Research and Course Guides: Children's & Young Adult Literature: Book Lists & Book Awards

Notable Book Lists

100 Great Children's Books (New York Public Library)
American Library Association Best Fiction for Young Adults
American Library Association Children's Notable Lists
Booklist Editor's Choice: Adult Books for Young Adults
Selected by the Books for Youth editors, titles constitute the year’s best personal reading for teenagers among adult books published in 2014.
Booklist Editor's Choice: Books for Youth
Committed to providing a broad selection of outstanding books that mixes popular appeal with literary excellence, the Books for Youth editorial staff has chosen titles representing what they believe to be best-of-the-year nonfiction and fiction books and picture books.
Children's Choices Reading List (International Reading Association)
Cooperative Children's Book Center booklists by age
Great Graphic Novels for Teens (YALSA)
Great Graphic Novels for Teens is a list of recommended graphic novels and illustrated nonfiction for those ages 12-18, prepared yearly by YALSA.
Hornbook Fanfare List
Chosen annually by theeditors, Fanfare is The Horn Book Magazine’s selection of the best children’s and young adult books of the year.
ILA Childrens/YA Book Award (International Literacy Association)
Young Adult Library Services Association Booklists
Young Adults' Choices (International Literacy Association)

School Library Journal

My Grandfather's Coat by Jim Aylesworth; Barbara McClintock (Illustrator)
Call Number: PZ8.1.A887 My 2014

Each year, School Library Journal creates a Best Of List, which covers picture books, middle grade, young adult, and nonfiction titles. A sample of those books are below:

Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin
Call Number: PZ7.M3693 Rai 2014
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton
Call Number: PZ7.W1765 Str 2014r

Award Winning Books @ Clemson

Linked here are award winning books available from the Clemson University Libraries and PASCAL partner schools. Lists begin with 2010 books (2011 Award Year). Earlier books may also be available in the Catalog. Honorable Mention works are final round contenders for a given year that did not win. Select courses may allow their use when actual award winners are unavailable - consult with your course professor.

Caldecott Medal (Honorable Mentions)
Newbery Medal (Honorable Mentions) [new links forthcoming 14 June 2024]

Featured Book Awards

Batchelder Award
The Batchelder Award is given to the most outstanding children’s book originally published in a language other than English in a country other than the United States, and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States.
Caldecott Medal
Carnegie Medal (Video)
Children's Literature Legacy Award
The Children's Literature Legacy 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.
Coretta Scott King Book Awards
The Coretta Scott King Book Awards are given annually to outstanding African American authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults that demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture and universal human values.
Geisel Award
The Geisel Award is given annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished American book for beginning readers published in English in the United States during the preceding year.
Newbery Medal
The Newbery Medal was named for eighteenth-century British bookseller John Newbery. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.
Odyssey Award
This annual award is given to the producer of the best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults, available in English in the United States
Printz Award
Pura Belpré Award
The award is named after Pura Belpré, the first Latina librarian at the New York Public Library. The Pura Belpré Award, established in 1996, is presented annually to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth
Sibert Informational Book Medal
The Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal is awarded annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished informational book published in the United States in English during the preceding year. The award is named in honor of Robert F. Sibert, the long-time President of Bound to Stay Bound Books, Inc. of Jacksonville, Illinois. ALSC administers the award.

More Book Awards

Aesop Prize and Aesop Accolades
The Aesop Prize and Aesop Accolades are conferred annually by the Children’s Folklore Section of the American Folklore Society upon English language books for children and young adults, both fiction and nonfiction.
African Studies Association Children's Africana Book Award
In 1991, Africa Access in collaboration with the Outreach Council of the African Studies Association created the Children’s Africana Book Awards with three major objectives (1) to encourage the publication of children’s and young adult books that contribute to a better understanding of African societies and issues, (2) to recognize literary excellence, and (3) to acknowledge the research achievements of outstanding authors and illustrators.
Agatha Award
The Agatha Awards honor the "traditional mystery." That is to say, books best typified by the works of Agatha Christie as well as others.
Alberta Literary Awards
The Alberta Literary Awards were created by the Writers' Guild of Alberta in 1982 to recognize excellence in writing by Alberta authors. Submissions are evaluated on originality, creativity, and quality of writing, as well as appropriate fit within a category.
Alex Awards (YALSA)
The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18.
American Institute of Physics Children's Science Writing Awards
Given each year since the 1960s, AIP's Science Communication Awards promote effective science writing in print, broadcast and online in order to improve the general public’s appreciation of physics, astronomy and allied science fields.
Américas Awards for Children's and Young Adult Literature
The Américas Award is given in recognition of U.S. works of fiction, poetry, folklore, or selected non-fiction (from picture books to works for young adults) published in the previous year in English or Spanish that authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States.
Arthur Ellis Awards
The Arthur Ellis Awards are for CRIME WRITING, and are not restricted to mystery writing. Crime-writing encompasses far more than the traditional whodunit. The crime genre includes crime, detective...
Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature
The goal of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature is to honor and recognize individual work about Asian/Pacific Americans and their heritage, based on literary and artistic merit.
Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults (YALSA)
The YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction honors the best nonfiction book published for young adults (ages 12-18) during a November 1 – October 31 publishing year.
Bank Street College Book Awards: Claudia Lewis; Flora Stieglitz Straus; Josette Frank
The Josette Frank Award for fiction honors a book or books of outstanding literary merit in which children or young people deal in a positive and realistic way with difficulties in their world and grow emotionally and morally. The Flora Stieglitz Straus Award is presented annually for a distinguished work of nonfiction which serves as an inspiration to young people. The Claudia Lewis Award is given for the best poetry book of the year.
BC Book Prizes: Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature; Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize
The BC Book Prizes, established in 1985, celebrate the achievements of British Columbia writers and publishers.
Boston Globe Horn Book Awards
Winners are selected in three categories: Picture Book, Fiction and Poetry, and Nonfiction. Two Honor Books may be named in each category. On occasion, a book will receive a special citation for its high quality and overall creative excellence.
Bulletin Blue Ribbons Awards
Blue Ribbons are chosen annually by the Bulletin staff and represent what we believe to be the best of the previous year's literature for youth.
Burt Award for First Nations, Metis and Inuit Literature
The Burt Award for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature is a unique literary award and readership initiative established by CODE with the generous support of philanthropist William Burt and the Literary Prizes Foundation. The Award recognizes excellence in First Nations, Métis and Inuit literature for youth and provides engaging and culturally-relevant books for young people across Canada.
California Book Awards
The California Book Awards strive to annually recognize the state’s best writers and illuminate the wealth and diversity of California-based literature. The California Book Awards began in 1931 with two gold medals – one for a work of fiction and one for nonfiction. Through the years, several more categories have been added along with the inclusion of silver medals. Currently categories consist of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Juvenile Literature, Young Adult Literature, First Work of Fiction, Californiana, and Notable Contribution to Publishing.
Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Non-Fiction
The Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction were established in 2012 to recognize the best fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the U.S. the previous year.
Carter G. Woodson Awards
In 1974, National Council for the Social Studies established the Carter G. Woodson Book Award for the most distinguished social science books appropriate for young readers that depict ethnicity in the United States. The purpose of this award is to encourage the writing, publishing, and dissemination of outstanding social science books for young readers that treat topics related to ethnic minorities and relations sensitively and accurately.
Charlotte Zolotow Award
The Charlotte Zolotow Award is given annually to the author of the best picture book text published in the United States in the preceding year. The award is administered by the Cooperative Children's Book Center, a children's literature library of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Children's Book of the Year Awards (Children's Book Council of Australia)
The Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards are for books with an implied readership under the age of eighteen. The Judges assess entries primarily for literary merit, including cohesiveness in significant literary elements; language chosen for its appropriateness to the theme and style of the work with proper regard to the aesthetic qualities of language; and originality in the treatment of literary elements as they apply to the form of the work. Appeal to the implied readership under the age of eighteen is also taken into account. Judges should also consider quality of illustrations, book design, production, printing and binding.
Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent
These books affirm new talent and offer visibility to excellence in writing or illustration at the beginning of a career as a published book creator.
Costa Children's Book Award
The Costa Book Awards honor some of the most outstanding books of the year written by authors based in the UK and Ireland.
Edgar Allan Poe Awards
Each spring, Mystery Writers of America present the Edgar® Awards, widely acknowledged to be the most prestigious awards in the genre.
Ezra Jack Keats New Writer and Illustrator Awards
Known collectively as the Ezra Jack Keats Book Award, the New Writer Award was established in 1985 and the New Illustrator Award in 2001 to recognize and encourage emerging talent in the field of children’s books.
Giverny Award
The Giverny Award is an annual children's science picture book award. Nominees must teach young readers at least one important scientific principle well, or encourage the reader toward specific science-related attitudes, pursuits, or inquiries.
Golden Kite and Sid Fleischman Awards
The Golden Kite Awards are given annually to recognize excellence in children’s literature in the previous calendar year by an SCBWI member in four categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Picture Book Text, and Picture Book Illustration. Named for the late Newbery-winner Sid Fleischman, the SCBWI offers this eponymous award to authors whose work exemplifies excellence in the genre of humor, a category so often overlooked by other award committees in children’s literature.
Governor General's Literary Awards
Each year, the Governor General’s Literary Awards (the GGs) honor the best in Canadian literature. As Canada’s national literary awards, the GGs represent the rich diversity of Canadian literature and its authors, translators and illustrators.
Green Earth Book Awards
The Green Earth Book Award is the nation’s first environmental stewardship book award for children and young adult books.
Gryphon Award
The Gryphon Award is given annually in recognition of an English language work of fiction or non-fiction for which the primary audience is children in Kindergarten through Grade 4. The title chosen best exemplifies those qualities that successfully bridge the gap in difficulty between books for reading aloud to children and books for practiced readers.
Irma S. & James H. Black Award for Excellence in Children's Literature
The Irma Simonton Black and James H. Black Award for Excellence in Children's Literature (Irma Black Award) goes to an outstanding book for young children - a book in which text and illustrations are inseparable, each enhancing and enlarging on the other to produce a singular whole. The Irma Black Award is unusual in that children are the final judges of the winning book.
Lane Anderson Award (Canadian Science Book Prize)
The Lane Anderson Award honours the very best science writing in Canada today, both in the adult and young reading categories. Each award will be determined on the relevance of its content to the importance of science in today’s world, and the author’s ability to connect the topic to the interests of the general trade reader.
Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award
The Lillian Shepherd award for excellence in illustration is given to an illustrator residing in or from Atlantic Canada, or who has illustrated a book written by an Atlantic Canadian or a book that is set in the region.
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award
The Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature honors books for younger readers (from “Young Adults” to picture books for beginning readers), in the tradition of The Hobbit or The Chronicles of Narnia.
National Book Award
Established in 1950, the National Book Award is an American literary prize administered by the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization.
National Jewish Book Awards
The goal for National Jewish Book Award judging panels is to select a quality book in their respective category that will appeal to a broad reading audience. Awards are presented in over 18 categories. In addition, since 2003, one non-fiction book has been selected as the winner of the Everett Family Foundation Jewish Book of the Year Award.
New York Times Best Illustrated Books 2016
Every year since 1952, the Book Review has convened an independent panel of judges to select picture books on the basis of artistic merit. The winning books are chosen from among thousands for what is the only annual award of its kind.
New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards
Awards for the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults are made in four categories: Young Adult Fiction, Junior Fiction, Non-fiction and Picture Book. Five finalists are selected for each category and from these a winner in each category is selected.
Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People
Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People is an annual reading list of exceptional books for use in social studies classrooms, selected by social studies educators.
Ontario Library Association Awards
The Blue Spruce, Red Maple, Silver Birch, and White Pine Awards titles are part of the Ontario Library Association's Forest of Reading program.
Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12
The books that appear in these lists were selected as outstanding children’s science trade books. They were chosen by a book review panel appointed by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and assembled in cooperation with the Children’s Book Council (CBC).
Phoenix Award
The Children's Literature Association, an organization of teachers, scholars, librarians, editors, writers, illustrators, and parents interested in encouraging the serious study of children's literature, created the Phoenix Award. The award, given to a book originally published in the English language, is intended to recognize books of high literary merit.
Printz Award
Prize for Children's & Young Adult Literature (Quebec Writers' Federation)
Every year, QWF shines the spotlight on the best English-language writers to emerge from Quebec.
Royal Society Young People's Book Prize
Each year the Royal Society awards a prize to the best book that communicates science to young people. The prize aims to inspire young people to read about science and promotes the best science writing for the under-14s.
Schneider Family Book Awards (American Library Association)
The Schneider Family Book Awards honor an author or illustrator for a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences.
Scott O'Dell Award
In 1982, Scott O'Dell established The Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction. The annual award goes to an author for a meritorious book published in the previous year for children or young adults. Scott O'Dell established this award to encourage other writers--particularly new authors--to focus on historical fiction.
Stonewall Book Award (American Library Association)
The first and most enduring award for GLBT books is the Stonewall Book Awards, sponsored by the American Library Association's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table.
Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic
The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic is a juried award which recognizes exceptional writing in three categories: adult, young adult and short story.
Sydney Taylor Book Awards
The Sydney Taylor Book Award is presented annually to outstanding books for children and teens that authentically portray the Jewish experience. Presented by the Association of Jewish Libraries since 1968, the award encourages the publication and widespread use of quality Judaic literature.
Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children's Book Award
Texas State University College of Education developed the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award to honor authors and illustrators who create literature that depicts the Mexican American experience.
Violet Downey Book Award
The award is offered annually for the best English language book containing at least 500 words of text (preferably with Canadian content) in any category, suitable for children aged 13 and under.
Western Australian Premier's Book Awards
Annual literary awards were inaugurated by the Western Australian Government in 1982 to honor and celebrate the literary achievements of Western Australian writers.
Western Heritage Award
First presented in 1961, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum Western Heritage Awards were established to honor and encourage the legacy of those whose works in literature, music, film, and television reflect the significant stories of the American West.
Western Writers of America Spur Awards
Western Writers of America annually honors writers for distinguished writing about the American West with the Spur Awards.
William C. Morris Debut YA Award (YALSA)
The William C. Morris YA Debut Award, first awarded in 2009, honors a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens and celebrating impressive new voices in young adult literature.

Kirkus Lists

Check out Kirkus Review Magazine's Best Of Lists:

El Deafo by Cece Bell; David Lasky (Illustrator)
Call Number: HV2534.B44 A3 2014
Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater
Call Number: PZ7.S855625 Blu 2014

Newbery Award Winner App

Newbery App
This is a handy resource if you’re interested in Newbery history, keeping track of which Medalists and Honor Books you’ve read, or choosing the next one to read. It’s also a fun place to test your skills.