When you and your family head to the library this week, consider checking out some of this year’s Youth Media Award winners.
Announced on Jan. 23, the Youth Media Awards reflect the very best reading and viewing materials for children and teens. Known worldwide for the high quality they represent, the ALA Youth Media Awards are selected under a cloak of secrecy by national judging committees composed of librarians and other children’s literature experts.
So whether you and your kids like spending time together reading picture books, graphic novels, audio books, fiction or non-fiction stories, there is bound to be something everyone in your family can enjoy.
Article Illustration:Emcees at the 2012 Youth Media Awards ceremony hold copies of the winning books. Left to right: Chrystal Carr Jeter, chair, Coretta Scott King Book Awards Committee; Molly Raphael, ALA president; Sarah Flowers, president of YALSA; Mary Fellows, president of ALSC; and Maria Kramer, president of REFORMA.
Alex Awards for the 10 best adult books that appeal to teen audiences:
Big Girl Small by Rachel DeWoskin
In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard
The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan
The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens by Brooke Hauser
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Robopocalypse: A Novel by Daniel H. Wilson
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: A Novel in Pictures by Caroline Preston
The Talk-Funny Girl by Roland Merullo
Andrew Carnegie Medal for excellence in children's video:
Children Make Terrible Pets produced by Paul R. Gagne and Melissa Reilly Ellard of Weston Woods Studios, Inc.
Coretta Scott King (Author) Book Award recognizing an African American author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults:
Winner:
"Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans" written and illustrated by Kadir Nelson
Author Honor Book:
The Great Migration: Journey to the North by Eloise Greenfield
Coretta Scott King (Illustrator) Book Award:
Never Forgotten by Patricia C. McKissack
Winner:
Underground: Finding the Light to Freedom illustrated and written by Shane W. Evans
Honor Book:
Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans illustrated and written by Kadir Nelson
John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children's literature:
Winner:
Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos
Honor Books:
Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai
Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin
Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults:
Winner:
Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley
Honor Books:
Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler and art by Maira Kalman
The Returning by Christine Hinwood
Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
Mildred L. Batchelder Award for an outstanding children's book translated from a foreign language and subsequently published in the United States:
Winner:
Soldier Bear by Bibi Dumon Tak, illustrated by Philip Hopman, translated by Laura Watkinson
Honor Book:
The Lily Pond by Annika Thor, and translated by Linda Schenck.
Odyssey Award for best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults, available in English in the United States:
Winner:
Rotters by Daniel Kraus and narrated by Kirby Heyborne.
Honor audiobooks:
Ghetto Cowboy by G. Neri and narrated by JD Jackson
Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt and narrated by Lincoln Hoppe
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater and narrated by Steve West and Fiona Hardingham
Young Fredle by Cynthia Voigt and narrated by Wendy Carter
Pura Belpré (Illustrator) Award honoring a Latino writer and illustrator whose children's books best portray, affirm and celebrate the Latino cultural experience:
Winner:
Diego Rivera: His World and Ours illustrated and written by Duncan Tonatiuh
Honor Books:
The Cazuela the Farm Maiden Stirred illustrated by Rafael López, written by Samantha R. Vamos
Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match /Marisol McDonald no combina illustrated by Sara Palacios, written by Monica Brown
Pura Belpré (Author) Award:
Winner:
Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall
Honor Books:
Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck by Margarita Engle
Maximilian and the Mystery of the Guardian Angel: A Bilingual Lucha Libre Thriller by Xavier Garza
Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children:
Winner:
A Ball for Daisy illustrated and written by Chris Raschka
Honor Books:
Blackout illustrated and written by John Rocco
Grandpa Green illustrated and written by Lane Smith
Me … Jane illustrated and written by Patrick McDonnell
Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award for most distinguished informational book for children:
Winner:
Balloons over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade by Melissa Sweet
Honor Books:
Black & White: The Confrontation between Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor by Larry Dane Brimnerand
Drawing from Memory written and illustrated by Allen Sayand
The Elephant Scientist by Caitlin O’Connell and Donna M. Jackson, photographs by Caitlin O’Connell and Timothy Rodwell
Witches!: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem written and illustrated by Rosalyn Schanzera
Schneider Family Book Award for books that embody an artistic expression of the disability experience:
Winners middle school award (ages 9 – 13):
close to famous by Joan Bauer
Wonderstruck: A Novel in Words and Pictures by Brian Selznick
Winner teen award (ages 14-18):
The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen
Stonewall Book Award - Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children’s & Young Adult Literature Award given annually to English-language children’s and young adult books of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender experience:
Winner:
Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy written by Bil Wright
Honor Books:
a + e 4ever drawn and written by Ilike Merey
Money Boy written by Paul Yee
Pink written by Lili Wilkinson
with or without you by Brian Farrey
Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for the most distinguished beginning reader book:
Winners:
Tales for Very Picky Eaters, written and illustrated by Josh Schneider
Honor Books:
I Broke My Trunk written and illustrated by Mo Willems
I Want My Hat Back written and illustrated by Jon Klassen
See Me Run written and illustrated by Paul Meisel
William C. Morris Award for a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens:
Winner:
Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley
Finalists:
Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson
Paper Covers Rock by Jenny Hubbard
Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults honors the best nonfiction book published for young adults:
Winner:
The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery by Steve Sheinkin
Finalists:
Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom and Science by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos
Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition by Karen Blumenthal
Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way) by Sue Macy
Music Was It: Young Leonard Bernstein by Susan Goldman Rubin
In addition to the many books honored with awards, three authors received awards:
Coretta Scott King - Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement was awarded to author Ashley Bryan.
Margaret A. Edwards Award, for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults, went to Susan Cooper.
Michael Morpurgo was chosen to present the 2013 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture.
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