2025 ALA Youth Media Awards (SCPL-YS)

Created on February 12, 2026, 2:00 pm

Last Updated February 12, 2026, 2:34 pm

Featuring 2025 winners and honors from the American Librarian Associations' Youth Media Awards. Includes: Newbery (American children's books); Caldecott (American picture books); Sibert (informational books); Geisel (beginning reader books); Batchelder (foreign publications that have been translated); Odyssey (best audiobook produced for children); Pura Belpré (works that best portray, affirm, and celebrate Latine identity); Coretta Scott King (books by African American authors and illustrators that reflect the African American experience); Schneider Family (embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences); Stonewall (exceptional merit relating to the LGBTQIA experience); American Indian (biannual; honors the very best writing and illustrations by Native Americans and indigenous peoples of N. America); Sydney Taylor (outstanding books for children and teens that authentically portray the Jewish experience); and Asian Pacific American (recognize work about Asian/Pacific Americans and their heritage).

1) Abuelo, the sea, and me

Author

Williams, Ismée

Description

Season by season, a young girl walks with her abuelo along the beach as he shares stories about his life in Havana.

2) Across so many seas

Author

Behar, Ruth, 1956-

Series

Thorndike Press youth large print middle reader

Description

"Spanning over five hundred years, a novel telling the stories of four girls from different generations of a Jewish family, many of them forced to leave their country and start a new life"-- Provided by publisher.

3) The first state of being

Author

Kelly, Erin Entrada

Series

Thorndike Press large print middle reader

Description

It's August 1999. For twelve-year-old Michael Rosario, life at Fox Run Apartments in Red Knot, Delaware, is as ordinary as ever, except for the looming Y2K crisis and his overwhelming crush on his fifteen-year-old babysitter, Gibby. But when a disoriented teenage boy named Ridge appears out of nowhere, Michael discovers there is more to life than stockpiling supplies and pining over Gibby. It turns out that Ridge is carefree, confident, and bold,...

4) Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All: (A Newbery Honor Book)

Author

Description

"Down at the bottom of the tall buildings of New York City, Magnolia Wu sits inside her parents' laundromat. She has pinned every lost sock from the laundromat onto a bulletin board in hopes that customers will return to retrieve them. But no one seems to have noticed. In fact, barely anyone has noticed Magnolia at all. What she doesn't know is that this is about to be her most exciting summer yet. When Iris, a new friend from California arrives,...

5) One big open sky

Author

Cline-Ransome, Lesa

Description

"In the 1870s, a Black family undertakes a perilous wagon journey westward for a tenuous shot at freedom in Nebraska"-- Provided by publisher.

6) The wrong way home

Author

O'Shaughnessy, Kate

Series

Thorndike Press youth large print middle reader

Description

When twelve-year-old Fern and her mother abruptly leave their isolated, off-the-grid community, Fern wants nothing more than to return, but things get murky as she slowly adjusts to her new life and discovers unsettling truths about her old one.

7) Chooch helped

Author

Rogers, Andrea L

Description

"Sissy's younger brother, Chooch, isn't a baby anymore. They just celebrated his second birthday, after all. But no matter what Chooch does -- even if he's messing something up! Which is basically all the time! -- their parents say he's just "helping." Sissy feels that Chooch can get away with anything! When Elisi paints a mural, Chooch helps. When Edutsi makes grape dumplings, Chooch helps. When Oginalii gigs for crawdads, Chooch helps. When Sissy...

8) Home in a lunchbox

Author

Description

After moving to America from Hong Kong, Jun feels isolated at her new school but discovers a sense of home in the familiar foods and flavors she finds in her lunchbox.

9) My daddy is a cowboy

Author

Seales, Stephanie

Description

While a young Panamanian American girl and her father share "just-us" time on an early morning horseback ride around their town, he tells her cowboy stories and she realizes she is a cowboy too.

10) Noodles on a bicycle

Author

Maclear, Kyo, 1970-

Description

Children watch in amazement as the bicycle food deliverers of Tokyo stack their noodle bowls like architects, zip through the city like acrobats, and deliver delicious noodles to students, office workers, and families.

11) Up, up, ever up!: Junko Tabei : a life in the mountains

Author

Description

Anita Yasuda's evocative picture book biography about Junko Tabei, the first woman to summit Everest.

Author

Alexander, Kwame

Series

Door of no return trilogy volume 2
The Door of No Return
Thorndike Press youth large print middle reader
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Description

Twelve-year old Black girl Charley, who dreams of becoming the first professional female pitcher, must navigate adolescence during the turbulent segregation era and the beginning of the Great Migration.

13) Coretta: the autobiography of Mrs. Coretta Scott King

Author

King, Coretta Scott, 1927-2006

Description

This picture book adaptation of her critically acclaimed adult memoir paints a vivid portrait of the wife of Martin Luther King, Jr. and a singular 20th-century American civil and human rights activist who fought for justice against all odds, becoming an unforgettable champion of social change.

14) Everywhere beauty is Harlem: the vision of photographer Roy Decarava

Author

Description

"This visually stunning portrait of Black photographer Roy DeCarava, a child of the Harlem Renaissance and an artistic collaborator of Langston Hughes, takes readers through 1940s Harlem where beauty is everywhere as he immortalizes and documents the lives of ordinary Black people. Simultaneous eBook. Illustrations."-- Provided by publisher.

15) Go forth and tell: the life of Augusta Baker, librarian and master storyteller

Author

McDaniel, Breanna J

Description

"A luminous picture book biography about librarian and storyteller Augusta Baker, the first Black coordinator of children's services at all branches of the New York Public library"-- Provided by publisher.

16) Kwame crashes the underworld

Author

Farmer, Craig Kofi

Series

Description

When twelve-year-old Kwame Powell is sucked into a magical whirlpool that leads him straight to Asamando, the Ghanaian underworld, he doesn't expect to befriend a mischievous monkey. He also doesn't expect to find himself embroiled with angry nature gods intent on destroying humanity. And, he certainly doesn't expect to run into his late grandmother...who is somehow alive. And still a kid.

17) Jimmy's rhythm & blues: the extraordinary life of James Baldwin

Author

Meadows, Michelle

Description

"This first-ever picture book biography of the legendary writer and activist introduces readers to this passionate Black man who discovered his true power in the written word, which opened the world to him as he used his voice fearlessly"-- Provided by publisher.

18) A little like magic

Author

Description

"Our young narrator doesn't like itchy hats or cold wind, and she especially doesn't like going places she's never been before. But she reluctantly agrees to join her mom at an ice festival, where they watch sculptors chisel and drill until it's too cold to watch anymore. That night the girl discovers that she has lost the horse figurine she'd brought with her, and she wishes she'd never gone . . . until the next night, when they return to the festival...

19) Monster hands

Author

Kane, Karen, 1965-

Description

"One night, just before bedtime ... Milo read a book about a monster under the bed. Milo should not have read that book. Monsters under the bed are scary, but luckily, Milo's best friend, Mel, knows just what to do--scare the monster more than the monster scares you!"--P. [2] of jacket.

20) You're so amazing!

Author

Catchpole, James, 1980-

Description

When people meet Joe, they often treat him as Amazing Joe or Poor Joe. But can't he just be . . . Joe? One-legged Joe is 'amazing'. He knows this because wherever he goes people always tell him he's amazing. Amazing for sliding down the slide, for kicking a ball . . . even walking to get an ice cream, or even just eating an ice cream. Of course, being Amazing Joe is better than being Poor Joe . . . A groundbreaking picture book which explores how...