Awards: The 2022 Youth Media Award Winners

In News by Porter Anderson

The American Library Association’s 47 honors in the 2022 Youth Media Awards include the Newbery, Caldecott, Batchelder, and Printz prizes.

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

Almost 50 Titles Overall
We continue to work our way through news of various book and publishing awards programs for our international audience, today (February 21) with a look at the recently awarded Youth Media Awards from the American Library Association.

As you may know, these awards include such well-known honors as the Newbery, Caldecott, Printz, and Coretta Scott King Book Awards. The news of the awards was announced from Chicago during the digital edition of this year’s LibLearnX: The Library Learning Experience program.

This list comprises 47 honors across 18 named award/categories. That includes the 10 Alex Awards, which are chosen for their appeal to young adult (YA) readers, as well as the ALA Affiliate Awards—the Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature, Sydney Taylor Book Award, and the biennial American Indian Youth Literature Award.

Of significance, of course, to many who work in the children’s book sector is the fact that the Newbery medal is in its 100th anniversary year, having been founded in 1922—the year in which the Hollywood Bowl opened, Benito Mussolini became Italy’s youngest prime minister, and the Soviet Union was formed by Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Transcaucasian Republic.

American Indian Youth  Literature Award: Picture Book  

  • Herizon by Daniel W. Vandever (Diné, a term by which Navaho and Apache people use to refer to themselves), illustrated by Corey Begay (Diné), South of Sunrise Creative 

American Indian Youth  Literature Award: Middle Grade Book  

American Indian Youth  Literature Award: YA Book  

Asian/Pacific American Award, Picture Book

  • Watercress by by Andrea Wang, illustrated by Jason Chin, Penguin Random House/Neal Porter Books

Asian/Pacific American Award Children’s literature

  • Amina’s Song by Hena Khan, Simon & Schuster Children’s  Publishing/Salaam Reads

Asian/Pacific American Award, Youth Literature

Sydney Taylor Book Award, Picture Book

  • The Passover Guest by Susan Kusel, illustrated by Sean Rubin, Penguin Random House/Neal Porter Books

Sydney Taylor Book Award, Middle Grade Book

Sydney Taylor Book Award, YA Book

Sydney Taylor Body-of-Work  

  • Jane Yolen

Schneider Family Book Award, Young Children’s Book 

  • My City Speaks, by Darren Lebeuf, iIllustrated by Ashley Barron, Kids Can Press 

Schneider Family Book Award, Middle Grade Book 

  • A Bird Will Soar, by Alison Green Myers, Penguin Random House/Dutton Books for Young  Readers

Schneider Family Book Award, Teen Book 

Stonewall Children’s Award

  • Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff, Penguin Random House/Dial Books for Young  Readers

Stonewall  YA Award

Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award, Lifetime Achievement  

  • Nikki Grimes

Coretta Scott King  John Steptoe Award, Illustrator

Coretta Scott King John Steptoe Award, Author

  • Amber McBride, Me (Moth), Macmillan/Feiwell and Friends

Coretta Scott King Book Award, Illustrator

Coretta Scott King, Book Award, Author

Alex Awards

Margaret A. Edwards Award

  • AS King

Morris Award 

Excellence in Nonfiction Award 

Printz Award

Belpré Award for Youth  Illustration 

Belpré Children’s Author Award 

Belpré YA Author Award 

ALSC Children’s Literature Lecture Award

  • Bryan Collier

Batchelder Award 

  • Temple Alley Summer by Sachiko Kashiwaba, translated by Avery Fischer Udagawa, illustrated by Miho Satake, Restless Books

Sibert Medal 

Odyssey Children’s (ages 0 to 14) Award 

Odyssey YA (ages 12 to 18) Award 

  • When You Look Like Us, by Preston Butler III, narrated by Pamela N. Harris, Quill Tree Books/HarperAudio

Excellence in Early Learning  Digital Media Award 

Children’s Literature Legacy Award  

  • Grace Lin

Theodor Seuss Geisel Award 

  • Fox at Night, written and illustrated by Corey R. Tabor, HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray 

Caldecott Medal

  • Watercress by by Andrea Wang, Illustrated by Jason Chin, Penguin Random House/Neal Porter Books

Newbery Medal 

This is Publishing Perspectives’ 35th publishing and/or book awards report in the 36 publication days since our 2022 operations began on January 3.

More from Publishing Perspectives on children’s books is here, more on YA—young adult—literature is here, more from us on publishing and book awards programs is here, more on translation is here, and more on the UK market is here.

More on the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on international book publishing is here.

About the Author

Porter Anderson

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Porter Anderson is a non-resident fellow of Trends Research & Advisory, and he has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (Fellow, National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.