Hollins has honored author, illustrator, and art director of children’s books Lucy Ruth Cummins as the recipient of the ninth annual Margaret Wise Brown Prize in Children’s Literature.

Cummins received an engraved medal and a $1,000 cash prize for Our Pool, published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

Judges for this year’s Margaret Wise Brown Prize also named one Honor Book: Stranded! A Mostly True Story from Iceland, written by Ævar Þór Benediktsson, illustrated by Anne Wilson, and published by Barefoot Books.

“I am thrilled by this year’s choices,” stated Elizabeth Dulemba, director of the graduate programs in children’s literature and illustration at Hollins. “Our Pool highlights the simple joys in life that picture books can so elegantly share, while Stranded! showcases science through an unusual and fun lens.”

Each year, Hollins invites nominations for the prize from children’s book publishers located across the country and around the world. A three-judge panel, consisting of established picture book authors, reviews the nominations and chooses a winner.

Hollins established the Margaret Wise Brown Prize in Children’s Literature as a way to pay tribute to one of its best-known alumnae and one of America’s most beloved children’s authors. Margaret Wise Brown graduated from Hollins in 1932 and went on to write Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny, and other children’s classics before she died in 1952.