Phoenix Award of the Children's Literature Association, 1995-1999

Alethea Helbig, Professor, and Agnes Perkins, Professor Emeritus, English Language and Literature, Eastern Michigan University, have taught and published children's literature for many years and were instrumental in initiating master's and undergraduate programs in children's literature at Eastern Michigan. Perkins has served on the Phoenix selection committee, and Helbig has chaired the committee from its inception and is a past president of ChLA. They have published a series of encyclopedia works on fiction for children published by Greenwood and have also compiled three poetry anthologies (with Helen Hill; Crowell). Both have published numerous articles on children's literature and are working on supplements to the dictionaries of children's fiction and a book on multicultural imaginative literature for young people.

The opportunity to hear about the genesis of each work and to see into the mind and feelings of its author is a particularly strong and effective aspect of this book. The essays about other works by the award-winning authors are useful in extending the context and characteristics of each author and offer a wider perspective...graceful and insightful.