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The Dolly Gray Children’s Literature Award

Dolly Gray and CaregiverSketch by Martha Perske

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• Eligibility criteria

– Written for children, youth, or young adults– Includes a human character with DD– Fictional or biographical– Copyright/Initial Publication

2008-2009– Not vanity press

Award Procedures and Analysis of the Books

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Award Procedures and Analysis of the Books

• 2010 Review Committee (13 members)– Dolly Gray Awards Chair– Children’s Literature Experts– Children’s books librarians– Supervised panel of children/adolescents– Authors– Special Educators– Parents– Young adult with DD

Award Procedures and Analysis of the Books

• Evaluation criteria

– Portrayal of the character with DD

– Literary quality

– Illustrations

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2010 Dolly Gray Award Winners

• Understanding Sam and Asperger Syndrome – Clarabelle van Niekerk

& Liezl Venter

• The London Eye Mystery – Siobhan Dowd

Understanding SamBy Clarabelle van Niekerk & Liezl Venter

• We extend our deepest gratitude for being recognized with such a prestigious award. We are so pleased that Sam has made an impact for increased awareness of Asperger’s. The children we work with have tremendous strengths. We wanted to highlight the positives alongside the daily difficulties. Most of all, we wanted to improve awareness/understanding of differences with increased empathy amongst classmates.

• Clarabelle is a resident artist for the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the founder of the London Puppet Theatre, and winner of many international awards, including the Perry Cumberland Excellence in Puppetry Award and the Educator of the Year Award for Children with Special Needs. She lives in Meadville, Pennsylvania with her son, Zee.

• Liezl has worked in various clinical settings in the United States and abroad, specializing in children diagnosed with ASD. She is a certified member of the American Hearing Association and Speech Language Pathology Australia. Liezl and her husband, Alistair, live by the seaside.

The London Eye MysterySiobhan Dowd

• Siobhan Dowd recently died of cancer at the age of 47, having turned to writing in 2003. In four short years she penned four children’s books, winning the prestigious Carnegie medal for children's literature and made Dowd its first posthumous winner. She believed that "if a child can read, they can think, and if a child can think they are free," and in the few days before she died she set up the Siobhan Dowd Trust, which helps to bring books to disadvantaged children and to which her book royalties and prize-winnings go.

Special Thanks

• CEC-DADD Board of Directors

• Special Needs Project• Research Assistants:

– Melissa Leininger

– Jenna Murray

• Authors, Illustrators, Publishers

• Review Panel:– Tina Taylor Dyches

– Jackie Hauge– Mary Anne Prater– Patricia K. Castelli– Rachel L. Wadham– Rama Cousik– Reed Hahne– Tracy Koretsky– Tamara Jo Rhomberg– Karena Cooper-Duffy– Peggy Kaney– Clayton Copeland– Joan Blaska

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Books Considered for the Award Will be Donated

• Various libraries, universities, and schools

• Siobhan Dowd Trust

• Linda Lucas Walling Collection

• King Kamehameha III Elementary