Award Winners! #YearofYA March 2019

 

Booknerds everywhere get excited (and frustrated!) when it’s book award season! Now that the ALA Youth Media Awards have been announced, we figured we’d celebrate award winners – from ALA along with other favorites. And don’t worry if your favorite didn’t get the love you feel it deserved… we might have a question for that! As always with our themes, you have the freedom to pick titles that interest YOU.

 

Below are just a few of our favorite award lists! If you want to share more and read from something different, send ideas our way!

 

ALA Youth Media Awards

Book Shimmy Awards by EPIC Reads

CYBLIS awards – Children and YA Bloggers awards!

Goodreads Award Winners

National Book Awards

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A Celebration of African-American YA | #YearofYA February ’19

 

There is a beautiful book called 28 Days: Moments in Black History that Changed the World by Charles R. Smith Jr. that should be in every library, every classroom, every month of the year.

 

Perhaps just as necessary now than ever, young people need to find inspiration in the courage of generations before us, to learn about lived experiences vastly different (or incredibly similar!) to their own, to reflect on what it means to be a bystander, versus an ally, versus an upstander.

 

Stories like the short biographies found in 28 Days provide readers with those essential windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors that Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop has so famously referred to – and while biographies are a fitting way to connect and reflect during Black History Month, #YearofYA wants to celebrate the incredible works of African-American young adult authors.

 

Below are lists of books written by African American authors:

• 21 Books for Black History Month by Epic Reads
• Don’t Miss These Fantastic YA Books by Black Authors That Release This Year (2018) by Buzzfeed
• 18 Young Adult Books by POC Writers that you Need to Read by Epic Reads
• Great Books for Teens by African-American Authors by Burlington County Library System
• 100 Books for Black Boys/Teens of Color by Langston League

 

Additional helpful resources:

Reading While White

Tolerance.org

 

Mollee’s Must-Reads

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

Anything by Jason Reynolds

 

Tavia’s Must-Reads

Any and Everything by Jason Reynolds (All American Boys is my favorite)

How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon

Allegedly By Tiffany D. Jackson

 

January 2019: #YearofYA Blinded me with SciFi!

 

Let’s start with defining SciFi… as it stands alone and not an “and/or” to the Fantasy genre!

Well, the best way I’ve been able to determine is through this helpful article from Writer’s Digest: The Difference Between Science Fiction and Fantasy

So many great examples that I would immediately to go as SciFi (hello! Star Wars!) but they are in fact Fantasy! *mindblown*

Well we’ve done our fair share of Fantasy reading here over 3 seasons of #YearofYA (another mindblowing fact!) so let’s try to keep it in the SciFi boundaries!

Unfortunately, many lists include both so it’s up to you to decide which genre it fits in! Come prepared to defend its rightful place in SciFi when we chat in January on Tuesday the 22nd at 9pm EST/6pm PST! *note, new time!

 

Some standout titles include:

• Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles) by Marissa Meyer
• Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve (in theaters now)
• Scythe (series) By Neal Shusterman
• An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
• Shatter Me (series) By Tahereh Mafi
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
• Wool by Hugh Howey
• Monster of Men (Chaos Walking Series) by Patrick Ness

And some more lists to explore:

BookRiot’s 100 Must-read YA SciFi

Penguin Random House Teen SciFi List

Most Anticipated SciFi of 2018 from B&N

EpicReads YA SciFi Recommendations

Brightly’s Best SciFi & Fantasy of 2018

GoodReads best of 2018 YA SciFi & Fantasy

19 Best Sci Fi for Teens from Best Sci Fi Books.com

#YearofYA Best Of 2018!

Did you miss our December chat where we recounted our favorite 2018 reads?! Feel free to answer any of the following questions on Twitter using #YearofYA to connect with other YA readers! We are curating everyone’s BEST OF answers and we’ll be sharing that list on here too!

 

Our most ferocious reader, BJ Neary (@bjneary) shares her 2018 titles in the chart below! She’s a wonderful friend to follow on Twitter or Goodreads if you want to know more about a book… she’s probably read it!

#YEAROFYA DECEMBER 2018 END OF THE YEAR READS

I am on Goodreads as bjneary – follow my books & reviews!!!

Faves on 2018 LISTS 2018 PUB	LOVED	liked
Kingdom of Ash	Kingdom of Ash/S Maas
The Prince & the Dressmaker/Wang	The Prince & the Dressmaker/Wang
The Queen of Air & Darkness/C Clare	The Queen of Air & Darkness/C Clare
The Storyteller/T Chee	The Storyteller/T Chee
Sunny/Reynolds	Sunny/Reynolds
The Lost Sisters/Black		The Lost Sisters/Black
Wildcard/M Lu	Wildcard/M Lu
Bridge of Clay/M Zusak		Bridge of Clay/M Zusak
The Gilded Wolves/R Chokshi		The Gilded Wolves/R Chokshi
Odd One Out/N Stone	Odd One Out/N Stone
Love, Hate & Other Filters/Ahmed	Love, Hate & Other Filters/Ahmed
Hey Kiddo/J Krosoczka	Hey Kiddo/J Krosoczka
The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats & Piracy/M Lee	The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats & Piracy/M Lee
Meet Cute/J L Armentrout	Meet Cute/J L Armentrout
Pride/I Zoboi	Pride/I Zoboi
Truly Devious/M Johnson	Truly Devious/M Johnson
A Reaper at the Gates/S Tahir		A Reaper at the Gates/S Tahir
Smoke in the Sun/R Adied	Smoke in the Sun/R Adied
Bruja Born/Z Cordova	Bruja Born/Z Cordova
Monday’s Not Coming/T Jackson	Monday’s Not Coming/T Jackson
Bright We Burn/K White
Traitor’s Game/J Neilsen
A Court of Frost & Starlight/S Maas
Puddin’/J Murphy	Puddin’/J Murphy
The Cruel Prince/H Black		The Cruel Prince/H Black
Sadie/C Summers	Sadie/C Summers
Dance of Thieves/M Pearson	Dance of Thieves/M Pearson
I Have Lost My Way/G Forman	I Have Lost My Way/G Forman
Fresh Ink/L Giles	Fresh Ink/L Giles
The Poet X/E Acevedo	The Poet X/E Acevedo
Dread Nation/J Ireland	Dread Nation/J Ireland
Leah on the Offbeat/B Albertalli	Leah on the Offbeat/B Albertalli
Emergency Contact/Choi	Emergency Contact/Choi
Children of Blood and Bone/T Adeyemi	Children of Blood and Bone/T Adeyemi
Blood Water Paint/J McCullough	Blood Water Paint/J McCullough
The Way You Make Me Feel/M Goo	The Way You Make Me Feel/M Goo
A Girl Like That/T Bhathena		A Girl Like That/T Bhathena
Hero at the Fall/A Hamilton	Hero at the Fall/A Hamilton

 

#YearofYA | End of the Year 2018!

 

Ever feel like there just isn’t enough time to get to all the books you hoped to in one year?!

Push through this year’s finish line by carving out time for your TOP TBR’s of 2018!

Or maybe you DID read all you hoped… but have time for a few more! Check out these “best of” lists for ideas to round out an amazing year of reading!

Join us to chat at 8pm EST/5pm PST on Thursday December 27th!

• Indies Next Teen Picks for Fall 2018
• Time’s Best 10 Children’s and YA of 2018
• Brightly’s 18 of the Most Exciting YA Books to Read in 2018
• YALSA’s 2018 Best Fiction for Young Adults
• Seventeen Magazine’s 34 Best YA Books of 2018

 

Horror Reads Oct. 2018 #YearofYA

Our retired-reader-extraordinaire, BJ shares her favorite Horror YA and it’s a list worth posting here!

What are some of YOUR favorites?! Comment on here or tweet us using #YearofYA – be sure to tag @bjneary too!

Throwback Frights – October 2018 #YearofYA

We can’t let an October go by without taking up an opportunity to enjoy some creepy reads.

Ok. “Enjoy” might not be the right word for some of us. Definitely not Mollee’s favorite genre.

But we have fun plans in store for you this October!

THROWBACK FRIGHTS!

Oh yes, we mean R. L. Stine. Lois Duncan.Mary Downing Hahn. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Bunnicula.

Want to throw it back even further? Grab a classic haunt like Frankenstein. Dracula. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. You know how we operate – #YearofYA throws out the monthly theme, and YOU pick the books.

Read up, witches!

 

There aren’t too many lists that fit this month’s theme, so instead we present our favorite throwback frights:

R. L. Stine’s Fear Street (and Goosebumps!)

Lois Duncan’s I Know What You Did Last Summer among other creepy reads

Christopher Pike

VC Andrews

And of course…

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark