Hamilton's family encouraged her to read and write widely.[6] She received a full scholarship to
Antioch College but later transferred to
Ohio State University.
She met poet
Arnold Adoff while living in New York City,[6] and married him in 1960. The two later returned with their children to live on the farm where Hamilton was raised.[7] Adoff supported the family by working as a teacher, so Hamilton spent her time writing and had two children.
In 1967, Zeely was published, the first of more than 40 books. Zeely was named an
American Library Association Notable Book and won the Nancy Bloch Award. Hamilton published The Planet of Junior Brown, which was named a Newbery Honor Book and also won the
Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1971. M. C. Higgins, the Great (1974) won the Newbery Medal, making Hamilton the first black author to receive the medal. The book also won the National Book Award, the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, the
Boston Globe–Horn Book Award and The New York Times Outstanding Children's Book of the Year.[8]
Death
Hamilton died of
breast cancer on February 19, 2002, in
Dayton, Ohio, aged 65.[7] Three books have been published posthumously: Bruh Rabbit and the Tar Baby Girl (2003), Wee Winnie Witch's Skinny (2004), and Virginia Hamilton: Speeches, Essays, and Conversations, edited by Arnold Adoff and Kacy Cook (2010).[7][8][9]
Legacy
In 1979, the
Supersisters trading card set was produced and distributed; one of the cards featured Hamilton's name and picture.[10]
The Virginia Hamilton Conference on Multicultural Literature for Youth has been held at
Kent State University each year since 1984.[11]
To recognize an African American author, illustrator, or author/illustrator for a body of his or her published books for children and/or young adults who has made a significant and lasting literary contribution. The Award pays tribute to the late Virginia Hamilton and the quality and magnitude of her exemplary contributions through her literature and advocacy for children and youth, especially in her focus on African American life, history and consciousness.[12]
In 2021, the
Library of America published a volume collecting five of her novels.
Awards
Hamilton was awarded the
Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing (the highest international recognition bestowed on an author or illustrator of children's literature), the
Laura Ingalls Wilder Award (which is now known as the Children's Literature Legacy Award) and the
University of Southern Mississippide Grummond Medal.[8] In 1990 she received the Catholic Library Association's
Regina Medal, given annually "for continued, distinguished contribution to children's literature".[8] Hamilton was the first writer of children's works to be awarded a
MacArthur Fellowship, in 1995.[14][15]