Janet S. Wong '83

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has named Janet S. Wong '83 the winner of their 2021 Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children.

NCTE established the award in 1977 to honor a living American poet for their aggregate work for children ages 3–13.

After earning her B.A. in history, Wong earned her J.D. from Yale and then worked as the Director of Labor Relations at Universal Studios Hollywood, negotiating union contracts and, she states on her website, "firing people. The worst part was it was starting not to bother me. One night I announced: 'I think I’m becoming a mean person'—and my husband agreed! I wanted to do something that would make me feel good. And I couldn’t think of anything more important than working with kids.

"But I had been a substitute teacher when I was working my way through Yale Law School—and being a teacher is the hardest job I’ve had. I knew I wouldn’t survive as a teacher. Searching in a bookstore for gifts for my two-year-old cousin, I looked down at my armful of books and the idea hit me: 'Someone wrote these books. Why not ME?'"

Some 30 books later, that rhetorical question has clearly been shown to have no answer.

Wong strives to create books that contain engaging poems for children and mini-lessons or useful tidbits for teachers, librarians and administrators. She has spent time volunteering for literacy groups, and she was honored with appointments to the NCTE Commission on Literature, the NCTE Award for Excellence in Children’s Poetry committee, and the IRA Notable Books for a Global Society committee. Wong recently curated the anthology "Hop to It: Poems to Get You Moving" with Sylvia Vardell.

Read the full press release here.