Christopher Paul Curtis is an American and Canadian children’s book author. Curtis spent the first thirteen years after graduating from high school working on the assembly line of Flint, Michigan’s historic Fisher Body Plant Number One as a door hanger. Curtis claims these years have left him with an aversion to getting into large automobiles. Particularly Buicks. His first novel, The Watsons Go To Birmingham 1963, was published in 1995 and received the Coretta Scott King Honor Award and the Newbery Honor Award. The novel was also the only book for young readers to be cited by The New York Times as one of the top 100 books from the past 100 years. In 2000, he became the first person to receive both the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Award for his second novel, Bud, Not Buddy. He is the first African-American man to win the Newbery Medal. He has written eight other award-winning novels and in 2024 was named recipient of the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award. Curtis lives in Windsor, Ontario with his three children
