Newbery Medal children’s author to speak at Bridgewater College

Kwame Alexander, Newbery Medal children’s book author and poet and New York Times bestselling author, will speak at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 1, in Cole Hall at Bridgewater College.

Alexander is the author of 21 books, including Booked, Surf’s Up and The Crossover, which received the 2015 John Newbery Medal, the NCTE Charlotte Huck Honor and the Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor, the Paterson Poetry Prize and the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award.

His other works include Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band, the 2014 Michigan Reads One Book Selection and Kwame Alexander’s Page-to-Stage Writing Workshop, a curriculum based on his Book-in-a-Day student-run publishing program that created more than 5,000 student authors in 75 schools from 2006-15.

He has written for stage and television, including TLC’s Hip Hop Harry.

In 2015, Alexander served as Bank Street College of Education’s Inaugural Dorothy M. Carter writer-in-residence.

Alexander is the founder of LEAP for Ghana, an international literacy project that builds libraries, trains teachers and empowers children through literature.

Alexander’s books will be available to purchase at the event and he will be available to autograph them.

Sponsored by the Alison Yowell Pazmino Memorial Fund for Student Education Series, the program is free and open to the public.

Bridgewater College is a private, four-year liberal arts college located in the Central Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Founded in 1880, it was the state’s first private, coeducational college. Today, Bridgewater College is home to nearly 1,900 undergraduate students.