Andre Norton died this day in 2005.
Founder of the Andre Norton Award, which honors YA fiction, you can find more about her and her career at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers website. Norton's first novel was a historical, The Prince Commands, her last, Three Hands for Scorpio, was fantasy and published posthumously. Norton did get to see a special pre-publication copy and remarked of the cover, "What a lovely blue."
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has just announced that the award, previously limited to works published in the US, will now be open to all books in their first English version.