Award Winning Youth Books

2022 Winner. Meet Shirley, a little girl who asks way too many questions! After spending her early years on her grandparents' farm in Barbados, she returns home to Brooklyn and immediately makes herself known. Shirley kicks butt in school; she breaks her mother's curfew; she plays jazz piano instead of classical. And as a young adult, she fights against the injustice she sees around her, against women and black people. Soon she is running for state assembly...and winning in a landslide. Three years later, she is on the campaign trail again, as the first black woman to run for Congress. Her slogan? Fighting Shirley Chisholm--Unbought and Unbossed! Does she win? You bet she does.

2021 Winner. Inspired by the many Indigenous-led movements across North America, We Are Water Protectors issues an urgent rallying cry to safeguard the Earth's water from harm and corruption--a bold and lyrical picture book written by Carole Lindstrom and vibrantly illustrated by Michaela Goade. Water is the first medicine. It affects and connects us all . . When a black snake threatens to destroy the Earth and poison her people's water, one young water protector. Takes a stand to defend Earth's most sacred resource.

2019 Winner. There are many reasons to feel different. Maybe it's how you look or talk, or where you're from; maybe it's what you eat, or something just as random. It's not easy to take those first steps into a place where nobody really knows you yet, but somehow you do it. Jacqueline Woodson's lyrical text and Rafael Lopez's dazzling art reminds us that we all feel like outsiders sometimes-and how brave it is that we go forth anyway. And that sometimes, when we reach out and begin to share our stories, others will be happy to meet us halfway.

2018 Winner. As a child in Pakistan, Malala made a wish for a magic pencil. She would use it to make everyone happy, to erase the smell of garbage from her city, to sleep an extra hour in the morning. But as she grew older, Malala saw that there were more important things to wish for. She saw a world that needed fixing. And even if she never found a magic pencil, Malala realized that she could still work hard every day to make her wishes come true.

2017 Winner. Missouri, 1847 - When James first started school, his sister practically had to drag him there. The classroom was dark and dreary, and James knew everything outside was more exciting than anything he'd find inside. But his teacher taught him otherwise."We make our own light here," Reverend Meachum told James. And through hard work and learning, they did, until their school was shut down by a new law forbidding African American education in Missouri. Determined to continue teaching his students, Reverend John Berry Meachum decided to build a new school-a floating school in the Mississippi River, just outside the boundary of the unjust law. Based on true events, Ron Husband's uplifting illustrations bring to life Deborah Hopkinson's tale of a resourceful, determined teacher; his bright, inquisitive students; and their refusal to accept discrimination based on the color of their skin.

2016 Winner. When her brother's hand-me-down shoes don't fit, it is time for Ella Mae to get new ones. She is ecstatic, but when she and her mother arrive at Mr. Johnson's shoe store, her happiness quickly turns to dejection. Ella Mae is unable to try on the shoes because of her skin color. Determined to fight back, Ella Mae and her friend Charlotte work tirelessly to collect and restore old shoes, wiping, washing, and polishing them to perfection. The girls then have their very own shoe sale, giving the other African American members of their community a place to buy shoes where they can be treated fairly and "try on all the shoes they want."

2015 Winner. Almost 10 years before Brown vs. Board of Education, Sylvia Méndez and her parents helped end school segregation in California. An American citizen of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage who spoke and wrote perfect English, Méndez was denied enrollment to a “Whites only” school. Her parents took action by organizing the Hispanic community and filing a lawsuit in federal district court. Their success eventually brought an end to the era of segregated education in California.

2014 Winner. When Clara Lemlich arrived in America, she couldn't speak English. She didn't know that young women had to go to work, that they traded an education for long hours of labor, that she was expected to grow up fast. But that did not stop Clara. She went to night school, spent hours studying English, and helped support her family by sewing in a factory. Clara never quit. And she never accepted that girls should be treated poorly and paid little. So Clara fought back. Fed up with the mistreatment of her fellow laborers, Clara led the largest walkout of women workers in the country's history. Clara had learned a lot from her short time in America. She learned that everyone deserved a fair chance. That you had to stand together and fight for what you wanted. And, most importantly, that you could do anything you put your mind to.

2013 Winner. Chloe and her friends won't play with the new girl, Maya. Maya is different--she wears hand-me-downs and plays with old-fashioned toys. Every time Maya tries to join Chloe and her gang, they reject her. Eventually, Maya plays alone, and then stops coming to school altogether. When Chloe's teacher gives a lesson about how even small acts of kindness can change the world, Chloe is stung by the lost opportunity for friendship, and thinks about how much better it could have been if she'd shown a little kindness toward Maya.

2012 Winner. For a long time, the people of Hargigo, a village in the tiny African country of Eritrea, were living without enough food for themselves and their animals. The families were hungry, and their goats and sheep were hungry too. Then along came a scientist, Dr. Gordon Sato, who helped change their lives for the better. And it all started with some special trees.

2011 Winner. In 1883, Emma Lazarus, deeply moved by an influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe, wrote a sonnet that was to give voice to the Statue of Liberty. Originally a gift from France to celebrate our shared national struggles for liberty, the Statue, thanks to Emma's poem, slowly came to shape our hearts, defining us as a nation that welcomes and gives refuge to those who come to our shores.

2010 Winner. Young Nasreen has not spoken a word to anyone since her parents disappeared. In despair, her grandmother risks everything to enroll Nasreen in a secret school for girls. Will a devoted teacher, a new friend, and the worlds she discovers in books be enough to draw Nasreen out of her shell of sadness? Based on a true story from Afghanistan, this inspiring book will touch readers deeply as it affirms both the life-changing power of education and the healing power of love.

2009 Winner. Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and founder of the Green Belt Movement, grew up in the highlands of Kenya, where fig trees cloaked the hills, fish filled the streams, and the people tended their bountiful gardens. But over many years, as more and more land was cleared, Kenya was transformed. When Wangari returned home from college in America, she found the village gardens dry, the people malnourished, and the trees gone. How could she alone bring back the trees and restore the gardens and the people?

2008 Winner. When General George Washington is elected the first President of the United States, his wife chooses young Oney Judge, a house slave who works as a seamstress at Mount Vernon, to travel with her to the nation’s capital in New York City as her personal maid. When the capital is moved to Philadelphia, the Washingtons and Oney move, too, and there Oney meets free blacks for the first time. At first Oney can’t imagine being free – she depends on the Washingtons for food, warmth, and clothing. But then Mrs. Washington tells Oney that after her death she will be sent to live with Mrs. Washington’s granddaughter. Oney is horrified because she knows it is likely that she will then be sold to a stranger – the worst fate she can imagine. Oney realizes she must run. One day she sees an opportunity and takes it, ending up in New Hampshire, where she lives the rest of her life, poor but free.

2007 Winner. Under the harsh summer sun, Mari's art class has begun. But it's hard to think of anything to draw in a place where nothing beautiful grows—especially a place like Topaz, the internment camp where Mari's family and thousands of other Japanese Americans have been sent to live during World War II. Somehow, glimmers of hope begin to surface—in the eyes of a kindly art teacher, in the tender words of Mari's parents, and in the smile of a new friend. Amy Lee-Tai's sensitive prose and Felicia Hoshino's stunning mixed-media images show that hope can survive even the harshest injustice.

2006 Winner. "Grow up and be somebody," Westley Wallace Law's grandmother encouraged him as a young boy living in poverty in segregated Savannah, Georgia. Determined to make a difference in his community, W.W. Law assisted blacks in registering to vote, joined the NAACP and trained protestors in the use of nonviolent civil disobedience, and, in 1961, led the Great Savannah Boycott. In that famous protest, blacks refused to shop in downtown Savannah. When city leaders finally agreed to declare all of its citizens equal, Savannah became the first city in the south to end racial discrimination. A lifelong mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service, W.W. Law saw fostering communication between blacks and whites as a fundamental part of his job. As this affecting, strikingly illustrated biography makes clear, this "unsung hero" delivered far more than the mail to the citizens of the city he loved.

2005 Winner. The true story of Selavi (“that is life”), a small boy who finds himself homeless on the streets of Haiti. He finds other street children who share their food and a place to sleep. Together they proclaim a message of hope through murals and radio programs. Now in paper, this beautifully illustrated story is supplemented with photographs of Haitian children working and playing together, plus an essay by Edwidge Danticat. Included in the 2005 ALA Notable Children’s Book List and the Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List.

2002 Winner. This picture-book biography is an excellent and accessible introduction for young readers to learn about one of the world's most influential leaders, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Doreen Rappaport weaves the immortal words of Dr. King into a captivating narrative to tell the story of his life. With stunning art by acclaimed illustrator Bryan Collier, Martin's Big Words is an unforgettable portrait of a man whose dream changed America-and the world-forever.

2001 Winner. Life is simple for Pedro -- he goes to school, does his homework and, most importantly, plays soccer. But when the soldiers come and take his friend Daniel's father away, things suddenly become much more complicated. Why, for instance, do Pedro's parents secretly listen to the radio every evening after dinner? And why does the government want Pedro and his classmates to write compositions about what their parents do in the evening? Humorous, serious and intensely human, this powerful picture book by Chilean writer Antonio Skarmeta presents a situation all too familiar to children around the world. And for children it provides food for thought about freedom, moral choices and personal responsibility.

2000 Winner. A young American soldier waits for his enemy, rifle in hand, finger on the trigger. He is afraid to move and yet afraid not to move. Gunshots crackle in the still air. The soldier fires blindly into the distant trees at an unseen enemy. He crouches and waits -- heart pounding, tense and trembling, biting back tears. When will it all be over?

2000 Winner. On a cold gray morning in 1683, Molly Walsh sat on a stool tugging at the udder of an obstinate cow. When she spilled the milk, she was brought before the court for stealing. Because she could read, Molly escaped the typicalpunishment of death on the gallows. At the age of seventeen, the English dairymaid was exiled from her country and sentenced to work as an indentured servant in British Colonial America. Molly worked for a planter in Maryland for seven long years. Then she was given an ox hitched to a cart, some supplies-and her freedom. That a lone woman should stake land was unheard of. That she would marry an African slave was even more so. Yet Molly prospered, and with her husband Bannaky, she turned a one-room cabin in the wilderness into a thriving one hundred-acre farm. And one day she had the pleasure of writing her new grandson's name in her cherished Bible: Benjamin Banneker.

1999 Winner. Aliki’s acclaimed picture book follows Marianthe, a Greek girl who doesn't understand English, as she starts school in the United States. In Part I, “Painted Words,” Marianthe is frustrated about being unable to communicate with her peers. Her teacher encourages her to paint her words, and little by little she finds ways to share her story with her classmates. In Part II, “Spoken Memories,” Marianthe tells her class about her life in Greece, how her Papa left for a better job in America, and how she and her family eventually came to join him. Based on Aliki’s own experience as a schoolgirl in Philadelphia, this is an essential, timely, and relevant American immigration story. With appealing, accessible art and a universal message, Marianthe’s Story is sure to resonate with children and educators alike.

1998 Winner. Take a journey through time as a young girl recounts the exploits of her female ancestors, seven brave women who left their imprints on the past and on her. Beginning with the great-great-great-grandmother who came to America on a wooden sailboat, these women were devout and determined and tireless and beloved.

1997 Winner. Before Wilma Rudolph was five years old, polio had paralyzed her left leg. Everyone said she would never walk again. But Wilma refused to believe it. Not only would she walk again, she vowed, she'd run. And she did run--all the way to the Olympics, where she became the first American woman to earn three gold medals in a single olympiad. This dramatic and inspiring true story is illustrated in bold watercolor and acrylic paintings by Caldecott Medal-winning artist David Diaz.

1996 Winner. During a drought, the Logan family shares their well water with all their neighbors, black and white alike. But David and Hammer find it hard to share with Charlie Simms, who torments them because they are black. Hammer's pride and Charlie's meanness are a dangerous mixture, and tensions build and build. Narrated by young David Logan, Cassie's father in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, this extraordinary story is filled with characters and events so real that they're unforgettable.

1995 Winner. Mona’s grandmother, her Sitti, lives in a small Palestinian village on the other side of the earth. Once, Mona went to visit her. The couldn’t speak each other’s language, so they made up their own. They learned about each other’s worlds, and they discovered each other’s secrets. Then it was time for Mona to go back home, back to the other side of the earth. But even though there were millions of miles and millions of people between them, they remained true neighbors forever.

1994 Winner. Through his own words and paintings, acclaimed Native artist George Littlechild takes us back in time to the first meeting between his Plains Cree ancestors and the first European settlers in North America. In This Land Is My Land, George intimately and honestly shares with readers how he discovered his Native heritage and what it means to him. He recounts the history of his people and expresses his wish to use his art to portray the wonders of his heritage, and to heal the pain of his people's history.

1993 Winner. Illus. in full color. Cassie, who flew above New York in Tar Beach, soars into the sky once more. This time, she and her brother Be Be meet a train full of people, and Be Be joins them. But the train departs before Cassie can climb aboard. With Harriet Tubman as her guide, Cassie retraces the steps escaping slaves took on the real Underground Railroad and is finally reunited with her brother at the story's end.

2022 Winner. Twelve-year-old Ariel Goldberg's life feels like the moment after the final guest leaves the party. Her family's Jewish bakery runs into financial trouble, and her older sister has eloped with a young man from India following the Supreme Court decision that strikes down laws banning interracial marriage. As change becomes Ariel's only constant, she's left to hone something that will be with her always--her own voice.

2021 Winner. All light in Chattana is created by one man -- the Governor, who appeared after the Great Fire to bring peace and order to the city. For Pong, who was born in Namwon Prison, the magical lights represent freedom, and he dreams of the day he will be able to walk among them. But when Pong escapes from prison, he realizes that the world outside is no fairer than the one behind bars. The wealthy dine and dance under bright orb light, while the poor toil away in darkness. Worst of all, Pong's prison tattoo marks him as a fugitive who can never be truly free.

2019 Winner. Twelve-year-old Jerome is shot by a police officer who mistakes his toy gun for a real threat. As a ghost, he observes the devastation that's been unleashed on his family and community in the wake of what they see as an unjust and brutal killing. Soon Jerome meets another ghost: Emmett Till, a boy from a very different time but similar circumstances. Emmett helps Jerome process what has happened, on a journey towards recognizing how historical racism may have led to the events that ended his life. Jerome also meets Sarah, the daughter of the police officer, who grapples with her father's actions. Once again Jewell Parker Rhodes deftly weaves historical and socio-political layers into a gripping and poignant story about how children and families face the complexities of today's world, and how one boy grows to understand American blackness in the aftermath of his own death.

2018 Winner. Set in 1954, this compelling historical novel tells the story of a young girl’s struggles and triumphs in the aftermath of World War II. The war is over, but the threat of communism and the Cold War loom over the United States. In Detroit, Michigan, twelve-year-old Marjorie Campbell struggles with the ups and downs of family life, dealing with her veteran father’s unpredictable outbursts, keeping her mother’s stash of banned library books a secret, and getting along with her new older “brother,” the teenager her family took in after his veteran father’s death. When a new girl from Germany transfers to Marjorie’s class, Marjorie finds herself torn between befriending Inga and pleasing her best friend, Bernadette, by writing in a slam book that spreads rumors about Inga. Marjorie seems to be confronting enemies everywhere—at school, at the library, in her neighborhood, and even in the news. In all this turmoil, Marjorie tries to find her own voice and figure out what is right and who the real enemies actually are.

2017 Winner. This striking work of narrative nonfiction tells the true story of six-year-old Sachiko Yasui's survival of the Nagasaki atomic bomb on August 9, 1945, and the heartbreaking and lifelong aftermath. Having conducted extensive interviews with Sachiko Yasui, Caren Stelson chronicles Sachiko’s trauma and loss as well as her long journey to find peace. This book offers readers a remarkable new perspective on the final moments of World War II and their aftermath.

2016 Honor Book. As the youngest marcher in the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Albama, Lynda Blackmon Lowery proved that young adults can be heroes. Jailed nine times before her fifteenth birthday, Lowery fought alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. for the rights of African-Americans. In this memoir, she shows today's young readers what it means to fight nonviolently (even when the police are using violence, as in the Bloody Sunday protest) and how it felt to be part of changing American history. Straightforward and inspiring, this beautifully illustrated memoir brings readers into the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, complementing Common Core classroom learning and bringing history alive for young readers.

2015 Winner. Before the Little Rock Nine, before Rosa Parks, before Martin Luther King Jr. and his March on Washington, there was Barbara Rose Johns, a teenager who used nonviolent civil disobedience to draw attention to her cause. In 1951, witnessing the unfair conditions in her racially segregated high school, Barbara Johns led a walkout—the first public protest of its kind demanding racial equality in the U.S.—jumpstarting the American civil rights movement. Ridiculed by the white superintendent and school board, local newspapers, and others, and even after a cross was burned on the school grounds, Barbara and her classmates held firm and did not give up. Her school’s case went all the way to the Supreme Court and helped end segregation as part of Brown v. Board of Education.

2014 Winner. Sugar has always yearned to learn more about the world, and she sees her chance when Chinese workers are brought in to help harvest the cane. The older River Road folks feel threatened, but Sugar is fascinated. As she befriends young Beau and elder Master Liu, they introduce her to the traditions of their culture, and she, in turn, shares the ways of plantation life. Sugar soon realizes that she must be the one to bridge the cultural gap and bring the community together. Here is a story of unlikely friendships and how they can change our lives forever.

2013 Winner. We've Got a Job tells the little-known story of the 4,000 black elementary-, middle-, and high school students who voluntarily went to jail in Birmingham, Alabama, between May 2 and May 11, 1963. Fulfilling Mahatma Gandhi's and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.s precept to fill the jails, they succeeded where adults had failed in desegregating one of the most racially violent cities in America. Focusing on four of the original participants who have participated in extensive interviews, We've Got a Job recounts the astonishing events before, during, and after the Children's March.

2012 Winner. Here is the remarkable story based on true events of Sylvia Mendez and Aki Munemitsu, two ordinary girls living in extraordinary times. When Sylvia and her brothers are not allowed to register at the same school Aki attended and are instead sent to a “Mexican” school, the stage is set for Sylvia’s father to challenge in court the separation of races in California’s schools. Ultimately, Mendez vs. Westminster School District led to the desegregation of California schools and helped build the case that would end school segregation nationally.

2011 Winner. A Long Walk to Water begins as two stories, told in alternating sections, about a girl in Sudan in 2008 and a boy in Sudan in 1985. The girl, Nya, is fetching water from a pond that is two hours’ walk from her home: she makes two trips to the pond every day. The boy, Salva, becomes one of the "lost boys" of Sudan, refugees who cover the African continent on foot as they search for their families and for a safe place to stay. Enduring every hardship from loneliness to attack by armed rebels to contact with killer lions and crocodiles, Salva is a survivor, and his story goes on to intersect with Nya’s in an astonishing and moving way.

2010 Winner. An inspiring look at the fight for the vote, by an award-winning author Only 44 years ago in the U.S., Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was leading a fight to win blacks the right to vote. Ground zero for the movement became Selma, Alabama. Award-winning author Elizabeth Partridge leads you straight into the chaotic, passionate, and deadly three months of protests that culminated in the landmark march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. Focusing on the courageous children who faced terrifying violence in order to march alongside King, this is an inspiring look at their fight for the vote. Stunningly emotional black-and-white photos accompany the text.

2009 Winner. It is 1896. Cuba has fought three wars for independence and still is not free. People have been rounded up in reconcentration camps with too little food and too much illness. Rosa is a nurse, but she dares not go to the camps. So she turns hidden caves into hospitals for those who know how to find her. Black, white, Cuban, Spanish—Rosa does her best for everyone. Yet who can heal a country so torn apart by war? Acclaimed poet Margarita Engle has created another breathtaking portrait of Cuba.

2008 Winner. Bayard Rustin dedicated his life to helping others—fighting injustices and discriminations—so that people could live as one. Protesting segregation long before there was a civil rights movement, he often was arrested for his beliefs and actions. As a nonviolent activist, Bayard made his mark working alongside many African American leaders, notably A. Philip Randolph and Martin Luther King, Jr. As an organizer, Bayard was largely responsible for bringing people together to walk for freedom and jobs in Washington, D.C., on that memorable summer day, August 28, 1963. With style and careful attention to history, Larry Dane Brimner captures a story of passion, courage, and triumph through Bayard's own words and archival photographs.

2007 Winner. Twelve-year-old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. The good part and the bad part. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class. Even when the other kids tease her, she always has had her flowers and family to go home to. That all changes after the horrific events of Pearl Harbor. Other Americans start to suspect that all Japanese people are spies for the emperor, even if, like Sumiko, they were born in the United States! As suspicions grow, Sumiko and her family find themselves being shipped to an internment camp in one of the hottest deserts in the United States. The vivid color of her previous life is gone forever, and now dust storms regularly choke the sky and seep into every crack of the military barrack that is her new "home." Sumiko soon discovers that the camp is on an Indian reservation and that the Japanese are as unwanted there as they'd been at home. But then she meets a young Mohave boy who might just become her first real friend...if he can ever stop being angry about the fact that the internment camp is on his tribe's land.

2006 Winner. Can girls play softball? Can girls be school crossing guards? Can girls play basketball or ice hockey or soccer? Can girls become lawyers or doctors or engineers? Of course they can... today. But just a few decades ago, opportunities for girls were far more limited, not because they weren't capable of playing or didn't want to become doctors or lawyers, but because they weren't allowed to. Then quietly, in 1972, something momentous happened: Congress passed a law called "Title IX," forever changing the lives of American girls. Hundreds of determined lawmakers, teachers, parents, and athletes carefully plotted to ensure that the law was passed, protected, and enforced. Time and time again, they were pushed back by Þerce opposition. But as a result of their perseverance, millions of American girls can now play sports. Young women make up half of the nation's medical and law students, and star on the best basketball, soccer, and softball teams in the world. This small law made a huge difference.

2005 WInner. An award-winning author chronicles the story of the women's suffrage movement in America, using compelling period photographs--including some never before published--to illustrate the vivid narrative.

2004 Winner. At her father's funeral, Binti's grandmother utters the words that no one in Malawi wants to hear. Binti's father and her mother before him, dies of AIDS. Binti, her sister, and brother are separated and sent to the home of relatives who can barely tolerate their presence. Ostracized by their extended family, the orphans are treated like the lowest servants. With her brother far away and her sister wallowing in her own sorrow, Binti can hardly contain her rage. She, Binti Phirim, was once a child star of a popular radio program. Now she is scraping to survive. Binti always believed she was special, now she is nothing but a common AIDS orphan. Binti Phiri is not about to give up. Even as she clings to hope that her former life will be restored, she must face a greater challenge. If she and her brother and sister are to reunited, Binti Phiri will have to look outside herself and find a new way to be special.

2003 Winner. In Parvana's Journey, the Taliban still control Afghanistan, but Kabul is in ruins. Parvana's father has just died, and her mother, sister, and brother could be anywhere in the country. Parvana knows she must find them. Despite her youth, Parvana sets out alone, masquerading as a boy. She soon meets other children who are victims of war -- an infant boy in a bombed-out village, a nine-year-old girl who thinks she has magic powers over landmines, and a boy with one leg. The children travel together, forging a kind of family out of sheer need. The strength of their bond makes it possible to survive the most desperate conditions.

2002 Winner. After the murder of their mother, twelve-year-old Sade and her younger brother are smuggled out of Nigeria by their journalist father to escape the corrupt military government and growing violence. They are sent to their uncle in London, but when they arrive, he is missing and they are abandoned, passed between foster homes. Their father escapes to England to find them -- but he will be sent back to Nigeria unless Sade can find a way to tell the world what happened to her family.

2001 Winner. Esperanza thought she'd always live with her family on their ranch in Mexico--she'd always have fancy dresses, a beautiful home, and servants. But a sudden tragedy forces Esperanza and Mama to flee to California during the Great Depression, and to settle in a camp for Mexican farm workers. Esperanza isn't ready for the hard labor, financial struggles, or lack of acceptance she now faces. When their new life is threatened, Esperanza must find a way to rise above her difficult circumstances--Mama's life, and her own, depend on it.

2000 Winner. In November 1960, all of America watched as a tiny six-year-old black girl, surrounded by federal marshals, walked through a mob of screaming segregationists and into her school. An icon of the civil rights movement, Ruby Bridges chronicles each dramatic step of this pivotal event in history through her own words.

1999 Winner. In small town, post-World War Oregon, twenty-one 6th grade girls recount the story of an annual softball game, during which one girl's bigotry comes to the surface.

1998 Winner. The day after Liyana got her first real kiss, her life changed forever. Not because of the kiss, but because it was the day her father announced that the family was moving from St. Louis all the way to Palestine. Though her father grew up there, Liyana knows very little about her family’s Arab heritage. Her grandmother and the rest of her relatives who live in the West Bank are strangers and speak a language she can’t understand. It isn’t until she meets Omer that her homesickness fades. But Omer is Jewish, and their friendship is silently forbidden in this land. How can they make their families understand? And how can Liyana ever learn to call this place home?

1997 Winner. Inspired by her in-laws' recollections of working in coal country, Susan Campbell Bartoletti has gathered the voices of men, women, and children who immigrated to and worked in northeastern Pennsylvania at the turn of the century. The story that emerges is not just a story of long hours, little pay, and hazardous working conditions; it is also the uniquely American story of immigrant families working together to make a new life for themselves. It is a story of hardship and sacrifice, yet also of triumph and the fulfillment of hopes and dreams.

1995 Winner. Photobiography of early twentieth-century photographer and schoolteacher Lewis Hine, using his own work as illustrations. Hines's photographs of children at work were so devastating that they convinced the American people that Congress must pass child labor laws.

1994 Winner. In this inspiring collection of true stories, thirty African-Americans who were children or teenagers in the 1950s and 1960s talk about what it was like for them to fight segregation in the South-to sit in an all-white restaurant and demand to be served, to refuse to give up a seat at the front of the bus, to be among the first to integrate the public schools, and to face violence, arrest, and even death for the cause of freedom.

1993 Winner. Djo has a story: Once he was one of "Titid's boys," a vital member of Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide's election team, fighting to overthrow military dictatorship in Haiti. Now he is barely alive, the victim of a political firebombing. Jeremie has a story: Convent-educated Jeremie can climb out of the slums of Port-au-Prince. But she is torn between her mother's hopes and her own wishes for herself ... and for Haiti. Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide has a story: A dream of a new Haiti, one in which every person would have a decent life ... a house with a roof ... clean water to drink ... a good plate of rice and beans every day ... a field to work in. At Aristide's request, Djo tells his story to Jeremie -- for Titid believes in the power of all of their stories to make change. As Jeremie listens to Djo, and to her own heart, she knows that they will begin a new story, one that is all their own, together.

1992 Winner. Nailed into a crate in the back of a truck, fifteen-year-old Maria, her older sister, Julia, their little brother, Oscar, and a boy named Tomas endure a terrifying and torturous journey across the U.S. border and then north to Chicago. There they struggle to find work-cleaning, sewing, washing dishes-always fearful of arrest and deportation back to the cruelties of El Salvador. By turns heartbreaking and hopeful, this moving story of the secret lives of immigrants is not to be missed.

1991 Winner. The wisdom of peace and the absurdity of fighting are demonstrated in seventeen stories and poems by outstanding authors of today such as Jean Fritz, Milton Meltzer, and Nancy Willard, illustrated by famous illustrators such as Paul Zelinsky, the Dillons, and Maurice Sendak.

1990 Winner. A chronicle of the first black-controlled union, made up of Pullman porters, who after years of unfair labor practices staged a battle against a corporate giant resulting in a David and Goliath ending.

1989 Winner. The year is 1953. America's anticommunist paranoia is at its height. And for twelve-year-old Ellen Gerson, life is dominated by a single, unchangeable fact: her parents are Communists. Ellen has never been able to make a new friend or even use some of the words she hears so often at home--words like "petition" and "equality"--without worrying that her parents' secret will be found out. But when her family moves to the small mill town of Fairmore Hills, Pennsylvania, Ellen sees the chance to make a fresh start--to be the all-American girl she's always dreamed of being. Ellen throws herself into the activities of her new seventh-grade class. She makes friends, wears the latest hairdos, and buys the right clothes so she'll fit in. And Ellen does fit in...but she begins to wonder. Do her new friends really believe that "the only good Commie is a dead Commie?" What does that make her parents? Are there only two ways to think--her parents' way and her friends' way? Or can Ellen find a way of her own?

1989 Winner. The year is 1854, and Anthony Burns, a 20-year-old Virginia slave, has escaped to Boston. But according to the Fugitive Slave Act, a runaway can be captured in any free state, and Anthony is soon imprisoned. The antislavery forces in Massachusetts are outraged, but the federal government backs the Fugitive Slave Act, sparking riots in Boston and fueling the Abolitionist movement.

1988 Winner. This novel shows the bonds of friendship under the strain of apartheid as two lifelong friends, Tengo and Frikkie, come of age amidst the tragedy of South Africa.

1987 Winner. When a mother discovers her small daughter and son have built a shelter to protect themselves from nuclear attack, she explains that grownups all over the world are working hard to make the world safe for children to grow up in.

1986 Winner. While terrorists kill in pursuit of their goals, there are people whose goal is never to kill, no matter what the situation. Here, Milton Meltzer explores Americans’ long tradition of pacifism. From the Quakers of colonial times to the conscientious objectors of Vietnam, Americans have risked much to stand against violence in any and every form. First published in 1985, Ain’t Gonna Study War No More is now fully updated and revised by the author.

1985 Winner. The biography of the twenty-one year-old German student who was put to death for her anti-Nazi activities with the underground group called the White Rose.

1984 Winner. When Steve's older brother Matthew, returning home after service in World War II, refuses to talk about his wartime experiences, Steve's friends begin to doubt the stories he has told of Matthew's heroism.

1983 Winner. August 6, 1945, 8:15 a.m. Hiroshima. Japan - A little girl and her parents are eating breakfast, and then it happened. HIROSHIMA NO PIKA. This book is dedicated to the fervent hope the Flash will never happen again, anywhere.

1982 Winner. Twelve-year-old Binnie, whose mother runs a company boarding house in Lowell, Massachusetts, begins working in a textile mill and is caught up in the 1836 strike of women workers.

1981 Winner. A biography of the first woman elected to Congress, who spent the 92 years of her life as a leader for woman suffrage, a lobbyist, and a social reformer.

1980 Winner for Special Recognition. ext and illustrations descibe the riches of the earth and how people can promote peace and goodwill by sharing equitably with each other and their fellow creatures.

1980 Winner. David Kherdian re-creates his mother's voice in telling the true story of a childhood interrupted by one of the most devastating holocausts of our century. Vernon Dumehjian Kherdian was born into a loving and prosperous family. Then, in the year 1915, the Turkish government began the systematic destruction of its Armenian population.

1979 Winner. With emphasis on the tribes in North America, uses the art and artifacts of various Indian cultures to illustrate events affecting their history from earliest times through 1973.

1978 Winner. Twelve-year-old Casey is waiting for the day that Barney, her father, hits it big -- 'cause when that horse comes in, he tells her, it's the penthouse suite. But then he ends up in the hospital, and Casey is sent to Chinatown to live with her grandmother, Paw-Paw. Now the waiting seems longer than ever. Casey feels lost in Chinatown. She's not prepared for the Chinese school, the noisy crowds, missing her father. But Paw-Paw tells her about the mother Casey never knew, and about her family's owl charm and her true Chinese name. And Casey at last begins to understand that this -- Paw-Paw's Chinatown home, her parents' home -- is her home, too.

1977 Winner. Six million-- a number impossible to visualize. Six million Jews were killed in Europe between the years 1933 and 1945. What can that number mean to us today? We can that number mean to us today? We are told never to forget the Holocaust, but how can we remember something so incomprehensible? We can think, not of the numbers, the statistics, but of the people. For the families torn apart, watching mothers, fathers, children disappear or be slaughtered, the numbers were agonizingly comprehensible. One. Two. Three. Often more. Here are the stories of thode people, recorded in letters and diaries, and in the memories of those who survived. Seen through their eyes, the horror becomes real. We cannot deny it--and we can never forget.

1976 Winner. An updated and redesigned edition of an award-winning* biography of Paul Robeson, who overcame racial discrimination to become an international entertainer and civil rights activist. Includes a new introduction and afterword by the author, focusing on Robeson's legacy.

1975 Winner. When a fleet of warships attacks the Tiny Kingdom, a clever young princess uses ingenuity to preserve her kingdom's one hundred years of peace. Based on a thirteenth-century incident involving Kublai Khan and Vietnam.

1974 Winner. A young girl growing up in Spanish Harlem in the 1940's watches the secure world of her childhood years slowly erode away. Selected as Outstanding Book of the Year by The New York Times and Best Book of 1973 by the American Library Association.

1973 Winner. Traces the history of research on race, showing how it both influenced and was influenced by the political and social significance of race in United States history.

1972 Winner. In 1833, Bernadette, a live-in helper on a farm, comes to New England for good schooling. She befriends Miriam, a student at Prudence Crandall's school for black girls, but the community destroys the school.

1971 Winner. Jane Addams, the first women to receive the Nobel Peace prize, was a vivid example of the influence that can be achieved through courage, perseverance, personal integrity and respect for others regardless of social status. Not only is this book an interesting historical narrative, but it carefully reminds the reader of unsuitable urban living and working conditions of the past as it traces the development of social attitudes now taken for granted.

1970 Winner. When the freighter on which they are traveling is torpedoed by a German submarine during World War II, a twelve-year-old white boy, blinded by a blow on the head, and an old Negro are stranded on a small desert island in the Caribbean where the boy acquires a new kind of vision, courage, and love from his old companion.

1969 Winner. It is June 1941. The Rudomin family has been arrested by the Russians. They are "capitalists' enemies of the people." Forced from their home and friends in Vilna, Poland, they are herded into crowded cattle cars. Their destination: the endless steppe of Siberia. For five years, Esther and her family live in exile, weeding potato fields and working in the mines, struggling for enough food and clothing to stay alive. Only the strength of family sustains them and gives them hope for the future.

1968 Winner. The story of a twelve-year-old orphaned beggar in occupied Italy, his daily search for food and for meaning in the life he witnesses, and the development of compassion and understanding that will help him survive.

1967 Winner. Queenie Peavy is a puzzle to everyone but herself. SHE knows why she fires stones at anything and everything -- isn't she the best shot in Georgia? SHE knows why she is defiant with her teachers and deliberately mean to her schoolmates -- aren't they all against her? And Queenie doesn't care -- not Queenie Peavy! The fact is that Queenie has a chip on her shoulder too big for a lonely thirteen year old to carry. Times have "turned off hard" for everybody in the early 1930s, and they are especially hard for a girl whose idolized father has been in jail and whose mother works long hours. But in spite of all that, Queenie can be happy, for Queenie has character.

1966 Winner. After his family moves to the suburbs, nine-year-old Berries Goodman finds another loner like himself, but then loses his best friend through prejudice.

1965 Winner. Cantuffa is a thick thorn bush which once covered much of the land of Ethiopia, preventing any progress until it had been cut away. For this reason an emperor about to make a voyage across the country proclaimed, ""Cut down the cantuffa in the four quarters of the world, for I know not where I am going."" This story helps to shack away at some of the thorns which still obscure this nation. It describes the young boy Teffera, left in charge of his family's farm and sheep while his father was undergoing an operation. When a ferangi, an American, came to his small village to help teach new methods of caring for the sheep, Teffera had to decide whether he should accept this advice. His people had had substantial reason to mistrust the Westerners, and he was instilled with pride in own traditions, but on the other hand his flocks were dying. Although readers may lose interest in the descriptions of the sheep and their state of health, this book has the dual value of illuminating the character of the Ethiopian peasant and of providing an insight into the problems they must face in adapting to progress while maintaining their national spirit. E. Harper Johnson's pencil drawings are almost photographic in detail--like the story they are somewhat unimaginative but honest.

1964 Winner. Written in 1955 by the then junior senator from the state of Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage serves as a clarion call to every American. In this book Kennedy chose eight of his historical colleagues to profile for their acts of astounding integrity in the face of overwhelming opposition. These heroes, coming from different junctures in our nation’s history, include John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, and Robert A. Taft. Now, a half-century later, the book remains a moving, powerful, and relevant testament to the indomitable national spirit and an unparalleled celebration of that most noble of human virtues. It resounds with timeless lessons on the most cherished of virtues and is a powerful reminder of the strength of the human spirit. Profiles in Courage is as Robert Kennedy states in the foreword: “not just stories of the past but a book of hope and confidence for the future. What happens to the country, to the world, depends on what we do with what others have left us." Along with vintage photographs and an extensive author biography, this book features Kennedy's correspondence about the writing project, contemporary reviews, a letter from Ernest Hemingway, and two rousing speeches from recipients of the Profile in Courage Award. Introduction by John F. Kennedy’s daughter Caroline Kennedy, forward by John F. Kennedy’s brother Robert F. Kennedy.

1963 Winner. A lion, a bird, a crocodile, a giraffe, a snake and an elephant all find themselves together in a dark cave as they seek refuge from the wild wind.

1962 Winner. Lalu journeys to Agra to take his sister to a doctor, a journey of 300 miles.

1961 Winner.
Raman must choose between using his education to move beyond the Indian hills or returning to his home to teach others.