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    • Home
    • Books by Scott O'Dell
    • The Scott O'Dell Award
    • My Life & Books
    • More About Scott
    • Teacher Resources
    • Awards Won
    • 50th Anniversary
    • F.A.Q.
  • Home
  • Books by Scott O'Dell
  • The Scott O'Dell Award
  • My Life & Books
  • More About Scott
  • Teacher Resources
  • Awards Won
  • 50th Anniversary
  • F.A.Q.

The Scott O'Dell Award

The Award for Historical Fiction

In 1982, Scott O'Dell established The Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction. The annual award of $5,000 goes to an author for a meritorious book published in the previous year for children or young adults. Scott O'Dell established this award to encourage other writers to focus on historical fiction. He hoped in this way to increase the interest of young readers in the historical background that has helped to shape their country and their world. To submit a nomination for consideration, click here or scroll to the next section.

The 2023 Award Winner

African Town by Irene Latham and Charles Waters, ( G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers),  2022.


With vivid prose, the authors narrate voices inspired by the last survivors of the transatlantic slave trade and follow their lives as they settle in Alabama. While suffering the atrocities of slavery, they dream of returning home to Africa for a better life. Despite the odds against them, they channel their hope to find ways to love and live again and form their own community in African Town. African Town is a powerful and stunning novel-in-verse.


To read the full press release, click here.


To see past award recipients, click here.

Submit An Award Nomination

The Award

Submission Instructions

The Award Committee

Established by Scott O’Dell and Zena Sutherland in 1982, the Scott O’Dell Award is given for a distinguished work of historical fiction for young readers. To be eligible, a book must be published by a U.S. publisher; the setting must be South, Central or North America; and the author must be a U.S. citizen. Books published during each cal

Established by Scott O’Dell and Zena Sutherland in 1982, the Scott O’Dell Award is given for a distinguished work of historical fiction for young readers. To be eligible, a book must be published by a U.S. publisher; the setting must be South, Central or North America; and the author must be a U.S. citizen. Books published during each calendar year are eligible for the following year’s award. Awards are normally given during the annual ALA Conference. However, due to author schedules, awards may be given during the Winter meeting. The Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction's Awards Committee may consider any eligible book, but publishers’ submissions are valuable in bringing books to the attention of the Committee. To be eligible for the award, a book must have been published as a book intended for children or young people, it must be set in the New World (Canada, Central or South America, or the United States), it must be published by a publisher in the United States, and it must be written in English by a citizen of the United States. Each year the selection is made by the Award Committee, which was headed from its inception in 1982 until her death in 2002 by Zena Sutherland, Professor Emeritus of Children's Literature at the University of Chicago.

The Award Committee

Submission Instructions

The Award Committee

The home of The Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction is the Reinberger Children’s Library Center at the Kent State University iSchool in Kent, Ohio.    


In 2022, the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction was moved to Kent State University’s iSchool Reinberger Children’s Library Center. In partnership with Kent State University, th

The home of The Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction is the Reinberger Children’s Library Center at the Kent State University iSchool in Kent, Ohio.    


In 2022, the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction was moved to Kent State University’s iSchool Reinberger Children’s Library Center. In partnership with Kent State University, the O'Dell family and matriarchs Elizabeth Hall (Scott's widow) and Lauren Anderson Gerber (Scott's granddaughter) continue to administer and fund the annual award. The family is grateful to the following members of the Award Committee:  Mary Anne Nichols, Senior Lecturer Kent State University (KSU) iSchool and Committee Chair; and the following committee members: Dr. Deleon M.W. Awill, School Librarian East Baton Rouge Parish Schools; Michelle Baldini, Director, KSU Reinberger Children’s Library Center; Alexandra Bell, Children’s Librarian, Bloomington (IL) Public Library; Dr. Katie Campana, Assistant Professor, KSU iSchool; Angela Durham, School Librarian, Oak Pointe Elementary (SC); Kevin Lee, School Librarian, Washington DC Public Schools; Helen A. Prince, School Librarian, Indian Land High School (SC); Rachel Sweany, Senior Children’s Librarian, New York Public Library; and Maria Trivisonno,  Family Engagement Specialist, Cuyahoga County (OH) Public Library. 


If you have inquiries regarding the submission process or timeline that the information provided in the column to the right doesn't address, please email Mary Anne Nichols at mnichol1@kent.edu and put “O’Dell Award” in the subject line.


The O'Dell family also wishes to acknowledge the long-time dedication of former Award Committee members: Deborah Stevenson, Retiring Director and Editor of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's School of Information Sciences Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books; Elizabeth (Betty) Bush, former St. Damian School Librarian and adjunct faculty for the University of Illinois’ iSchool; and Roger Sutton, Editor in Chief of the Horn Book, Inc. (The Scott O'Dell Estate is extremely grateful to Ann Carlson, Librarian at Oak Park and River Forest High School, who in October 2019 after twenty years of service, stepped down from the Award Committee.

Submission Instructions

Submission Instructions

Submission Instructions

  • Books may be submitted throughout the year to the Award Committee. 


An Awards Nomination Form (download below) must be submitted with the required information for each title you wish to bring to the attention of the Award Committee. 


Send the following information directly to Mary Anne Nichols, Committee Chair, at her email address, mnichol

  • Books may be submitted throughout the year to the Award Committee. 


An Awards Nomination Form (download below) must be submitted with the required information for each title you wish to bring to the attention of the Award Committee. 


Send the following information directly to Mary Anne Nichols, Committee Chair, at her email address, mnichol1@kent.edu: 


  • Indicate O’Dell Award Nomination Candidate; 
  • Submit Book Title (include a subtitle if there is one), Author, Publisher, Month and Year of Publication; 
  • Include Name, telephone number, and e-mail address of the publishing house contact. 


The Chair will send a roster to interested parties so that all committee members may receive a copy of the nominated title. 

 

In addition to print copies of nominated titles, the committee will also accept directly submitted PDFs or e-galleys via Edelweiss, which should whitelist the committee emails and have no expiration date, and committee members should be emailed notice of the Edelweiss submission. 


 Once the award recipient is selected and the publisher and/or literary agent is notified, the publisher must provide two additional copies of the selected book to the Committee for the O’Dell family.

  

If you have inquiries regarding the submission process or timeline that the information provided in the column to the right doesn't address, please email Mary Anne Nichols at mnichol1@kent.edu and put “O’Dell Award” in the subject line.

Award Nomination Form

Click on the file to download the form and information.

Award Nomination Form, 2022-23 (pdf)Download

Past Award Winner, 2022

Congratulations to all past recipients!

Ophie’s Ghosts by Justina Ireland, (Balzer + Bray),  2021.


Ophie is twelve when she sees a ghost for the first time: her father’s spirit warns her to leave Georgia with her mother after he has been murdered by white men. She and her mother find shelter with family in Pittsburgh, in 1922 only slightly more welcoming than Georgia to Black people, and take jobs as maids at Daffodil Manor, owned by a tyrannical elderly white lady.  There Ophie meets a household full of new people, and she realizes that some of those people are ghosts, who offer glimpses into the household’s (and the nation’s) troubled history.  One, in particular, strikes a chord with Ophie, who begins to suspect that the truth about this spirit’s mysterious death may reveal a terrible secret at the heart of Daffodil Manor. 


Past award recipients from 1984-2021 appear below.

Past Award Winners, 2021-1984

2021

2021

2021

All He Knew

by Helen Frost

(Farrar Straus and Giroux)

2020

2021

2021

Butterfly Yellow

by Thanhhà Lại

(HarperCollins)

2019

2021

2019

Finding Langston

by Lesa Cline-Ransome

(Holiday House)

2018

2018

2019

Beyond the Bright Sea

by Lauren Wolk

(Dutton Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers)

2017

2018

2017

Full of Beans

by Jennifer L. Holm

 (Random House Books for Young Readers)

2016

2018

2017

The Hired Girl 

by Laura Amy Schlitz

(Candlewick Press)

2015

2015

2015

Dash

by Kirby Larson

(Scholastic Press)

2014

2015

2015

Bo at Ballard Creek

by Kirkpatrick Hill

(Henry Holt and Co.)

2013

2015

2013

Chickadee

by Louise Erdrich

(HarperCollins)

2012

2012

2013

Dead End in Norvelt

by Jack Gantos

(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

2011

2012

2011

One Crazy Summer

by Rita Williams Garcia

(Amistad)

2010

2012

2011

The Storm in the Barn

by Matt Phelan

(Candlewick)

2009

2009

2009

Chains

by Laurie Halse Anderson

(Simon & Schuster)

2008

2009

2009

Elijah of Buxton

by Christopher Paul Curtis

(Scholastic)

2007

2009

2007

The Green Glass Sea

by Ellen Klages

(Viking Children's Books)

2006

2006

2007

The Game of Silence

by Louise Erdrich

(HarperCollins Children's Books)

2005

2006

2005

Worth

by A LaFaye

(Simon & Schuster)

2004

2006

2005

The River Between Us

by Richard Peck

(Dial Press)

2003

2003

2003

Trouble Don't Last

by Shelley Pearsall

(Alfred A. Knopf)

2002

2003

2003

The Land

by Mildred D. Taylor

(Phyllis Fogelman Books)

2001

2003

2001

The Art of Keeping Cool

by Janet Taylor Lisle

(A Richard Jackson Book/Antheneum)

2000

2000

2001

Two Suns in the Sky

by Miriam Bat-Ami

(Front Street/Cricket Books)

1999

2000

1999

Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule

by Harriette Robinette

(Jean Fritz/Antheneum)

1998

2000

1999

Out of the Dust

by Karen Hesse

(Scholastic)

1997

1997

1997

Jip, His Story

by Katherine Patterson

(Lodestar/Dutton)

1996

1997

1997

The Bomb

by Theodore Taylor

(Harcourt, Brace)

1995

1997

1995

Under the Blood Red Sun

by Graham Salisbury

(Delacorte)

1994

1994

1995

Bull Run

by Paul Fleischmann

(Laura Geringer/Harper-Collins)

1993

1994

1993

Morning Girl

by Michael Dorris

(Hyperion)

1992

1994

1993

Stepping on Cracks

by Mary Downing Hahn

(Clarion)

1991

1991

1991

A Time of Troubles

by Pieter Van Raven

(Charles Scribner's Sons)

1990

1991

1991

Shades of Gray

by Carolyn Reeder

(Macmillan)

1989

1991

1989

The Honorable Prison

by Lyll Becca de Jenkins

(Lodestar/Dutton)

1988

1988

1989

Charley Skedaddle

by Patricia Beatty

(Morrow)

1987

1988

1987

Streams to the River, River to the Sea

by Scott O'Dell

(Houghton Mifflin)

Award money donated to Children's Book Council.

1986

1988

1987

Sarah, Plain and Tall

by Patricia MacLachlan

(Harper & Row)

1985

1982-1983

1985

The Fighting Ground

by Avi

(Lippincott)

1984

1982-1983

1985

The Sign of the Beaver

by Elizabeth George Speare

(Houghton Mifflin)

1982-1983

1982-1983

1982-1983

NOTE: In 1981 and 1982, no books of sufficient merit were published. Thus, no award was given in 1982 or 1983. Since 1984, the award has been presented each year. 

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