This Day in LIS History: March 15, 1963

The Snowy Day by Ezra Keats

"By creating a successful book with a Black protagonist, Ezra Jack Keats encouraged others to publish multicultural books. Both he and the brave Newbery-Caldecott committee of 1963 changed the contents of children’s books forever. … After the book won the Caldecott Medal in 1963, it was purchased for library collections throughout the country, and for a period of years The Snowy Day was often the only book to show the face of a person of color in many public and school libraries. Hence it had a profound influence on thousands of children who for the first time could see themselves in a book.”

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