Cardozo Award winner

Doreen Rappaport's "Abe's Honest Words: The Life of Abraham Lincoln" has been selected by the public as the winner of the third annual Whitney and Scott Cardozo Award for Children's Literature.

The book stresses the passion for humanity that defined Lincoln, with an emphasis on his growing opposition to slavery.

Rappaport majored in music at Brandeis University and taught music and reading in junior high schools in New York City and New Rochelle, N.Y.

Teaching at a freedom school in McComb, Miss., a civil-rights-era project of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee - changed her life and inspired her to be a writer. She was moved by the courage of the black people who were denied basic rights and who were threatened daily with death.

The Cardozo Award, now in its third year, is given to an author of children's literature who published a book for children 3 through 8, with a publication date of 2008.

The winner was chosen by children and parents voting at the Library of Virginia, the Children's Museum of Richmond, in public libraries across the state and online at the Library of Virginia's Web site.

Rappaport and her book will be officially recognized at the 12th Annual Library of Virginia Literary Awards Celebration that will take place at the Library of Virginia on Oct. 17.

- Jay Strafford