ALA's Youth Media Award Winners

Yesterday morning, the American Library Association held its 2021 Youth Media Awards, announcing the winners of the Newbery, Caldecott, Printz and Coretta Scott King Book Awards, among others.

The 2021 John Newbery Medal--which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year--went to Tae Keller for When You Trap a Tiger (Random House Books for Young Readers); the Randolph Caldecott Medal was given to Michaela Goade for We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom (Roaring Brook Press); and Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri (Levine Querido) won the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature.

The Coretta Scott King Book Awards, decided by the ALA Ethnic & Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table (EMIERT), were presented in four categories: Dorothy L. Guthrie received the Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award; the CSK/John Steptoe Award for New Talent went to Tracy Deonn for Legendborn (Margaret K. McElderry/S&S); Frank Morrison received the CSK Illustrator Award for RESPECT: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, written by Carole Boston Weatherford (Atheneum); and Jacqueline Woodson won her third CSK Author Award, for Before the Ever After (Nancy Paulsen/Penguin).

While this year's ALA Midwinter conference was held entirely virtually, streaming the award ceremony live is not new territory. Over a swelling soundtrack, Julius C. Jefferson, Jr., president of ALA, Dr. Linda Pruitt-Annisette, chair of the Coretta Scott King Book Awards Committee, Amanda Barnhart, president of Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), Oscar Baeza, president of REFORMA, and Kirby McCurtis, president of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) announced the ALA and affiliate awards. A full list of winners and honorees can be found here. --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness

[We'll feature interviews with many of the winners over the next week.]

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