Children's and Young Adult Book Awards
The International Literacy Association (ILA) Children's and Young Adult Book Awards are intended for newly published authors who show unusual promise in the children's and young adult book field. Awards are given for fiction and nonfiction in each of three (3) categories: Primary, Intermediate, and Young Adult. Books from all countries and published in English for the first time during the calendar year will be considered.
This award will not be offered in 2027. Please direct questions to ILAAwards@reading.org.
Guidelines
Recipients
2026
Primary Fiction Winner: Xin Li for I Lived Inside a Whale (Little, Brown Ink)
Primary Fiction Honor: Alex Killian for This Table (Greystone Kids)
Primary Nonfiction Winner: Leslie Barnard Booth for One Day This Tree Will Fall (Simon & Schuster)
Primary Nonfiction Honor: Minda Dentler for The Girl Who Figured It Out (Sourcebooks)
Intermediate Fiction Winner: Craig Kofi Farmer for Kwame Crashes the Underworld (Macmillian)
Intermediate Fiction Honor: Anna Lapera for Mani Semilla Finds Her Quetzal Voice (Levine Querido)
Intermediate Nonfiction Winner: Hugo Cook for Tales of Ancient Egypt: Myths & Adventures from the Land of The Pyramids (Macmillan)
Intermediate Nonfiction Honor: Iron Tazz for Hike It: An Introduction to Camping, Hiking, and Backpacking through the USA (Magic Cat Publishing)
Young Adult Fiction Winner: Bessie Flores Zaldívar for Libertad (Penguin Young Readers)
Young Adult Fiction Honor: Juan Vidal for A Second Chance on Earth (Holiday House)
Young Adult Nonfiction Winner: Walela Nehanda for Bless the Blood: A Cancer Memoir (Penguin Young Readers)
Primary Fiction Winner: Ruth Whiting for Lonely Bird (Candlewick)
Primary Fiction Honor: Kevin Johnson for Cape (Macmillan)
Primary Nonfiction Winner: Jessica Lanan for Jumper: A Day in the Life of a Backyard Jumping Spider (Macmillan)
Primary Nonfiction Honor: Shannon Earle for The Penguin of Ilha Grande: From Animal Rescue to Extraordinary Friendship (Charlesbridge)
Intermediate Fiction Winner: Zach Weinersmith for Bea Wolf (Macmillan)
Intermediate Fiction Honor: Malia Maunakea for Lei and the Fire Goddess (Penguin)
Intermediate Nonfiction Winner: Willie Mae Brown for My Selma: True Stories of a Southern Childhood at the Height of the Civil Rights Movement (Macmillan)
Intermediate Nonfiction Honor: Katharina Weiss-Tuider for Mission: Arctic: A Scientific Adventure to a Changing North Pole (Greystone Kids)
Young Adult Fiction Winner: Angeline Boulley for Warrior Girl Unearthed (Macmillan)
Young Adult Fiction Honor: Ari Tison for Saints of the Household (Macmillan)
Young Adult Nonfiction Winner: Sarah Myer for Monstrous: A Transracial Adoption Story (Macmillan)
Young Adult Nonfiction Honor: Monica Edinger and Lesley Younge for Nearer My Freedom: The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano by Himself (Lerner)
Primary Fiction Winner: Young Vo for Gibberish (Levine Querido)
Primary Fiction Honor: Pearl AuYeung for The Best Kind of Mooncake (Page Street Kids)
Primary Nonfiction Winner: Shaelyn McDaniel for Hello, Opportunity: The Story of Our Friend on Mars (Page Street Kids)
Primary Nonfiction Honor: Justin Anderson for Narwhal: The Arctic Unicorn (Candlewick)
Intermediate Fiction Winner: Sarah Guillory for Nowhere Better Than Here (Macmillan)
Intermediate Fiction Honor: C. C. Harrington for Wildoak (Scholastic)
Intermediate Nonfiction Winner: Barbara Binns for Unlawful Orders: A Portrait of Dr. James B. Williams, Tuskegee Airman, Surgeon, and Activist (Scholastic)
Intermediate Nonfiction Honor: Olivia Meikle and Katie Nelson for The Book of Sisters: Biographies of Incredible Siblings Through History (Macmillan)
Young Adult Fiction Winner: Andrea L. Rogers for Man Made Monsters (Levine Querido)
Young Adult Fiction Honor: Jas Hammonds for We Deserve Monuments (Macmillan)
Young Adult Nonfiction Winner: Jetta Grace Martin, Joshua Bloom, and Waldo E. Martin Jr. for Freedom! The Story of the Black Panther Party (Levine Querido)
Young Adult Nonfiction Honor: Achut Deng and Keely Hutton for Don’t Look Back: A Memoir of War, Survival, and My Journey From Sudan to America (Macmillan)
Primary Fiction: Isabel and Her Colores Go to School by Alexandra Alessandri (Sleeping Bear Press)
Primary Fiction Honor: Archie Celebrates Diwali by Mitali Banerjee Ruths (Charlesbridge)
Primary Nonfiction: Mimic Makers: Biomimicry Inventors Inspired by Nature by Kristen Nordstrom (Charlesbridge)
Primary Nonfiction Honor: Areli Is a Dreamer by Areli Morales (Random House Children's Books)
Intermediate Fiction: Starfish by Lisa Fipps (Penguin Young Readers)
Intermediate Fiction Honor: Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna by Alda P. Dobbs (Sourcebooks)
Intermediate Nonfiction: It Takes Guts: How Your Body Turns Food Into Fuel (and Poop) by Dr. Jennifer Gardy (Greystone Kids)
Intermediate Nonfiction Honor: Orca Rescue! The True Story of an Orphaned Orca Named Springer by Donna Sandstrom (Kids Can Press)
Intermediate Nonfiction Honor: Why Longfellow Lied: The Truth About Paul Revere's Midnight Ride by Jeff Lantos (Charlesbridge)
Young Adult Fiction: Both Sides Now by Peyton Thomas (Penguin Young Readers)
Young Adult Fiction Honor: Where I Belong by Marcia Argueta Mickelson (Lerner)
Young Adult Nonfiction: No Way, They Were Gay?: Hidden Lives and Secret Loves (Queer History Project) by Lee Wind (Lerner)
Young Adult Nonfiction Honor: We Are Not Broken by George M. Johnson (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Primary Fiction: Magnificent Homespun Brown: A Celebration by Samara Cole Doyon (Tilbury House)
Primary Fiction Honor: I Talk Like a River by Jordan Scott (Neal Porter Books/Holiday House)
Primary Nonfiction: This Is a Seahorse by Cassandra Federman (Albert Whitman & Co)
Primary Nonfiction Honor: The Big Bang Book by Asa Stahl (Creston Books)
Intermediate Fiction: Brother’s Keeper by Julie Lee (Holiday House)
Intermediate Fiction Honor: When You Know What I Know by Sonja K. Solter (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Intermediate Nonfiction: The Suffragist Playbook: Your Guide to Changing the World by Lucinda Robb & Rebecca Boggs Roberts (Candlewick Press)
Intermediate Nonfiction Honor: Lizzie Demands a Seat: Elizabeth Jennings Fights for Streetcar Rights by Beth Anderson (Boyds Mills & Kane)
Young Adult Fiction: The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen (Random House Children’s Books)
Young Adult Fiction Honor: The Lucky Ones by Liz Lawson (Random House Children’s Books)
Young Adult Nonfiction: The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person by Frederick Joseph (Candlewick Press)
Primary Fiction: Bird Count by Susan Edwards Richmond (Peachtree Publishing Company)
Primary Fiction Honor: Ella McKeen, Kickball Queen by Beth Mills (Lerner Publishing Group)
Primary Nonfiction: A Green Place to Be: The Creation of Central Park by Ashley Benham Yazdani (Candlewick Express)
Primary Nonfiction Honor: Queen of Physics: How Wu Chien Shiung Helped Unlock the Secrets of the Atom by Teresa Robeson (Sterling Publishing)
Intermediate Fiction: Caterpillar Summer by Gillian McDunn (Bloomsbury USA)
Intermediate Fiction Honor: Emmy in the Key of Code by Aimee Lucido (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Intermediate Fiction Honor: A Kind of Paradise by Amy Rebecca Tan (Harper Collins Children's Books)
Nonfiction: No award given this year
Young Adult Fiction: Every Stolen Breath by Kimberly Gabriel (Blink)
Young Adult Fiction Honor: How to Make Friends With the Dark by Kathleen Glasgow (RH Children's)
Young Adult Nonfiction: Dissenter on the Bench: Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Life & Work by Victoria Ortiz (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
For additional information, contact ILAAwards@reading.org.