Hamilton, Virginia (1936-2002), was an American author of children’s books. She wrote imaginatively about the heritage of African Americans in her novels, folk tales, and nonfiction. Hamilton won the 1975 Newbery Medal and the 1975 National Book Award for her novel M. C. Higgins, the Great (1974), a story about a poor black boy growing up in the rural South. She became the first black person to be awarded the Newbery Medal. Hamilton also received the Coretta Scott King Award in 1983 for Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush (1982); in 1986 for The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales (1985); and in 1996 for Her Stories: African American Folk Tales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales (1995). The Coretta Scott King Awards honor African American authors and illustrators. Hamilton also won the Regina Medal in 1990 and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award (now called the Children’s Literature Legacy Award) in 1995 for her contributions to children’s literature.
Hamilton’s other children’s novels include Zeely (1967), The House of Dies Drear (1968), The Planet of Junior Brown (1971), Arilla Sun Down (1976), Junius Over Far (1985), The Bells of Christmas (1989), Cousins (1990), Plain City (1993), and Second Cousins (1998). She also wrote The Girl Who Spun Gold (2000), Time Pieces: The Book of Times (2002); and biographies of African American leaders Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Bois. Hamilton was born in Yellow Springs, Ohio, on March 12, 1936. She died on Feb. 19, 2002.
