Walter Dean Myers: National Ambassador for Young People's Literature
Jeff Glor talks to Walter Dean Myers about his appointment as the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature - a position created by the Library of Congress to raise awareness of the importance of literacy.
The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, the Children's Book Council (CBC) and its foundation, Every Child a Reader, are the sponsors of the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature initiative.
Walter Dean Myers is a critically acclaimed author of books for young people.
His award-winning body of work includes "Sunrise Over Fallujah," "Fallen Angels," "Monster," "Somewhere in the Darkness" and "Harlem."
Myers has received two Newbery Honor Awards and five Coretta Scott King Awards. He is the winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award (for excellence in young adult literature, given by the American Library Association) as well as the first recipient of Kent State University's Virginia Hamilton Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2008, he won the May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture Award.
He is considered one of the preeminent writers for young people.
For more on Walter Dean Myers, visit his website.