"2005 Raab Associates Prize"
Susan Salzman Raab is a University of Connecticut Alumna who graduated in 1980 with a degree in English. She has experience in the retail book business and has worked at Bantam, Dell, and Scholastic. With her husband, David, she began her own children's book marketing agency, Raab Associates in 1986, now based in Chappaqua, New York. During the summer of 1999, Ms. Raab approached Terri J. Goldich, Curator of the Northeast Children's Literature Collection at the Dodd Center with the idea of creating a contest open to UConn students of art, for the best illustration of a children's story to bring attention to the field of children's book illustration as well encouraging students who have an interest in the arts and the world of publishing. A cooperative agreement was developed with the School of Fine Arts Professor Cora Lynn Deibler, who assigns an entry for the contest as part of her fall curriculum.
This is now the seventh year of the Raab Associates Prize, and the assignment was to create an illustration to accompany the following poem by Jane Yolen. The First Place winner, Julia Senecal, will receive a check for $400, with the Second Place winner, Emily Parsons, receiving $100, courtesy of Susan Raab. They will also receive a year's membership in the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators courtesy of SCBWI President Stephen Mooser. The judges were Jane Yolen, Susan Raab, Laura Tedeschi, and Terri J. Goldich. The contest judges congratulate all of the contestants and are sincerely grateful for their participation.