Open Road Integrated Media, a digital content company, announced today that it will be publishing seven of Newbery Medal– and National Book Award–winner Virginia Hamilton’s ebooks including the Newbery Medal winner M.C. Higgins, the Great, on February 15, 2011. The ebooks will be available worldwide in English. Ms. Hamilton’s books are the first children’s titles in Open Road’s author brand program.
Virginia Hamilton (1934–2002) was a distinguished author of books for children and young adults, and the recipient of every major award in youth literature. These include the National Book Award, the Newbery Medal and Honor, the Coretta Scott King Award, and many other distinguished accolades including being the first African American author to win the Newbery Medal. In her lifetime, Virginia wrote and published 41 books in multiple genres. Woven into her books is a deep concern with memory, tradition, and generational legacy, especially as these helped define the lives of African Americans.
Virginia’s husband, acclaimed poet Arnold Adoff, remarked on the launch of her titles as ebooks, “Here is an African American woman from a small town in Ohio whose life and life’s work transcended race and gender, generation and geography. Virginia embraced the development of digital technologies, moving swiftly from Olivetti to IBM to her first in a series of computers. She taught herself programming, and created a series of unique fractals. I think about our many conversations of hope and expectation, as I embrace this first series of Virginia Hamilton ebooks. It is an honor and a pleasure to work with the digital master (minds) at Open Road to help present these seven early works of hers to older friends and fans and to new generations of readers.”
Jane Friedman, Cofounder and CEO of Open Road Media, says, “Open Road is proud to publish Virginia Hamilton’s works as ebooks. Her body of work defines the best of children’s literature and we are so pleased to release her ebooks as our first children’s author brand titles.”
New content available for reviewers includes review copies of Newbery Medal Winner M.C. Higgins, the Great, available at www.netgalley.com. Embeddable video will be available on February 15, with the launch of the ebooks on openroadmedia.com.
The Open Road ebook editions include new covers and an illustrated biography which features never-before-seen photos and details about the author’s life.
The titles available on February 15, 2011, as ebooks from Open Road Media include:
Cousins; The House of Dies Drear; Anthony Burns; Zeely; Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush; M.C. Higgins, the Great; The Planet of Junior Brown
Ebooks on sale February 15, 2011, from Amazon.com, the Apple iBookstore, Barnesandnoble.com, Kobo Books, Overdrive, and the Sony Reader Store
