Walter Dean Myers

Walter Dean Myers was an American writer of children's books best known for young adult literature. He was born in Martinsburg, West Virginia, but was raised in Harlem, New York City. A tough childhood led him to writing and his school teachers would encourage him in this habit as a way to express himself. He wrote more than one hundred books including picture books and nonfiction. He won the Coretta Scott King Award for African-American authors five times. His 1988 novel Fallen Angels is one of the books most frequently challenged in the U.S. because of its adult language and its realistic depiction of the Vietnam War.

12 August 1937

Born on the same birth day (12 August): Benjamin Sheares • Charlie O'Donnell • Dominique Swain • François Hollande • Jim Schlossnagle • John McDermott (golfer) • John Nathan-Turner • Katharine Lee Bates • Mark Kinsella • Maurice Greene (composer) • Ross McWhirter • Terry Nutkins • Tobias Ellwood • Yvette Nicole Brown

Born in the same month (August 1937): Alice Coltrane • Baden Powell (guitarist) • Cornelis Vreeswijk • Don Wilson (cricketer) • Jimmy Hannan • María Duval • Sky Saxon • Virginia Euwer Wolff