William Allen White Children's Book Award
The William Allen White Children's Book Award is a set of two annual awards for books selected by vote of Kansas schoolchildren from lists prepared by committee. As a single award it was established in 1952 by Ruth Garver Gagliardo, a children's literature specialist at Emporia State University, which continues to direct the program. It is named for William Allen White, long-time publisher and editor of The Emporia Gazette. The White Award is the oldest statewide children's choice book award in the United States.
From 2001, two winners have been chosen each year, one by students in grades 3 to 5 and one by students in grades 6 to 8, from separate lists of books. The award website includes an archive of annual Master Lists that is complete back to the list of 18 books for school year 1952–53. Curriculum Guides "designed to be used in teaching or preparing instructional units" are prepared for books on the year's Master List and some past Guides are available.
Currently, the annual celebration at Emporia early in October includes a Friday evening "Read-Ins and Sleepovers" with space for 100 people. After Saturday morning activities, student representatives present medals to the winning writers at the Awards Ceremony. Travel to Emporia is an incentive in some classroom reading programs. At least once, a writer declined because of a conflict on the celebration date and was replaced as the White Award winner.
Recipients and nominees 1953–2000
There were 49 winners of the single William Allen White Book Children's Book Award in its 48 years through 2000, with two winners in 1974. Nominees are listed below winners.| Year | Author | Title | |
| 1953 | Elizabeth Yates | Amos Fortune, Free Man | |
| 1953 | Genevieve Foster | Abraham Lincoln | |
| 1953 | Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire | Benjamin Franklin | |
| 1953 | Mabel Leigh Hunt | Better Known as Johnny Appleseed | |
| 1953 | Doris Shannon Garst | Crazy Horse: Great Warrior of the Sioux | |
| 1953 | Elizabeth Coatsworth | Door to the North | |
| 1953 | Douglas W. Gorsline | Farm Boy | |
| 1953 | Jeanette Eaton | Gandhi, Fighter Without a Sword | |
| 1953 | James Daugherty | Landing of the Pilgrims | |
| 1953 | Katherine B. Shippen | Lightfoot | |
| 1953 | Ann Nolan Clark | Magic Money | |
| 1953 | William Penn DuBois | Peter Graves | |
| 1953 | Samuel H. Adams | The Pony Express | |
| 1953 | Addison Webb | Song of the Seasons | |
| 1953 | Marguerite Bro | Su-mei's Golden Year | |
| 1953 | Leon Wilson | This Boy Cody | |
| 1953 | Meindert DeJong | The Tower by the Sea | |
| 1953 | Joseph Wharton Lippincott | The Wahoo Bobcat | |
| 1954 | Doris Gates | Little Vic | |
| 1954 | Dorothy Aldis | Lucky Year | |
| 1954 | Valenti Angelo | Marble Fountain | |
| 1954 | Arna Bontemps | Chariot in the Sky | |
| 1954 | Conrad and Mary Buff | The Apple and the Arrow | |
| 1954 | Henry S. Commager | America’s Robert E. Lee | |
| 1954 | James Daugherty | Of Courage Undaunted | |
| 1954 | Eleanor Estes | Ginger Pye | |
| 1954 | Genevieve Foster | Andrew Jackson | |
| 1954 | Holling C. Holling | Minn of the Mississippi | |
| 1954 | Clara I. Judson | George Washington, Leader of the People | |
| 1954 | Lois Lenski | Prairie School | |
| 1954 | Julia Sauer | Light at Tern Rock | |
| 1954 | Katherine Shippen | Leif Eriksson | |
| 1954 | Sydney Taylor | All-of-a-Kind Family | |
| 1954 | Anne Terry White | Prehistoric America | |
| 1954 | Anne H. White | Story of Serapina | |
| 1955 | Jean Bailey | Cherokee Bill: Oklahoma Pacer | |
| 1955 | Natalie Savage Carlson | Talking Cat and Other Stories of French Canada | |
| 1955 | Ann Nolan Clark | Secret of the Andes | |
| 1955 | Elizabeth Coatsworth | The Last Fort | |
| 1955 | Alice Dalgliesh | The Bears on Hemlock Mountain | |
| 1955 | Loula Grace Erdman | The Wind Blows Free | |
| 1955 | Jean Craighead George and John L. George | Meph, the Pet Skunk | |
| 1955 | Walter Havighurst | Climb a Lofty Ladder: A Story of Swedish Settlement in Minnesota | |
| 1955 | Clara Ingram Judson | Thomas Jefferson: Champion of the People | |
| 1955 | Eloise Jarvis McGraw | Moccasin Trail | |
| 1955 | Florence Crannell Means | Carvers' George: a biography of George Washington Carver | |
| 1955 | Gian Carlo Menotti | Amahl and the Night Visitors | |
| 1955 | Reba Paeff Mirsky | Thirty-One Brothers and Sisters | |
| 1955 | Miriam Powell | Jareb | |
| 1955 | Elizabeth Ripley | Leonardo da Vinci | |
| 1955 | Albert B. Tibbets | The First Book of Bees | |
| 1955 | Ann Weil | Red Sails to Capri | |
| 1955 | E. B. White | Charlotte's Web | |
| 1956 | Marguerite Henry | Brighty of the Grand Canyon | |
| 1956 | Elizabeth Baity | America Before Man | |
| 1956 | Joseph Krumgold | ...And Now Miguel | |
| 1956 | Jesse Stuart | The Beatinest Boy | |
| 1956 | Willis Lindquist | Burma Boy | |
| 1956 | Elizabeth Fraser Torjesen | Captain Ramsey’s Daughter | |
| 1956 | Oliver La Farge | Cochise of Arizona | |
| 1956 | Virginia Sorensen | Curious Missie | |
| 1956 | Carolyn Sherwin Bailey | Finnegan II: His Nine Live | |
| 1956 | Adele DeLeeuw | Hideaway House | |
| 1956 | Mary and Conrad Buff | Magic Maize | |
| 1956 | May McNeer | The Mexican Story | |
| 1956 | Robert Lawson | Mr. Revere and I | |
| 1956 | Emil E. Liers | An Otter's Story | |
| 1956 | Helen Acker | The School Train | |
| 1956 | Margot Benary-Isbert | The Ark | |
| 1956 | Clara Ingram Judson | Theodore Roosevelt | |
| 1956 | Evelyn Sibley Lampman | Tree Wagon | |
| 1957 | Phoebe Erickson | Daniel Coon | |
| 1957 | Thelma Bell | Snow | |
| 1957 | Margot Benary-Isbert | Rowan Farm | |
| 1957 | Clyde Bulla | Squanto, Friend of the White Men | |
| 1957 | Rebecca Caudill | The House of the Fifers | |
| 1957 | Marchette Chute | The Wonderful Winter | |
| 1957 | Elizabeth Coatsworth | The Sod House | |
| 1957 | Alice Dalgliesh | The Courage of Sarah Noble | |
| 1957 | Meindert DeJong | The Wheel on the School | |
| 1957 | Jim Kjelgaard | Haunt Fox | |
| 1957 | Jonreed Lauritzen | The Ordeal of the Young Hunter | |
| 1957 | Robert Lawson | The Tough Winter | |
| 1957 | Beatrice Liu | Little Wu and the Watermelons | |
| 1957 | Gladys Malvern | The Foreigner - A Story of Ruth | |
| 1957 | Joice NanKivell Loch | Tales of Christophilos | |
| 1957 | William O. Steele | Winter Danger | |
| 1957 | Dorothy Sterling | Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman | |
| 1957 | James Ramsey Ullman | Banner in the Sky | |
| 1958 | Elliott Arnold | White Falcon | |
| 1958 | Virginia Eifert | The Buffalo Trace | |
| 1958 | Jean Lee Latham | Carry On, Mr. Bowditch | |
| 1958 | Alice Dalgliesh | The Columbus Story | |
| 1958 | Belle Dorman Rugh | Crystal Mountain | |
| 1958 | Jennie Lindquist | The Golden Name Day | |
| 1958 | Ronald Syme | Henry Hudson | |
| 1958 | Robert Hofsinde | The Indian's Secret World | |
| 1958 | Meindert DeJong | The Little Cow and the Turtle | |
| 1958 | Yoshiko Uchida | The Magic Listening Cap: More Folk Tales from Japan | |
| 1958 | Katherine B. Shippen | Men, Microscopes, and Living Things | |
| 1958 | Kate Seredy | Philomena | |
| 1958 | Wilma Pitchford Hays | Pilgrim Thanksgiving | |
| 1958 | Virginia Sorensen | Plain Girl | |
| 1958 | Elizabeth Yates | Prudence Crandall, Woman of Courage | |
| 1958 | Stella F. Rapaport | Reindeer Rescue | |
| 1958 | Ann Nolan Clark | Santiago | |
| 1958 | Reba Paeff Mirsky | Seven Grandmothers | |
| 1958 | Beverly Butler | Song of the Voyageur | |
| 1958 | Jeanette Eaton | Trumpeter's Tale: The Story of Young Louis Armstrong | |
| 1958 | Natalie Savage Carlson | Wings Against the Wind | |
| 1959 | Fred Gipson | Old Yeller | |
| 1959 | D. Moreau Barringer | And the Waters Prevailed | |
| 1959 | Dorothy Rhoads | The Corn Grows Ripe | |
| 1959 | Ruth Sawyer | The Enchanted Schoolhouse | |
| 1959 | Oliver Butterworth | The Enormous Egg | |
| 1959 | Lee McGiffin | The Fifer of San Jacinto | |
| 1959 | Beverly Cleary | Fifteen | |
| 1959 | Meindert DeJong | The House of Sixty Fathers | |
| 1959 | William O. Steele | Lone Hunt | |
| 1959 | Virginia Sorensen | Miracles on Maple Hill | |
| 1959 | Clara Ingram Judson | Mr. Justice Holmes | |
| 1959 | Elizabeth Ladd | The Night of the Hurricane | |
| 1959 | Elizabeth Coatsworth | The Peddler's Cart | |
| 1959 | Alice Dalgliesh | Ride on the Wind | |
| 1959 | Julie Forsyth Batchelo | Sea Lady | |
| 1959 | Mabel Leigh Hunt | Stars for Cristy | |
| 1959 | Dorothy Sterling | The Story of Caves | |
| 1959 | Harry Behn | The Wizard in the Well | |
| 1960 | William O. Steele | Flaming Arrows | |
| 1960 | May McNeer | America's Abraham Lincoln | |
| 1960 | Clara Ingram Judson | Benjamin Franklin | |
| 1960 | Alice Marriott | Black Stone Knife | |
| 1960 | Elizabeth George Speare | Calico Captive | |
| 1960 | Eula Mark Phillips | Chucho: The boy with the Good Name | |
| 1960 | Hildegarde Swift | The Edge of April: A Biography of John Burroughs | |
| 1960 | Elizabeth Enright | Gone-Away Lake | |
| 1960 | Mari Sandoz | The Horsecatcher | |
| 1960 | Emma Gelders Sterne | Mary McLeod Bethune | |
| 1960 | Robert Willis | Molly's Hannibal: a Story of the Erie Canal | |
| 1960 | Harold Keith | Rifles for Watie | |
| 1960 | Ellis Credle | Tall Tales from the High Hills and Other Stories | |
| 1960 | Elspeth Bragdon | That Jud! | |
| 1960 | Jean Lee Latham | This Dear-Bought Land | |
| 1960 | Leo Gurko | Tom Paine, Freedom's Apostle | |
| 1960 | Billy C. Clark | The Trail of the Hunter's Horn | |
| 1961 | Keith Robertson | Henry Reed, Inc. | |
| 1961 | Meindert DeJong | Along Came a Dog | |
| 1961 | Jeanette Eaton | America's Own Mark Twain | |
| 1961 | Jean Fritz | The Cabin Faced West | |
| 1961 | Dorothy Sterling | Captain of the Planter: The Story of Robert Smalls | |
| 1961 | Elizabeth Coatsworth | The Cave | |
| 1961 | Francis Kalnay | Chucaro: Wild Pony of the Pampa | |
| 1961 | Mary and Conrad Buff | Elf Owl | |
| 1961 | Natalie Savage Carlson | The Family Under the Bridge | |
| 1961 | Aylesa Forsee | Louis Agassiz: Pied Piper of Science | |
| 1961 | Rafaello Busoni | The Man who was Don Quixote: the story of Miguel Cervantes | |
| 1961 | Harold Felton | New Tall Tales of Pecos Bill | |
| 1961 | Edith Lambert Sharp | Nkwala | |
| 1961 | Elizabeth Yates | Pebble in a Pool: The Widening Circles of Dorothy Canfield Fisher's Life | |
| 1961 | William O. Steele | The Perilous Road | |
| 1961 | Elizabeth Marie Pope | The Sherwood Ring | |
| 1961 | Yoshiko Uchida | Takao and Grandfather's Sword | |
| 1961 | Ruth Franchere | Willa: The Story of Willa Cather's Growing Up | |
| 1961 | Elizabeth George Speare | The Witch of Blackbird Pond | |
| 1961 | Jean Lee Latham | Young Man in a Hurry: the Story of Cyrus W. Field | |
| 1962 | Catherine Owens Pearen | The Helen Keller Story | |
| 1962 | Isabella Holt | The Adventures of Rinaldo | |
| 1962 | Gerald W. Johnson | America is Born: A History for Peter | |
| 1962 | Annabel & Edgar Johnson | The Black Symbol | |
| 1962 | Natalie Savage Carlson | A Brother for the Orphelines | |
| 1962 | Elizabeth Janet Gray | The Cheerful Heart | |
| 1962 | Sidney Rosen | Doctor Paracelsus | |
| 1962 | Edgar Parker | The Duke of Sycamore | |
| 1962 | Arna Bontemps | Frederick Douglass: Slave, Fighter, Freeman | |
| 1962 | Carol Kendall | The Gammage Cup | |
| 1962 | Jennie Lindquist | The Little Silver House | |
| 1962 | Alberta Wilson Constant | Miss Charity Comes to Stay | |
| 1962 | Louise A. Stinetorf | Musa the Shoemaker | |
| 1962 | Jean Craighead George | My Side of the Mountain | |
| 1962 | Joseph Krumgold | Onion John | |
| 1962 | Margaret Mead | People and Places | |
| 1962 | John Ciardi | The Reason for the Pelican | |
| 1962 | Margery Sharp | The Rescuers | |
| 1962 | Harold Courlander | The Tiger's Whisker and Other Tales from Asia and the Pacific | |
| 1962 | Harry Behn | The Two Uncles of Pablo | |
| 1962 | Genevieve Foster | The World of Captain John Smith | |
| 1962 | Robert Frost | You Come Too | |
| 1962 | Scott O'Dell | Island of the Blue Dolphins | |
| 1962 | Jean Fritz | Brady | |
| 1962 | George Selden | The Cricket in Times Square | |
| 1962 | Mary Stolz | A Dog on Barkham Street | |
| 1962 | Jean Lee Latham | Drake: The Man They Called a Pirate | |
| 1962 | Sorche Nic Leodhas | Heather and Broom: Tales of the Scottish Highland | |
| 1962 | William Bixby | The Impossible Journey of Sir Ernest Shackleton | |
| 1962 | Peter Burchard | Jed : the Story of a Yankee Soldier and a Southern Boy | |
| 1962 | Jack Schaefer | Old Ramon | |
| 1962 | Ursula Nordstrom | The Secret Language | |
| 1962 | Marjorie Braymer | The Walls of Windy Troy: A Biography of Heinrich Schliemann | |
| 1962 | Carl Sandburg | Wind Song | |
| 1962 | Ann Nolan Clark | World Song | |
| 1962 | Ruth Sawyer | The Year of the Christmas Dragon | |
| 1964 | Sheila Burnford | The Incredible Journey | |
| 1964 | Esther M. Douty | America's Fist Woman Chemist: Ellen Richards | |
| 1964 | Mary Stolz | Belling the Tiger | |
| 1964 | Elizabeth George Speare | The Bronze Bow | |
| 1964 | Margot Benary-Isbert | Dangerous Spring | |
| 1964 | Margaret L. Coit | The Fight for Union | |
| 1964 | Joanne Williamson | The Glorious Conspiracy | |
| 1964 | Eloise Jarvis McGraw | The Golden Goblet | |
| 1964 | Jonreed Lauritzen | The Legend of Billy Bluesage | |
| 1964 | John Ciardi | The Man Who Sang the Sillies | |
| 1964 | Russell Davis | Marine at War | |
| 1964 | Nardi Reeder Campion | Patrick Henry, Firebrand of the Revolution | |
| 1964 | Norton Juster | The Phantom Tollbooth | |
| 1964 | Edith Patterson Meyer | Pirate Queen | |
| 1964 | Elizabeth Enright | Return to Gone-Away | |
| 1964 | Leonard Wibberley | Sea Captain from Salem | |
| 1964 | Natalie Savage Carlson | The Song of the Lop-Eared Mule | |
| 1964 | Aileen Fisher | Summer of Little Rain | |
| 1964 | Jean Merrill | The Superlative Horse: A Tale of Ancient China | |
| 1964 | Johanna Johnston | Thomas Jefferson, His Many Talents | |
| 1964 | Glen Rounds | Wild Orphan | |
| 1965 | Zachary Ball | Bristle Face | - |
| 1966 | Sterling North | Rascal | - |
| 1967 | Annabel and Edgar Johnson | The Grizzly | - |
| 1968 | Beverly Cleary | The Mouse and the Motorcycle | - |
| 1969 | Keith Robertson | Henry Reed's Baby-Sitting Service | - |
| 1970 | E. L. Konigsburg | From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler | - |
| 1971 | Walt Morey | Kävik the Wolf Dog | - |
| 1972 | Barbara Corcoran | Sasha: My Friend | - |
| 1973 | E. B. White | The Trumpet of the Swan | - |
| 1974 | Robert C. O'Brien | Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH | - |
| 1974 | Zilpha Keatley Snyder | The Headless Cupid | - |
| 1975 | William Steig | Dominic | - |
| 1976 | Beverly Cleary | Socks | - |
| 1977 | George Selden | Harry Cat's Pet Puppy | - |
| 1978 | Jean Van Leeuwen | The Great Christmas Kidnapping Caper | - |
| 1979 | Wilson Rawls | Summer of the Monkeys | - |
| 1980 | Betsy Byars | The Pinballs | - |
| 1981 | Katherine Paterson | The Great Gilly Hopkins | - |
| 1982 | C. S. Adler | The Magic of the Glits | - |
| 1983 | Barbara Brooks Wallace | Peppermints in the Parlor | - |
| 1984 | Shel Silverstein | A Light in the Attic | - |
| 1985 | Quang Nhuong Huynh | The Land I Lost | - |
| 1986 | Mary Downing Hahn | Daphne's Book | - |
| 1987 | Robert Kimmel Smith | The War with Grandpa | - |
| 1988 | Betsy Byars | Cracker Jackson | - |
| 1989 | Marion Dane Bauer | On My Honor | - |
| 1990 | Gary Paulsen | Hatchet | - |
| 1991 | Bill Wallace | Beauty | - |
| 1992 | Mary Downing Hahn | The Doll in the Garden: A Ghost Story | - |
| 1993 | Jerry Spinelli | Maniac Magee | - |
| 1994 | Phyllis Reynolds Naylor | Shiloh | - |
| 1995 | June Rae Wood | The Man Who Loved Clowns | - |
| 1996 | Lois Lowry | The Giver | - |
| 1997 | Mary Downing Hahn | Time For Andrew: A Ghost Story | - |
| 1998 | Barbara Park | Mick Harte Was Here | - |
| 1999 | Andrew Clements | Frindle | - |
| 2000 | P. J. Petersen | White Water | - |