What is the Pura Belpré Award?

Question: What is the Pura Belpré Award?

Answer: The Pura Belpré Award is a children’s book award that goes to a “Latino / Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.” (Pura Belpré Award site) Specific criteria for the award appear in the Pura Belpré Award Manual, which states, “For purposes of this award, Latino is defined as people whose heritage emanates from any of the Spanish-speaking cultures of the Western Hemisphere.” Another requirement is that the book for which the author or illustrator is being recognized have been originally published in the United States or Puerto Rico, and as of 2009, published during the preceding year.

The award was established in 1996 and presented every other year from then until 2009 when the Pura Belpré Award became an annual award. The co-sponsors of the Pura Belpré Award are the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), and the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking, (Reforma) an ALA affiliate.

The award is named after Pura Belpré, the first Latina librarian at the New York Public Library. For more about the impact of Pura Belpré and her work in preserving and sharing Puerto Rican folklore, I recommend the children’s picture book The Storyteller's Candle / La velita de los cuentos, which was written 
by Lucía González and illustrated by Lulu Delacre 
. The bilingual picture book was published by Children's Book Press in 2008. (Compare prices.)

Recent winners of the award include:

• The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano written by Margarita Engle and illustrated by Sean Qualls, which is the 2008 Pura Belpré Medal winner for narrative (Compare prices.)
• Los Gatos Black on Halloween, illustrated by Yuyi Morales and written by Marisa Montes, which is the 2008 Pura Belpré Medal winner for illustration, as well as a 2008 Pura Belpré Honor Book for narrative (Compare prices.)