The American Library Association presented their annual book awards at their mid-winter meeting in Seattle. On Monday morning, at the Youth Media Awards, the Newbery medal went to Meg Medina for Merci Suarez Changes Gears (Candlewick) and the Caldecott Medal to Sophie Blackall for Hello Lighthouse (Little, Brown).
National Book Award winner The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (HarperTeen) won the Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature (it also won the Pura Belpre Award for Text). The William C. Morris debut award went to Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram (Dial), while The Unwanted by Don Brown (HMH) won the Excellence in Nonfiction award. Joyce Sidman received the Sibert Medal for distinguished informational book for The Girl Who Drew Butterflies (HMH).
The Margaret A. Edwards Award for “significant and lasting contributions to young adult literature” went to M. T. Anderson. The Coretta Scott King Author Award was given to to Claire Hartfield for A Few Red Drops (HMH), while Pauletta Brown Bracy received the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement. Courtney Summers’s Sadie (Macmillan) received the Odyssey Award for best audio book produced for children or young adults, and Walter Dean Myers was the Children’s Literature Legacy Award winner.
Newbery Honor Books
The Night Diary, by Veera Hiranandani (Penguin Children’s)
The Book of Boy, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock (Greenwillow)
Caldecott Honor Books
Alma and How She Got Her Name, by Jauna Martinez-Neal (Candlewick)
A Big Mooncake for Little Star, by Grace Lin (Little Brown)
The Rough Patch, by Brian Lies (Greenwillow)
Thank You, Omu!, by Oge Mora (Little Brown)
On Sunday night the ALA presented the Carnegie Medals, with Rebecca Makkai winning the fiction medal for The Great Believers, while Kiese Laymon took home the nonfiction prize for Heavy.