Catherine Cate Coblentz was an American writer, best known for her children's books in the 1930s and 1940s. She was a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award and Newbery Honor laureate.
Marker for the Coblentz family in Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington
The John Newbery Medal, frequently shortened to the Newbery, is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), to the author of "the most distinguished contributions to American literature for children". The Newbery and the Caldecott Medal are considered the two most prestigious awards for children's literature in the United States. Books selected are widely carried by bookstores and libraries, the authors are interviewed on television, and master's theses and doctoral dissertations are written on them.
Named for John Newbery, an 18th-century English publisher of juvenile books, the winner of the Newbery is selected at the ALA's Midwinter Conference by a fifteen-person committee. The Newbery was proposed by Frederic G. Melcher in 1921, making it the first children's book award in the world. The physical bronze medal was designed by Rene Paul Chambellan and is given to the winning author at the next ALA annual conference. Since its founding there have been several changes to the composition of the selection committee, while the physical medal remains the same.
Newbery Medal
Frederic G. Melcher first proposed the idea for the Newbery Award.
John Newbery, called "The Father of Children's Literature", was an English publisher of books who first made children's literature a sustainable and profitable part of the literary market.
Hendrik Willem van Loon won the first Newbery Medal in 1922 for his book The Story of Mankind.