For Immediate Release: Feb. 4, 2022
Contact: Chris Burley, Pop Culture Classroom, c.burley@popcultureclassroom.org or 202-427-1175
(Denver, CO) — Today Pop Culture Classroom opened nominations for the education nonprofit’s fifth annual Excellence in Graphic Literature (EGL) Awards online at PopCultureClassroom.org/eglawards
“Our fifth EGL Awards is going to be special,” said Adam Kullberg, Interim Executive Director at Pop Culture Classroom. “We’re bringing back an in-person celebration — and, for the first time, offering readers a chance to vote on their favorite EGL Awards nominees.”
The 2022 EGL awardees will be honored at a late-June event in Denver as a kick-off to Pop Culture Classroom’s weekend of educator- and family-friendly activities at FAN EXPO Denver 2022. Publishers and creators of book-length graphic literature can submit original works for awards consideration until March 20th.
Since 2017, the EGL Awards have honored the best and brightest graphic novels, comics, manga, and other graphic literature collections, with a unique focus on each title’s value for use in classrooms, libraries, and other learning environments.
The EGL Awards were established to help:
Educators and librarians identify high-quality graphic literature to use in diverse educational settings;
Publishers highlight works that make a significant contribution to graphic literature and promote substantive pop culture education; and
Parents, pop culture fans, and discerning readers of all ages find compelling, expertly crafted graphic literature to read and enjoy.
Pop Culture Classroom promotes each year’s EGL Awards winners and finalists to libraries, education groups, media, and the group’s community of tens of thousands of pop culture fans and educators, encouraging them to check out these quality titles.
Awards Categories
This year’s EGL Awards finalists and winners for Best Fiction and Non-Fiction titles in Children’s, Middle Grade, Young Adult, and Adult graphic literature will be selected by an advisory board and juries made up of professionals from publishing, libraries, education, and other related fields.
Jurors will score all EGL Awards submissions based on a transparent, clearly defined process. The best-scored title will be recognized as the 2022 Excellence in Graphic Literature Awards Book of the Year.
Category Jury Chairs and the EGL Advisory Board will also determine this year’s winner of the Mosaic Award. The award celebrates stories about and from diverse communities, ethnicities, nationalities, faiths, and identities.
The EGL Awards are especially important this year, according to Kullberg.
“Works like Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Congressman John Lewis’ March, and the titles we honor with the EGL Awards enrich our understanding of history and the world in which we live. Unfortunately, right now we’re seeing a push to limit access to these vital perspectives on history and identity.
“The EGL Awards gives us the opportunity to truly celebrate social and educational potential of these books and the creators and publishers behind them, and to hopefully dispel many of the myths that have long plagued graphic literature.”
Finally — in a first for the EGL Awards — readers will be able to help select our Reader’s Choice Award from among the 2022 EGL Awards Finalists. The Reader’s Choice vote will begin in May and its winner will be announced live at the June 30 EGL Awards Celebration.
More Information:
To view past winners, submission guidelines, and more please visit PopCultureClassroom.org/eglawards
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Pop Culture Classroom is an education and community nonprofit that works to inspire a love of learning, increase literacy, celebrate diversity, and builds community through the tools of popular culture and the power of self-expression. Learn more at http://www.popcultureclassroom.org.