Jerry Craft, Kadir Nelson win honors for children’s books

Jerry Craft’s “New Kid,” a graphic novel about a 7th grader’s struggle to adjust to a private school with little diversity, has won the John Newbery Medal for the year’s best children’s book. “New Kid” also received the Coretta Scott King Award for an outstanding work by an African American writer.

Kadir Nelson won the Randolph Caldecott Medal for his illustration of “The Undefeated,” a poetic tribute to African American history, featuring the words of Kwame Alexander. “The Undefeated” was also a runner-up for the Newbery prize, won by Alexander in 2015 for “The Crossover.”

George Takei of “StarTrek” fame shared a prize for best young adult literature by an author of Asian Pacific background. He, Justin Eisinger and Steven Scott co-wrote “They Called Us Enemy,” a graphic memoir based on Takei’s being held in a detention camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II.

The prizes were announced Monday by the American Library Association during its annual mid-winter meeting, held this year in Philadelphia.