NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Children
# NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Children

This article lists the winners and nominees for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in the children's literature category.

## 1990s

| Year | Book | Author |
| - | - | - |
| 1996 |
| 1996 | Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales and True Tales by Virginia Hamilton | Virginia Hamilton |
| 1999 | | |
| 1999 | Let My People Go: Bible Stories Told by a Freeman of Color | Patricia McKissack |

## 2000s

| Year | Work | Author |
| - | - | - |
| 2000 |
| 2000 | If a Bus Could Talk: The Story of Rosa Parks | Faith Ringgold |
| 2000 | God Inside of Me | Della Reese |
| 2000 | Happy to Be Nappy | bell hooks |
| 2000 | The Day I Was Rich | Bill Cosby |
| 2000 | Through My Eyes | Ruby Bridges |
| 2001 |
| 2001 | Shades of Black | Sandra Pinkney |
| 2001 | Dancing in the Wings | Debbie Allen |
| 2001 | Nikki Giovanni, Poet of the People | Judith Pinkerton Josephson |
| 2001 | Teens Can Make It Happen | Stedman Graham |
| 2001 | The Sound That Jazz Makes | Carole Boston Weatherford |
| 2002 |
| 2002 | Just the Two of Us | Will Smith (writer) and Kadir Nelson (illustrator) |
| 2003 |
| 2003 | Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales | Nelson Mandela |
| 2004 |
| 2004 | My Brother Martin: A Sister Remembers Growing Up with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. | Christine King Farris |
| 2004 | The Montgomery Bus Boycott (Events that Shaped America) | Sabrina Crewe and Frank Walsh |
| 2004 | God Created | Mark Bozzuti-Jones |
| 2004 | Li'l Dan, the Drummer Boy: A Civil War Story | Romare Bearden |
| 2004 | Who's Got Game? The Ant or the Grasshopper? | Slade Morrison |
| 2005 |
| 2005 | The 1963 Civil Rights March | Sabrina Crewe and Scott Ingram |
| 2005 | African Princess: The Amazing Lives of Africa's Royal Women | Joyce Hanson |
| 2005 | Ellington Was Not a Street | Ntozake Shange |
| 2005 | Langston's Train Ride | Robert Burleigh |
| 2005 | Maya's World: Angelina of Italy | Maya Angelou |
| 2006 |
| 2006 | Girls Hold Up This World | Jada Pinkett Smith |
| 2006 | I Can Make a Difference | Marian Wright Edelman |
| 2006 | The School Is Not White! A True Story of the Civil Rights Movement | Doreen Rappaport |
| 2006 | Honey Baby Sugar Child | Alice Faye Duncan |
| 2006 | Please, Puppy, Please | Spike Lee |
| 2007 |
| 2007 | Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom | Carole Boston Weatherford |
| 2007 | Dear Mr. Rosenwald | Carole Boston Weatherford |
| 2007 | I Like You But I Love Me | Common |
| 2007 | Nobody Gonna Turn Me 'Round | Doreen Rappaport |
| 2007 | Whoopi's Big Book of Manners | Whoopi Goldberg |
| 2008 |
| 2008 | Nothing but Trouble: The Story of Althea Gibson | Sue Stauffacher |
| 2008 | Friendship for Today | Patricia McKissack |
| 2008 | Elijah of Buxton | Christopher Paul Curtis |
| 2008 | Let It Shine | Ashley Bryan |
| 2008 | Young Pele | Lesa Cline-Ransome |
| 2009 |
| 2009 | Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope | Nikki Grimes |
| 2009 | Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem | Maya Angelou |
| 2009 | Say a Little Prayer | Dionne Warwick |
| 2009 | We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball | Kadir Nelson |
| 2009 | You Can Do It! | Tony Dungy |
| 2010 |
| 2010 | Our Children Can Soar | Michelle Cook |
| 2010 | The Negro Speaks of Rivers | Langston Hughes |
| 2010 | Peeny Butter Fudge | Toni Morrison |
| 2010 | Sugar Plum Ballerinas: Toeshoe Trouble | Whoopi Goldberg |
| 2010 | Child of the Civil Rights Movement | Paula Young Shelton |

## 2010s

| Year | Work | Author |
| - | - | - |
| 2011 |
| 2011 | My Brother Charlie | Holly Robinson Peete |
| 2011 | Grandma’s Gift | Eric Velasquez |
| 2011 | Mama Miti: Wangai Maathai and the Tree of Kenya | Donna Jo Napoli |
| 2011 | Side by Side/Lado a Lado: The Story of Delores Huerta and Cesar Chavez | Monica Brown |
| 2011 | The Great Migration: Journey to the North | Eloise Greenfield |
| 2012 |
| 2012 | You Can Be a Friend | Tony Dungy |
| 2012 | Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band | Kwame Alexander |
| 2012 | Before There Was Mozart | Lesa Cline-Ransome |
| 2012 | Heart and Soul | Kadir Nelson |
| 2012 | White Water | Michael S. Bandy |
| 2013 |
| 2013 | What Color is My World | Kareem Abdul-Jabbar |
| 2013 | Fifty Cents and a Dream | Jabari Asim |
| 2013 | Harlem's Little Blackbird | Renee Watson |
| 2013 | In the Land of Milk and Honey | Joyce Carol Thomas |
| 2013 | Indigo Blume and the Garden City | Kwame Alexander |
| 2014 |
| 2014 | Nelson Mandela | Kadir Nelson |
| 2014 | I'm A Pretty Little Black Girl! | Betty K. Bynum |
| 2014 | Knock Knock: My Dad's Dream for Me | Daniel Beaty |
| 2014 | Martin & Mahalia: His Words, Her Song | Andrea Davis Pinkney |
| 2014 | You Never Heard of Willie Mays?! | Jonah Winter |
| 2015 |
| 2015 | Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Happily Ever After | Rachel Renee Russell, Nikki Russell, and Erin Russell |
| 2015 | Beautiful Moon | Tonya Bolden |
| 2015 | Little Melba and Her Big Trombone | Katheryn Russell-Brown |
| 2015 | Malcolm Little | Ilyasah Shabazz |
| 2015 | Searching for Sarah Rector | Tonya Bolden |
| 2016 |
| 2016 | Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America | Carole Boston Weatherford |
| 2016 | Chasing Freedom: The Life Journeys of Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony, Inspired by Historical Facts | Nikki Grimes |
| 2016 | Granddaddy’s Turn: A Journey to the Ballot Box | Michael S. Bandy |
| 2016 | If You Plant a Seed | Kadir Nelson |
| 2016 | New Shoes | Susan Lynn Meyer |
| 2017 |
| 2017 | Tiny Stitches: The Life of Medical Pioneer Vivien Thomas | Gwendolyn Hooks |
| 2017 | A Poem for Peter: The Story of Ezra Jack Keats and the Creation of the Snowy Day | Andrea Davis Pinkney |
| 2017 | Daddy’s Little Girl | Karissa Culbreath |
| 2017 | Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat | Javaka Steptoe |
| 2017 | The Golden Girls of Rio | Nikkolas Smith |
| 2018 |
| 2018 | Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History | Vashti Harrison |
| 2018 | Becoming Kareem: Growing Up On and Off the Court | Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Raymond Obstfeld |
| 2018 | Before She Was Harriet | Lesa Cline-Ransome (Author), James E. Ransome (Illustrator) |
| 2018 | Take a Picture of Me, James VanDerZee! | Andrea J. Loney (Author), Keith Mallett (Illustrator) |
| 2018 | The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, A Young Civil Rights Activist | Cynthia Levinson (Author), Vanessa Brantley-Newton (Illustrator) |
| 2019 |
| 2019 | Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race | Margot Lee Shetterly (Author), Laura Freeman (Illustrator) |
| 2019 | Facing Frederick: The Life of Frederick Douglass, A Monumental American Man | Tonya Bolden |
| 2019 | I Can Be Anything! Don’t Tell Me I Can't | Diane Dillon |
| 2019 | The 5 O'Clock Band | Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews (Author), Bryan Collier (Illustrator) |
| 2019 | The Word Collector | Peter H. Reynolds |

## 2020s

| Year | Work | Author |
| - | - | - |
| 2020 |
| 2020 | Sulwe | Lupita Nyong'o (Author), Vashti Harrison (Illustrator) |
| 2020 | A Place to Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech That Inspired a Nation | Barry Wittenstein (Author), Jerry Pinkney (Illustrator) |
| 2020 | Hair Love | Matthew A. Cherry (Author), Vashti Harrison (Illustrator) |
| 2020 | Parker Looks Up: An Extraordinary Moment | Parker Curry (Author), Jessica Curry (Author), Brittany Jackson (Illustrator) |
| 2020 | Ruby Finds a Worry | Tom Percival |
| 2021 |
| 2021 | She Was the First!: The Trailblazing Life of Shirley Chisholm | Katheryn Russell-Brown (Author), Eric Velasquez (Illustrator) |
| 2021 | I Promise | LeBron James (Author), Nina Mata (Illustrator) |
| 2021 | Just Like a Mama | Alice Faye Duncan (Author), Charnelle Pinkney Barlow (Illustrator) |
| 2021 | Kamala Harris: Rooted in Justice | Nikki Grimes (Author), Laura Freeman (Illustrator) |
| 2021 | The Secret Garden of George Washington Carver | Gene Barretta (Author), Frank Morrison (Illustrator) |

## Multiple wins and nominations

| Wins | Author |
| - | - |
| 2 | Carole Boston Weatherford |
| 2 | Vashti Harrison |
| Nominations | Author |
| 4 | Kadir Nelson |
| 4 | Carole Boston Weatherford |
| 3 | Nikki Grimes |
| 3 | Vashti Harrison |
| 2 | Kwame Alexander |
| 2 | Maya Angelou |
| 2 | Michael S. Bandy |
| 2 | Tonya Bolden |
| 2 | Alice Faye Duncan |
| 2 | Tony Dungy |
| 2 | Whoopi Goldberg |
| 2 | Patricia McKissack |
| 2 | Andrea Davis Pinkney |
| 2 | Lesa Cline-Ransome |
| 2 | Doreen Rappaport |
| 2 | Katheryn Russell-Brown |
