The Children's Literature Association Proudly Announces the 2008 Phoenix Award recipient:

Eva
Peter Dickinson
(Delacorte, 1988)

Rather than lose their daughter to a tragic accident, Eva’s parents decide to submit her to dangerous, experimental surgery that transplants her still functional brain into a healthy body. Other surgeries of this type have failed, but because of Eva’s history as a scientist’s daughter, she is able to acclimate to her new body, which formerly belonged to Kelly, a female chimpanzee from her father’s research pool. The success of the surgery turns Eva’s life into a commercial feeding frenzy, and she struggles to keep her moral center and honor the memory of the chimp whose memories seep into her dreams. In this chillingly prescient view of a very possible future, wild animals have been squeezed into smaller and more remote zones by the encroaching human population, and Eva’s unique situation compels her to speak out for animal rights and help her adopted species to evolve new skill sets to survive in their endangered environment.

Honor Book for 2008 
The Devil's Arithmetic
Jane Yolen
(Viking, 1988)

Phoenix Award

The Children's Literature Association, an organization of teachers, scholars, librarians, editors, writers, illustrators, and parents interested in encouraging the serious study of children's literature, created the Phoenix Award as an outgrowth of the Association's Touchstones Committee. The award, given to a book originally published in the English language, is intended to recognize books of high literary merit. The Phoenix Award is named after the fabled bird who rose from its ashes with renewed life and beauty. Phoenix books also rise from the ashes of neglect and obscurity and once again touch the imaginations and enrich the lives of those who read them.

The recipient of the Phoenix Award has been chosen each year since 1985 by an elected committee of ChLA members that considers nominations made by members and others interested in promoting high critical standards in literature for children. Honor books were instituted in 1989 but have not been named every year

The Phoenix Award was designed by Caldecott-winning illustrator Trina Schart Hyman. The magical Phoenix on the award statue was specifically drawn for ChLA. The design was sculpted by Diane Davis, who was trained at the Johnson Atelier and Technical Institute of Sculpture, Princeton. Each brass statue is individually cast and inscribed with the year's winner.

In 2003, the ChLA launched an annual electronic journal, The Phoenix Papers. Each issue includes conference papers on the year's Phoenix Award book and Honor book, the acceptance speech by the award winner, and brief biographical sketches and publication lists of the award and honor book winners. The Phoenix Papers are available exclusively online through our Phoenix Papers page.