We are terribly sad to learn of the death of Walter Dean Myers on Tuesday from pneumonia. As an author, his accolades are nearly too numerous to count: National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, Margaret A. Edwards Award winner, (first) Printz Award winner, Coretta Scott King Author Award winner, Newbery honoree, Boston Globe-Horn Book honoree, National Book Award finalist, and on. He wrote everything from gritty contemporary fiction and war-set historical fiction to short stories, memoir, poetry, picture books, nonfiction, and middle-school series -- over one hundred books in total, and all of them beloved. He was a force for good in the children's book world and will be sorely missed.

Some links from The Horn Book:

"Stories Out of School: Reading Became My Life" by Walter Dean Myers.

"Let Us Celebrate the Children" by Walter Dean Myers.

"Compass Points: Escalating Offenses" by Walter Dean Myers.

Betty Carter on Walter Dean Myers's "War Trilogy."

"Following in Their Fathers' Paths" by Rudine Sims Bishop.

"Threads In Our Cultural Fabric" interview by Roger Sutton (from the June 1994 issue of School Library Journal).

For more, click on the tag Walter Dean Myers. Here is his obituary from The New York Times.