Children’s Choice Award

Each year since 1973 Bank Street College of Education has presented a book award for which children are the final judges. The Irma S. and James H. Black Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature honors Irma Simonton Black, a founding member of the Bank Street Writers Laboratory, and her husband, an ardent supporter of the award.

The award goes to an outstanding book for young children, a book in which text and illustrations are inseparable, each enhancing the other to produce a singular whole.

Each year adult writers, librarians, and educators choose about 35 books that they consider the best candidates for the award. The selected books are sent to classes at the Bank Street School for Children, where the children read and discuss them before selecting four finalists.

The finalists, called Irma S. and James H. Black Honor Books, are made available in classrooms and libraries in several different schools. They are read and discussed by the children of those schools, who select the winning book.

For more information, Contact Bank Street via email