The Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator's Award is presented annually by the Canadian Library Association/Association canadienne des bibliothèques (CLA) to an outstanding illustrator of a new Canadian children's book. The book must be "suitable for children up to and including age 12" and its writing "must be worthy of the book's illustrations". The illustrator must be a citizen or permanent resident. The prize is a plaque and $1000 presented at the CLA annual conference. The medal commemorates and the award is dedicated to schoolteacher and artist Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon who taught academics as well as art to Ontario schoolchildren in the 1860s and early 1870s. Her best-known work An Illustrated Comic Alphabet was published in 1966 by Henry Z. Walck in New York City and Oxford University Press in Toronto.
The award has been presented to one illustrator for one book every year from 1971.
The writer is listed here ("by" or "retold by") if distinct from the illustrator and the text was original. Otherwise the text was written by the illustrator or was not original ("anthology").
1971 - Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver, The Wind Has Wings: poems from Canada, anthology1972 - Shizuye Takashima, A Child in Prison Camp, biography, OCLC 6243321973 - Jacques de Roussan, Au-Delà du Soleil / Beyond the Sun (bi-lingual)1974 - William Kurelek, A Prairie Boy's Winter1975 - Carlo Italiano, The Sleighs of My Childhood1976 - William Kurelek, A Prairie Boy's Summer1977 - Pam Hall, Down by Jim Long's Stage: rhymes for children and young fish, by Al Pittman1978 - Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver, The Loon's Necklace, retold by William Toye1979 - Ann Blades, A Salmon for Simon, by Betty Waterton1980 - László Gál, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, retold by Janet Lunn1981 - Douglas Tait, The Trouble with Princesses, by Christie Harris1982 - Heather Woodall, Ytek and the Arctic Orchid: an Inuit legend, by Garnet Hewitt1983 - Lindee Climo, Chester's Barn1984 - Ken Nutt, Zoom at Sea, by Tim Wynne-Jones1985 - Ian Wallace, Chin Chiang and the Dragon's Dance1986 - Ken Nutt, Zoom Away, by Tim Wynne-Jones1987 - Marie-Louise Gay, Moonbeam on a Cat's Ear1988 - Marie-Louise Gay, Rainy Day Magic1989 - Kim LaFave, Amos's Sweater, by Janet Lunn1990 - Kady MacDonald Denton, 'Til All the Stars Have Fallen: Canadian poems for children, anthology1991 - Paul Morin, The Orphan Boy, by Tololwa M. Mollel1992 - Ron Lightburn, Waiting for the Whales, by Sheryl McFarlane1993 - Paul Morin, The Dragon's Pearl, by Julie Lawson1994 - Leo Yerxa, Last Leaf, First Snowflake to Fall, poetry1995 - Barbara Reid, Gifts, by Jo Ellen Bogart1996 - Karen Reczuch, Just Like New, by Ainslie Manson1997 - Harvey Chan, Ghost Train, by Paul Yee1998 - Barbara Reid, The Party1999 - Kady MacDonald Denton, A Child's Treasury of Nursery Rhymes, anthology2000 - Zhong-Yang Huang, The Dragon New Year: A Chinese Legend, by Dave Bouchard2001 - Laura Fernandez and Rick Jacobson, The Magnificent Piano Recital, by Marilynn Reynolds2002 - Frances Wolfe, Where I Live2003 - Pascal Milelli, The Art Room, by Susan Vande Griek2004 - Bill Slavin, Stanley's Party, by Linda Bailey2005 - Wallace Edwards, Monkey Business2006 - Leslie Elizabeth Watts, The Baabaasheep Quartet2007 - Mélanie Watt, Scaredy Squirrel2008 - Mélanie Watt, Chester2009 - Dušan Petričić, Mattland, by Hazel Hutchins and Gail Hebert2010 - Barbara Reid, Perfect Snow2011 - Marie-Louise Gay, Roslyn Rutabaga and the Biggest Hole on Earth!2012 - Matthew Forsythe, My Name is Elizabeth, by Annika Dunklee2013 - Soyeon Kim, You are Stardust, by Elin Kelsey2014 - Jon Klassen, The Dark, by Lemony Snicket2015 - Marie-Louise Gay, Any Questions?Marie-Louise Gay has won the Illustrator's Award four times from 1987, most recently in 2015. Several others have won it twice.
Nine books won both this CLA Illustrator's Award and the Governor General's Award for English-language children's illustration (or Canada Council Children's Literature Prize before 1987). The illustrators and CLA award dates were Blades 1979, Gál 1980, Woodall 1982, (now under the "Governor General's Awards" name) Gay 1988, LaFave 1989, Morin 1991, Lightburn 1992, Reid 1998, and Denton 1999.
