The winners of the National Book Award have been announced. The award for young people’s literature went to a nonfiction title this year:
1919: The Year That Changed America by Martin W. Sandler who said at the award ceremony, “I’m particularly honored to be in the company of my four fellow nominees. I will tell you, as the elder statesman of that group, I am so confident in the state of young people’s literature.”
The shortlists for the 2020 Blue Peter Book Awards have been released. Given by the UK’s BookTrust, the books celebrate the best fiction and nonfiction reads of the year for children. Here are the shortlists:
BEST STORY
Owen and the Soldier by Lisa Thompson, illustrated by Mike Lowery
Vote for Effie by Laura Wood
Wildspark by Vashti Hardy
BEST BOOK WITH FACTS
Fanatical About Frogs by Owen Davey
How to Be an Astronaut and Other Space Jobs by Dr. Sheila Kanani & Sol Linero
Rise Up: Ordinary Kids with Extraordinary Stories by Amanda Li, illustrated by Amy Blackwell
The Goodreads Choice Awards opening round nominees have been announced. For those of us interested in books for youth, there are several categories to keep an eye on. Those are picture books, middle grade & children’s, young adult fiction, and young adult fantasy. Also make sure that you click through to see broader categories too like graphic novels which has several YA titles and poetry too.
Enjoy voting!
The New York Times and New York Public Library have announced their picks for the best illustrated books of the year. The winners are selected solely based on artistic merit. The New York Times also has a slide show of the winning artist’s at work. Here are the books on the list:
Another by Christian Robinson
The Boring Book by Shinsuke Yoshitake
Child of Glass by Beatrice Alemagna
The Farmer by Ximo Abadia
I Miss My Grandpa by Jin Xiaojing
Just Because by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault
The Lost Cousins by B.B. Cronin
A Million Dots by Sven Volker
Monkey on the Run by Leo Timmers
Small in the City by Sydney Smith
Publisher’s Weekly publishes a list of the best books every year. Here are their picks for the best teen reads of 2019:
Angel Mage by Garth Nix
The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee
Gravity by Sarah Deming
Kiss Number 8 by Colleen AF Venable, illustrated by Ellen T. Crenshaw
The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me by Mariko Tamaki, illustrated by Rosemary Valero-O’Connell
Ordinary Girls by Blair Thornburgh
Out of Salem by Hal Schrieve
Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay
Pet by Akwaeke Emezi
Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson
Slay by Brittney Morris
Spies: The Secret Showdown Between America and Russia by Marc Favreau
Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc by David Elliott
The Waning Age by S.E. Grove
We Rule the Night by Claire Eliza Bartlett
With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
Publisher’s Weekly has released their picks for the best books of the year. They do three lists for books for children and teens. Here are the middle grade books that made the list:
All the Greys on Greene Street by Laura Tucker, illustrated by Kelly Murphy
Dream Within a Dream by Patricia MacLachlan
The Line Tender by Kate Allen
Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds
The Lost Girl by Anne Ursu
My Jasper June by Laurel Snyder
New Kid by Jerry Craft
The Next Great Paulie Fink by Ali Benjamin
Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga
Pay Attention, Carter Jones by Gary D. Schmidt
Queen of the Sea by Dylan Meconis
Sal & Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez
The Strangers by Margaret Peterson Haddix
This Was Our Pact by Ryan Andrews
Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia
The winners of the 2019 Governor General’s Literary Awards have been announced. The Canadian awards are given for both English-language and French-language books and include awards for both children’s and adult books. Here are the two books that won in the children’s categories:
YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE – TEXT
Stand on the Sky by Erin Bow
YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE – ILLUSTRATED BOOKS
Small in the City by Sydney Smith
Publisher’s Weekly has released their lists of the best books for children and teens for 2019. They are broken into three categories. Here are the picture books:
Another by Christian Robinson
Birdsong by Julie Flett
Crab Cake: Turning the Tide Together by Andrea Tsurumi
Daniel’s Good Day by Micha Archer
Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Kevin Noble Maillard, illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal
The Important Thing about Margaret Wise Brown by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Sarah Jacoby
Migration: Incredible Animal Journeys by Mike Unwin, illustrated by Jenni Desmond
My Papi Has a Motorcycle by Isabel Quintero, illustrated by Zeke Pena
A Place to Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech That Inspired a Nation by Barry Wittenstein, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
Pokko and the Drum by Matthew Forsythe
River by Elisha Cooper
Roar Like a Dandelion by Ruth Krauss, illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier
Saturday by Oge Mora
Small in the City by Sydney Smith
A Stone Sat Still by Brendan Wenzel
The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander, illustrated by Kadir Nelson
Vroom! by Barbara McClintock
Who Wet My Pants? by Bob Shea, illustrated by Zachariah Ohora
The shortlists for the 2019 An Post Irish Book Awards have been announced. There are three categories specifically for books for youth. Here are the shortlists in those categories:
CHILDREN’S BOOK OF THE YEAR (JUNIOR)
123 Ireland! by Aoife Dooley
Boot: Small Robot, Big Adventure by Shane Hegarty, illustrated by Ben Mantle
Don’t Worry Little Crab by Chris Haughton
The President’s Surprise by Peter Donnelly
Take Five by Niall Breslin, illustrated by Sheena Dempsey
Tiny and Teeny by Chris Judge
CHILDREN’S BOOK OF THE YEAR SENIOR
Family Fun Unplugged by Peter Cosgrove
Gordon’s Game by Gordon D’Arcy and Paul Howard
Lily at Lissadell by Judi Curtin
The Lost Tide Warriors by Catherine Doyle
Shooting for the Stars: My Journey to Become Ireland’s First Astronaut by Norah Patten, illustrated by Jennifer Farley
A Strange Kind of Brave by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald
TEEN/YOUNG ADULT BOOK OF THE YEAR
All the Bad Apples by Moira Fowley-Doyle
All the Invisible Things by Orlagh Collins
The M Word by Brian Conaghan
Other Words for Smoke by Sarah Maria Griffin
Perfectly Preventable Deaths by Deirdre Sullivan
Toffee by Sarah Crossan
Waking Brain Cells 