Year Honored: 2022

Dr. Ilona E. Holland is an educator and award-winning author. Her family fled Europe after WWII with one trunk and no knowledge of English. With the help of strangers, they settled in Delaware. These beginnings instilled an outlook of gratitude and a commitment to give back.

During the pandemic, Ilona partnered with Read Aloud Delaware and the First State Community Action Agency to create an online homework help initiative to support children struggling to learn over distance. Over the years, she has served on numerous boards and commissions to promote and support learning for students on all levels from higher education to K-12 to specialty after-school programs. These have included the boards of the University of Delaware and Delaware State University.

After receiving her doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, she returned to serve on its faculty for 14 years, commuting from Delaware. She conducted audience research for educational television shows like Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?, Wild Kratts, and the Emmy award-winning, WordGirl.

Since retiring in 2013, Ilona has realized her dream of writing educational children’s books. Her titles have won state and national recognition. Buddy Bison’s Yellowstone Adventure was selected for inclusion in United Through Reading, a program serving 100,000 military families where deployed parents read to their children over distance. Hoda Kobt’s (Today Show) selected it as one of her “favorite things.” The Lost Locket of Lewes received the National First Place Award for Children’s Fiction by the National Federation of Press Women and The Great Explosion: A Powder Mill Chronicle was awarded First Place for Children’s Fiction by the Delaware Press Association. Ilona continues to serve on numerous boards and is an author-advisor for the Harvard Chapter of Storywish, a student initiative to help children with chronic illness find their voices through writing.