Former Santa Barbaran Wins Prestigious Children’s Nonfiction Book Award
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November 30, 2023 (Watertown, MA) –On November 18, 2023 The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) announced the winner of the 2024 Orbis Pictus Award® for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children—Border Crossings by Sneed B. Collard III. Sneed grew up in Santa Barbara and is a graduate of San Marcos High School, as well as receiving his master’s degree at UC Santa Barbara.
“I am so honored and grateful to receive this wonderful honor. It came as a total surprise, and I want to thank everyone at NCTE for believing in and recognizing this book,” said Collard III. “It was a challenging project, but I am very grateful to the creative, supportive team at Charlesbridge Publishing and the wonderful work of my cocreator, Howard Gray. A special shout out to my agent, Karen Grencik of Red Fox Literary, as well, for placing the book at the perfect publishing house. Thank you again.”
Border Crossings follows two endangered ocelots as they attempt to cross the border between Mexico and the US in this powerful picture book about the environmental impact of the Wall.
The Orbis Pictus Award, established in 1989, is the oldest children’s book award for nonfiction. It pays homage to John Amos Comenius’s Orbis Pictus—The World in Pictures (1657), considered to be the first book planned for children. Each year, the committee selects a winner, up to five Honor Books, and up to eight Recommended titles ideal for classroom use from K–8.
The award committee is appointed by NCTE and composed of teacher experts and authors who select the honorees each year. The award recognizes outstanding literary works expressly created for children. Anyone who reads the award-winning titles can be confident that they will be an asset to a library, classroom, home, or community.
“This year the Orbis Pictus Award Committee is proud to announce a wide variety of diverse texts that were chosen for the winner, Honor Books, and Recommended Books categories. For this year’s winner, the committee selected Border Crossings, written by Sneed B. Collard III and illustrated by Howard Gray. Exploring the ecological impacts of the border wall, this book exhibits timeliness of topic, along with a storyline and illustrations that beautifully make this complex topic accessible to children and people of all ages,” chair of the Orbis Pictus Award Committee Julia López-Robertson said.
Learn more about the Orbis Pictus Award and find the list of 2024 Honor and Recommended Books here.