The Phoenix Award annually recognizes one English-language children's book published twenty years earlier that did not then win a major literary award. It is named for the mythical phoenix bird, which occasionally burns to be reborn from its own ashes, signifying the book's rise from relative obscurity.
The award was established and is conferred by the Children's Literature Association (ChLA), a non-profit organization for the advancement of "the serious study of children's literature", based in the United States. The winner is selected by an elected committee of five ChLA members, from nominations by members and outsiders. The token is a brass statue.
It was inaugurated in 1985 by the award to Rosemary Sutcliff and The Mark of the Horse Lord (Oxford, 1965). Beginning 1989, as many as two runners up have been designated "Honor Books"; thirty in 24 years through 2012.
Read more about Phoenix Award: Latest Rendition, Previous Winners and Runners Up, Multiple Awards
Famous quotes containing the words phoenix and/or award:
“Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
And burn the long-liv’d phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet’st,
And do what’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)