Anita Silvey 
The author of 100 Best Books for Children and 500 Great Books for Teens (both Houghton) Anita Silvey has devoted thirty-five years to promoting books that will turn the young—and families—into readers. To do this she has appeared frequently on NPR, “The Today Show,” “60 Minutes,” and various radio programs to talk about our best books for both children and teenagers.
In a unique career in the children’s book field, Ms. Silvey has divided her time equally between publishing and evaluating children’s books. But her lifelong conviction that “only the very best of anything can be good enough for the young” forms the cornerstone of all of her work. As publisher of children’s books for Houghton Mifflin Company from 1995-2001, she oversaw all the children’s book and young-adult publishing. Prior to that, Ms. Silvey served for eleven years as Editor-in-Chief of the Horn Book Magazine, reading several thousand books a year to find those of exceptional quality that children return to again and again.
Ms. Silvey served on the board of the United States section of the International Board on Books for Young People. She chaired the 1989 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award Committee and the New England Round Table of Children’s Librarians. Ms. Silvey also co-founded a literary publication, the Boston Review, and served as President of the Children’s Book Council. Currently a member of the Editorial Board of Cricket Magazine and the Board of Directors for the Vermont Center for the Book, she teaches “Book Publishing and Librarianship” at the Simmons College Graduate School of Library Science in Boston and "Children's Book Publishing" in the Simmons Children's Literature Program.
She has been selected as a member of two honorary organizations, the American Antiquarian Society and the Society of Printers. Ms. Silvey has also been given numerous awards, including The Women’s National Book Association Book Women Award in 1987. In October 1994, for a bicentennial celebration, she received an award from the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, as one of the thirty-eight famous sons and daughters of the city. In July of 2000 she was awarded an honorary Master of Fine Arts in Writing from the MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program at Vermont College in Montpelier, Vermont. In 2008 she received with the Ludington Award from the Educational Paperback Association.
Anita Silvey writes: “When I was in seventh grade, we focused on the Presidential primaries for the 1960 election. Every student got to pick, or was assigned, a candidate and then had to argue the case for electing him. In my small school in New Haven, Indiana, I only knew one Democrat, my best friend Fred Friedman. But I still picked a Democratic candidate because he happened to be the brother-in-law of my favorite movie star, Peter Lawford. Then I set out to find everything that I could about John Kennedy, fell under his spell, and even managed to convince several students in the class to vote for him. It was a highly-contested election in our seventh-grade class that year, just as it was in the nation.
“When I went to the Kennedy library to look at Jackie Kennedy’s papers in preparation for writing my essay, I felt as much in awe of Jackie and John Kennedy as I had as a seventh grader. The experience reminded me of how important the study of history—and current events—is when we are young. The inspirations and passions that we develop then can last a lifetime.”
More books by Anita Silvey:
Children’s Books and Their Creators (Houghton Mifflin)
The Essential Guide to Children’s Books and Their Creators (Houghton Mifflin)