‘Freewater’ awarded John Newbery Medal

NEW YORK — For years, Amina Luqman-Dawson made time to write a children’s book she called her “little quiet project,” a historical adventure about a community of escaped slaves that she completed while raising a son and working as a policy consultant and researcher on education and domestic violence.

Finding an agent and publisher was the first miracle for Luqman-Dawson and her debut children’s story, “Freewater,” which was released last year by a Little Brown and Co. imprint founded by author James Patterson.

On Monday, she joined a tiny elite of children’s authors that includes Beverly Cleary, Neil Gaiman and Linda Sue Park: She won the John Newbery Medal for the year’s best children’s book.

“We have been jumping up and down and screaming,” the 46-year-old Luqman-Dawson, who lives in Arlington, Virginia, said in a telephone interview. Her only previous book is “Images of America: African Americans of Petersburg,” a 2009 illustrated work about a Black community in Virginia.

Doug Salati’s “Hot Dog,” about the summertime wanderings of an urban dachshund, was given the Randolph Caldecott Medal for outstanding illustrations. Salati, 38, has collaborated with authors Tomie dePaola and Matthew Farina among others, but “Hot Dog” is the first book he both wrote and illustrated. A resident of New York City, he has never owned a dog himself, but was inspired by a dog he saw — belonging to the friend of a friend — while staying on Fire Island.

“I was just watching him be completely free — rolling around in the sand, scratching every itch, zipping down along the beach,” he said. “And that’s how I felt being there — a great, beautiful, open space.”

The awards were announced by the American Library Association, currently gathered in New Orleans for LibLearnX: The Library Learning Experience.

Luqman-Dawson, who on Monday also won the Coretta Scott King prize for best children’s story by a Black author, was able to publish her book with the help of a mentorship program administered by the grassroots organization We Need Diverse Books.