story about actress, writer, and producer Lena Waithe.
