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"Milton Meltzer's substantial and lasting contribution to American literature for children spans five decades and continues to be a model for informational writing today," said Wilder Award committee chair Pat Scales, who also is the director of library services at South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities in Greenville. "Over the years, children have read his books and expanded their knowledge of social issues and historical events."

Meltzer was born May 8, 1915, in Worcester, Mass., and he now lives in New York City. He was an American Book Award finalist in 1981 for All Times, All Peoples: A World History of Slavery. Meltzer also won the 1976 Boston Globe-Horn Book Nonfiction Honor Book for Never to Forget: The Jews of the Holocaust, and again in 1983 for The Jewish Americans: A History in Their Own Words, 1650-1950.