Add These 7 Award-Winning West Virginian Authors To Your Summer Reading List

If you've already read his best-selling boyhood memoir "Rocket Boys," try one of his other books (he's written around a dozen!) like "The Coalwood Way," the Josh Thurlow series, or "Back To The Moon."

This beloved, award-winning children's author was born in Hopewell and raised in Cool Ridge and Beaver, West Virginia. Rylant's West Virginia childhood is often considered the major influence in her writing. A few of her most notable works include "Missing May" (Newbery Medal recipient), "A Fine White Dust" (Newbery Honor recipient), "When I Was Young in the Mountains" and "The Relatives Came" (Caldecott Honor recipients), and "Appalachia: The Voices of Sleeping Birds" (a Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor Book).

Born a slave in Virginia in the decade before the Civil War, Booker T. Washington moved with his family to Malden, West Virginia shortly after their emancipation. He spent several years of his childhood in Malden before returning to Virginia for a college education. As an adult, he was an influential educator, author, and leader. His auto-biography "Up From Slavery" is widely considered one of the best books of the 20th century.

Children's writer Jean Latham was born in Buckhannon, West Virginia and attended college there at West Virginia Wesleyan College. She is known for her biographies, the most famous of which is Newbery Award winner "Carry On, Mr. Bowditch" about a brilliant sailor and mathematician who transformed sea navigational practices.

Born in Bluefield and raised in McDowell and Kanawha Counties, Denise Giardina wrote the Award-winning "Storming Heaven," a fictionalized account of coal labor strife in southern West Virginia.

Born and raised in West Virginia, Gilbert writes mystery and suspense novels set in the rural West Virginia mountains. Her book "Trial By Twelve," a part of her Murder In The Mountains series, won the Grace Award.