NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature
| ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 2009 | 2007 | 2005 | 2003 |
 Virginia Euwer Wolff |
 Vera B. Williams |
 Katherine Paterson |
 Brian Doyle |
 Mildred D. Taylor |
Katherine Paterson—The 2007 NSK Laureate
Photos of Paterson by Shevaun Williams
and Associates/Simon Hurst
Katherine Paterson was born in China, the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries who returned to the United States at the onset of World War II. She is the author of more than thirty books, including fifteen novels for young people. Two of these novels are National Book Award winners, The Master Puppeteer (1977) and The Great Gilly Hopkins (1979), which was also the single Honor Book for the 1979 Newbery Medal. She received the Newbery Medal in 1978 for Bridge to Terabithia and again in 1981 for Jacob Have I Loved. Lyddie was the U.S. contribution to the Honors List of the International Board of Books for Young People in 1994, and Jip, His Story was the winner of the 1997 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. Her books have been published in more than twenty-five languages, and she is the 1998 recipient of the Hans Christian Andersen Medal and in 2000 was named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress. The Swedish government awarded her the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2006. Her most recent books are a novel, Bread and Roses, Too, and a picture book, Blueberries for the Queen, which she coauthored with her husband, John. The Patersons have four grown children and seven grandchildren. Paterson will receive the NSK Prize at ceremonies to be held on the University of Oklahoma campus on September 28, 2007.
A Brief Conversation with Katherine Paterson
WLT: What recent book has captured your interest?
KP: My husband and I have been so taken with Tracey Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains that we bought copies to give to each of our four children. The life and work of Paul Farmer is for the “healing of the world.”
WLT: What outside the realm of literature has drawn your attention of
late?
KP: The tragic situation in the Middle East has dominated not only the news but my own thinking. When adults fight, children suffer and die. If only we could learn that violence only breeds more violence . . .
WLT: What current writing projects do you have underway or have planned
for the near future?
KP: I’m working on a radio play of my latest novel, Bread and Roses, Too, and trying to write the text for a small picture book on the life of Christ. I have a novel in the works, but I’m not ready to talk about it yet.
From the November 2006 issue of WLT
