The 2025 Youth Media Awards winners were announced yesterday during ALA’s LibLearnX Conference in Phoenix, Ariz., introduced by Cindy Hohl, president of the American Library Association.
 |
|
| ALA president Cindy Hohl | |
Dr. Robert Bittner, president of the Association of Library Services to Children (ALSC), announced the winners of the Randolph Caldecott Medal ("to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children") and the John Newbery Medal ("to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children"), two of ALA's longest-running awards. Debut illustrator Rebecca Lee Kunz received the Caldecott Medal for Chooch Helped, written by Andrea L. Rogers (Levine Querido), and Erin Entrada Kelly won her second Newbery Medal for The First State of Being (Greenwillow Books), a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature and one of Shelf Awareness's Best Children's/YA Books of 2024. The president of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), Yvette Garcia, announced the winner of the Michael L. Printz Award (given for "the best book written for teens, based entirely on its literary merit"): Brownstone by Samuel Teer, illustrated by Mar Julia (Versify).
Author Carole Boston Weatherford received the Children's Literature Legacy Award, which honors "an author or illustrator whose books, published in the United States, have made, over a period of years, a substantial and lasting contribution to children's literature." Tiffany D. Jackson received the Margaret A. Edwards Award, "which honors an author as well as a specific body of their work for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature." A full list of winners can be found here.
We'll have interviews with the winners throughout the rest of the week, starting with Erin Entrada Kelly, below. --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness