By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
‘The Fabric of Our Own Communities’
The United States’ National Book Awards now set for November 17, has begun today (September 15) announcing its longlists for the 2021 National Book Awards. As this program likes to do, it’s parsing the announcements across five categories on sequential days.
Finalists—the shortlisted entries—are to be named October 5. The longlist provided today to members of the news media is for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.
The longlistings for work in young people’s content includes, as the foundation says in its media messaging today, race and politics, familial history and global events, “and the magic woven in the fabric of our own communities.”
Publishers submitted a total of 344 books for the 2021 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.
Jurors in this category this year are Cathryn Mercier (chair), Pablo Cartaya, Traci Chee, Leslie Connor, and Ibi Zoboi.
Young People’s Literature 2021 Longlist
| Author | Title | Publisher / Imprint |
| Safia Elhillo | Home Is Not a Country | Penguin Random House / Make Me a World |
| Shing Yin Khor | The Legend of Auntie Po | Penguin Random House / Kokila |
| Darcie Little Badger | A Snake Falls to Earth | Levine Querido |
| Malinda Lo | Last Night at the Telegraph Club | Penguin Random House / Dutton Books for Young Readers |
| Kyle Lukoff | Too Bright to See | Penguin Random House / Dial Books for Young Readers |
| Kekla Magoon | Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People | Candlewick Press |
| Amber McBride | Me (Moth) | Macmillan Publishers / Feiwel and Friends |
| Anna-Marie McLemore | The Mirror Season | Macmillan Publishers / Feiwel and Friends |
| Carole Boston Weatherford, Illustrations by Floyd Cooper |
Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre | Lerner Publishing Group / Carolrhoda Books |
| Paula Yoo | From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement | WW Norton & Company / Norton Young Readers |
As always, the jury’s decisions are made independently of the National Book Foundation staff and board of directors and deliberations are strictly confidential.
More from Publishing Perspectives on the National Book Awards is here, and on awards programs in general is here.
More on the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on international book publishing is here.