The 2019 Ezra Jack Keats New Writer and New Illustrator winners were honored at a ceremony during the Fay B. Kaigler Children's Book Festival at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. Top row: (l.-r.) John Sullivan, 2019 Ezra Jack Keats Award winner for writer (Kitten and the Night Watchman, illus. by Taeeun Yoo; Paula Wiseman/S&S); Oge Mora, 2019 EJK Award winner for illustrator (Thank You, Omu!; Little, Brown); and Ellen Ruffin, curator of the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection and the Keats Archive; bottom row: Jessica Love, a 2019 EJK Award Honoree for illustrator (Julián Is a Mermaid; Candlewick), Deborah Pope, executive director of the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation; Matt James, a 2019 EJK Award Honoree for writer (The Funeral; Groundwood Books). The complete list of winners and honorees is here. (photo: Kelly Dunn)
