The following awards are presented by committees associated with the American Library Association. Clicking the links will take you to pages with descriptions of the awards, along with lists of current and past winners and honorees.
Alex Awards (adult books with appeal to teens)
American Indian Library Association Youth Literature Awards
Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature
Coretta Scott King Book Awards (African-American authors and illustrators)
John Newbery Medal (children's literature)
Michael L. Printz Award (literature for teens)
Mildred L. Batchelder Award (translated children's books)
Odyssey Award (audiobooks)
Pura Belpré Awards (Latinx authors and illustrators)
Randolph Caldecott Medal (picture book illustration)
Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal
Schneider Family Book Awards (representation of the disability experience)
Stonewall Book Awards: Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children’s & Young Adult Literature Award (LGBTQIA+ experience)
Sydney Taylor Book Awards (portrayal of the Jewish experience)
Theodor Seuss Geisel Award (beginning readers)
Below is a list of places to find award-winning and/or recommended titles that celebrate and reflect the diverse experiences of children and teens from many backgrounds. This list, although long, is not comprehensive; there are many other blogs, articles, and social media accounts that offer more ideas! The hope is that this will give you a place to start exploring and introduce you to some of the authors, illustrators, and publishers that are creating amazing work for young people.
ALA-Sponsored Award Lists (see links in the list to the left)
Additional Book Awards
Other Sources for Recommended Books
Growing Minds is an almost-monthly catalog from Baker & Taylor that includes recent and upcoming publications for children and teens. For each issue, Sarah goes through and makes a list of the books that she thinks are worth taking a look at for your collections, in terms of popularity, excellent reviews, and/or just plain awesomeness. Links to recent catalogs and recommendation lists are below.
(For those libraries who do their ordering through Workflows, these lists are also available as selection lists. For more information, please contact Sarah or Dannielle at 4CLS.)
Some public libraries have found that their youngest patrons (as well as caregivers) find it easier to search for books by topic instead of by author. (For example, little Heaven is really into trucks right now, and her grandma is in a hurry to pick her up from daycare after a doctor's appointment--wouldn't it be easier if all the storybooks about trucks were together?)
In response to a request for a method to organize picture books by topic, 4CLS staff and member library staff worked together to create a framework that would help member libraries to reorganize their collections, if they choose to do so. The document linked below lays out the framework.
If your library would like to take on the reorganization of your picture book collection, please get in touch with Sarah (sreid@4cls.org) with any questions.