Eleanor Roosevelt Award Recognizes Banned Authors for ‘Bravery in Literature’

Ceremony honors author Judy Blume with lifetime achievement.

Author Judy Blume was honored Saturday in a ceremony with a Lifetime Achievement award for her 25 young-reader books and her four best-selling novels for adults. Six authors whose books have been banned in areas across the country were bestowed with the first Bravery in Literature award. (Photo credit: Carl Lender)

Anna Eleanor Fierst knows exactly how important the written word was to her great-grandmother, Eleanor Roosevelt. Her childhood memories of the former first lady impressing upon her grandchildren and great-grandchildren the value of books—in literacy and learning about a world outside of one’s own—came in the form of a book-of-the-month club.

At the time, it was called the Junior Literary Guild and the end result was Fierst, as a child, receiving a book every month from her great-grandmother.

“It’s a passion I think that exists in the family,” Fierst says, adding that her mother, Eleanor Roosevelt Seagraves, was a librarian. “And making sure we became early readers. Read a lot…