Diversity rocks the 2018 ALA Midwinter Youth Media awards
Diverse books rocked the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter festival and their awards list this year.
The ALA MW festival is a huge deal for children’s literature every year. This year, every single category was awarded to, or honored, books by and about marginalized people, which is awesome.
The John Newbery Award went to Erin Entrada Kelly’s Hello, Universe. The Newbery Medal is awarded to the book which made “the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature,” according to the ALA website. Last year’s Newbery winner was The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill.
Read the full synopsis of Hello, Universe below:
"In one day, four lives weave together in unexpected ways. Virgil Salinas is shy and kindhearted and feels out of place in his loud and boisterous family. Valencia Somerset, who is deaf, is smart, brave, and secretly lonely, and loves everything about nature. Kaori Tanaka is a self-proclaimed psychic, whose little sister Gen is always following her around. And Chet Bullens wishes the weird kids would just act normal so that he can concentrate on basketball. They aren’t friends — at least not until Chet pulls a prank that traps Virgil and his pet guinea pig at the bottom of a well. This disaster leads Kaori, Gen, and Valencia on an epic quest to find the missing Virgil. Through luck, smarts, bravery, and a little help from the universe, a rescue is performed, a bully is put in his place, and friendship blooms. (via Goodreads)"
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson, and Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by Derrick Barnes were the recipients of honors.
Nina Lacour’s We Are Okay won the Michael L. Printz Award, which is awarded for “excellence in literature written for young adults.”
The Stonewall Award, which is awarded to English-language children’s and young adult books of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender experience, was awarded to Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert.
The top ten adult books with crossover potential were honored with the Alex Awards. Those books are: All Systems Red by Martha Wells, The Clockwork Dynasty by Daniel H. Wilson, Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire, Electric Arches by Eve L. Ewing, A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea by Melissa Fleming, Malagash by Joey Comeau, Roughneck by Jeff Lemire, She Rides Shotgun by Jordan Harper and An Unkindness of Magicians by Kat Howard.
The Hate U Give author Angie Thomas won the William C. Morris Award, the Odyssey Award, and came out with honors in the Coretta Scott King Award and the Printz Award.
Renée Watson’s Piecing Me Together won the Coretta Scott King Award, which recognizes an African-American author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults, and was an honored mention for the John Newbery Award.
Longtime children’s literature activists were honored as well. The Laura Ingalls Wilder Award was awarded to Jacqueline Woodson, author of Brown Girl Dreaming. This award “honors an author or illustrator whose books, published in the United States, have made, over a period of years, a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children.”
Debbie Reese, the Nambe Pueblo founder of American Indians in Children’s Literature was awarded the May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award. This award recognizes “an author, critic, librarian, historian or teacher of children’s literature, who then presents a lecture at a winning host site.”
Reese will deliver the 2019 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture.
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You can read the full list of winners at ALA’s website.