Letter from Rachel Alexander to Rosemary Wells Announcing Her Win of the Jo Osborne Award

This is a copy of a letter sent from Rachel Alexander to Rosemary Wells, announcing her selection as the 2001 winner of the Jo Osborne Award for Humor in Children's Literature, which was established in memory of librarian Jo Osborne.

Rosemary Wells is the author and illustrator of numerous board, picture and chapter books for children. Her career spans more than 60 books over more than 30 years, and she's created numerous iconic characters, including the rabbits Max and Ruby, the mouse Noisy Nora, and the kitten Yoko. Her awards include the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the Parents' Choice Award, and numerous starred reviews and nominations for awards including the Edgar Allan Poe Award.

Jo Osborne was a children's librarian at Worthington Libraries from 1979 until her death at age 59 in 1995. The Jo Osborne Award for Humor in Children's Literature was established in 1996 to honor her commitment to bringing children, books and humor together. The award recognizes the art of humor in either a single children's book or in the body of work of a children's literature author. As described in the brochure for the award, Jo "sought out the silly, the funny, the poignant, the witty for storytelling and puppet shows to impart a love of books to all the children who were lucky enough to cross her path" during her years as a librarian.

Wells accepted the award during a ceremony at The Ohio State University's Children's Literature Conference, which took place in January, 2001.

In addition to Wells' receipt of the award in 2001, the other Jo Osborne Award winners were Patricia Polacco (1996), Sid Fleischman (1997), Steven Kellogg (1998), Jon Scieszka (1999), William Steig (2000), Kevin Henkes (2002), Tomie dePaola (2003), Paula Danzinger (2004), Daniel Pinkwater (2010), and Betsy Lewin (2011).

Rachel Alexander was the chairperson for the Jo Osborne Award selection committee. She worked for Worthington Libraries from 1976 to 1985, and again from 1997 to 2008; during that time she served many roles, including community services librarian, children’s librarian, youth services manager and youth services materials selector.

The letter pictured here has been altered to remove addresses and contact information of the recipient and sender.