ALA 2025 Winners
Oh goodie, it’s that time of year again. On Jan. 27, the 2025 ALA Youth Media Awards were announced. I love a list of books to pick apart, finding the ones I’ve read and loved and eyeing titles to add to my TBR.
This year the ALA picked a number of books I’d read and enjoyed this year as well as two that I’m anxious to get my hands on (c’mon, library hold waitlist!). What books were you glad to see on the list?
Have Already Read
One Big Open Sky by Lesa Cline-Ransom, Newbery and Coretta Scott King honor book
Told from three perspectives: Lettie, a Black girl; Syvia, her mother; and Philomena, a young teacher. Lettie’s family is among a group of Black homesteaders traveling from Louisiana to Nebraska to stake their claim. Hardships of the journey and racism from the people they encounter beset their journey, but they persevere to start a new life where they can be the land owners.
Brownstone by Samuel Teer and Mar Julia, winner of the Michael L. Printz Award
Amazing book about seeing and accepting people as they are. When Almudena has to spend the summer with the father she’s never known, she is unenthused. It doesn’t help that she’s in an unfamiliar city and doesn’t know enough Spanish to communicate well with her father. And why has he never bothered to be a part of her life before? A touching and rich story.
The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag, Printz Honor Book
This graphic novel tells a queer love/horror story. There is a secret monster that must be fed, but whether it is a burden is something that only Mags can decide. I’m already a fan of Ostertag, and this is a great addition to her oeuvre.
How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin, Alex Awards book
When Frances is a teenager in the 1960s, a fortune teller predicts that she will be murdered. That murder doesn’t happen until she is in her 70s, but she’s spent her whole life collecting clues and suspects, leaving file cabinets full of research behind. She makes it a stipulation of receiving her inheritance that her heirs solve her murder. Her grand-niece Annie, having never met Frances until she comes across her dead body, dedicates herself to solving the crime and piecing together the past.
Homebody by Theo Parish, YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults finalist
This memoir about finding a path to a gender identity and finally feeling comfortable in your own body is a moving story. I appreciated how Parish depicted trying out different ways to express themselves until they found the ways that felt right.
Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham, Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature Young Adult honor book
Yang and Pham teamed up for this terrific YA love story graphic novel. Val believes her family is cursed to never find love. Jae is still mourning his father’s death. When the two meet at a Lunar New Year celebration it could be love at first sight, except that Val starts dating Jae’s friend Leslie instead.
On My List
I cannot wait to read The Wrong Way Home by Kate O’Shaughnessy, which is a Newbery honor book, about life inside and outside an isolated community led by a charismatic (and dangerous?) man.
The Forbidden Book by Sacha Lamb, a Sydney Taylor Book Award silver medalist, is also on my list as I loved When Angels Left the Old Country. The new book is a historical thriller about escaping a marriage only to land in the underworld.