"Poet Laminate"

Recently author Jack Prelutsky was given the title of Children's Poet Laureate, the first ever named by the Chicago-based Poetry Foundation, according to the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

It's a title, complete with $25,000 cash prize and an inscribed medallion, he will hold for two years, a sort of blessed community service that compels him to give two major public readings and act as adviser, ambassador and pollinator of his art.

His 35 plus books have been translated into several languages and have sold more than a million copies.

Prelutsky says that before becoming the Poet Laureate, he was the "Poet Laminate" as so many of his poems have been laminated and hung on the walls of schools.

He is proud that one of his books, The Headless Horseman Rides Tonight and Other Poems to Trouble Your Sleep, was banned by some school libraries. The UCLA College Library states that The Headless Horseman was challenged at the Victor Elementary School media center in Rochester, N.Y. in 1982 because it "was too frightening for young children to read."

According to The Mountains and Plains Booksellers Association, two other titles, Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep and Rolling Harvey Down Hill have also been challenged or banned.

Check out Reading Rockets for more information on this poet or to view videos and interviews.