2021 ALA Youth Media Awards

Posted on January 29, 2021 by Abigail Hsu

Logo of ALA Youth Media Awards

2021 ALA YMA Young Adult Award and Honor Books

Legendborn, written by Tracy Deonn

All the Days Past, All the Days to Come by Mildred D. Taylor

Lifting as We Climb: Black Women

Everything Sad is Untrue (a true story), written by Daniel Nayeri

Apple: Skin to the Core, written by Eric Gansworth

Dragon Hoops, created by Gene Luen Yang

Every Body Looking, written by Candice Iloh

We Are Not Free, written by Traci Chee

This is My Brain in Love, written by I. W. Gregario

Darius the Great Deserves Better, written by Adib Khorram

Felix Ever After, written by Kacen Callender

You Should See Me in a Crown, written by Leah Johnson

Kent State, written by Deborah Wiles

Clap When You Land, written by Elizabeth Acevedo

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, written by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

If These Wings Could Fly, written by Kyrie McCauley

Black Girl Unlimited: The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard, written by Echo Brown

The Black Kids, written by Christina Hammonds Reed

It Sounded Better in My Head, written by Nina Kenwood

Woven in Moonlight, written by Isabel Ibañez

The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh, written by Candace Fleming

All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys

The Cat I Never Named: A True Story of Love, War, and Survival, written by Amra Sabic-El-Rayess

How We Got to the Moon: The People, Technology, and Daring Feats of Science Behind Humanity

You Call This Democracy?: How to Fix Our Democracy and Deliver Power to the People written by Elizabeth Rusch

This Light Between Us, written by Andrew Fukuda

Displacement, written by Kiku Hughes

Dancing at the Pity Party, written and illustrated by Tyler Feder

They Went Left, by Monica Hesse

Furia, by Yamile Saied Méndez

Never Look Back, written by Lilliam Rivera

We Are Not From Here, written by Jenny Torres Sanchez

The American Library Association (ALA) recently announced the 2021 Youth Media Award winners at its annual midwinter conference. These awards, including the prestigious Newbery, Caldecott, and Coretta Scott King Book Awards, encourage original and creative work in the field of children’s and young adult literature and media.

Awards specifically for young adult books include:

the Michael L. Printz Award (given to a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature)
the William C. Morris Award (which honors a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens)
the Alex Awards (given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18)
the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction (which honors the best nonfiction book published for young adults).

Other awards – such as the Pura Belpré Award, the Stonewall Book Award, and more – are awarded to multiple categories of books including young adult titles.

To find out more about each award presented and this year’s award winners, click here!