A t Five Books, we help you keep track of award-winning books for teens as a way of drawing attention to quality reading material that is enjoyable as well as informative.
Below, you will find some of the recent winners of prestigious prizes for books for teens and young adults, such as the American Library Association awards.
Samuel Teer, Mar Julia (illustrator)
🏆 2025 Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature
When Almudena is 14, her mother arranges for her to spend the whole summer with her Guatemalan father, whom Almudena doesn’t know. Not only is she suddenly expected to understand Spanish, but the whole neighbourhood seems to have opinions on how this young Latina should behave and whether or not she belongs. This is a lovely coming-of-age graphic novel set in 1990s New York City.
Read expert recommendations
🏆 2025 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults
Subtitled Edward Jae Song Lee, Latasha Harlins, Rodney King, and a City on Fire , this is a well-researched and highly readable account of the violent protests that took place in Los Angeles in 1992 — variously described as riots, an insurrection or an uprising.
Read expert recommendations
🏆 International Thriller Writers’ Awards best young adult novel 2024
2024 Odyssey Award Honor Audiobook for Young Adults
1937: with fascism on the rise and Spain in the midst of civil war, young pilots from 12 countries are setting off on an air race to promote peace in Europe. 17 year old Stella North — who is representing the UK and the only female competitor — is worried that the press will find out that she is in fact stateless, travelling on a Nansen passport for refugees. When one of the planes goes down with its young pilot, she suspects sabotage. As the list of suspects gradually narrows, can our young protagonists overcome their political differences to outwit the murderer and survive until the end of the race? An exciting novel for anyone who is interested in early aviation, 1930s Europe, or murder mysteries.
Read expert recommendations
🏆 2024 Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature
Why do we collect things? Exploring this question, author A. S. King challenged nine of her favourite writers of YA literature to contribute a short story that celebrates the weird. The result is this eclectic collection of stories (including one from King herself), each featuring a collection and its collector. This is the first time an anthology has won the Printz Award.
Read expert recommendations
🏆 2024 Stonewall Young Adult Book Award
An intergenerational story set in Tehran and Los Angeles in 2019, 1978 and 1939, exploring family secrets, the fragile bonds between fathers and sons, and the beautiful moments that shape us.
Read expert recommendations
🏆 2023 Pura Belpré Award Young Adult Winner
The Bronx is being plagued by unexplained disappearances. When Raquel’s mother comes down with a mysterious illness, Raquel realises that it is somehow linked to the recent disappearance of Cisco, beloved cousin of her crush Charlize. Together with Charlize and her friend Aaron, Raquel discovers that everything is tied to a challenge called the Echo Game, said to trap people in a particularly dark chapter of their city’s history. To have a chance of saving their loved ones, the 16 year olds have to play the terrifying game and defeat the evil at its heart, or die trying. A compelling paranormal thriller set in an underground cursed version of the Bronx. Beware it’s quite gory at times. Something fun: on their website the author has put links to the book characters’ playlists.
Read expert recommendations
Manon Steffan Ros, author and translator
🏆 2023 Yoto Carnegie Medal
A post-apocalyptic short novel alternately narrated by a 14 year old boy and his mother. They are isolated survivors of a nuclear disaster, living outside a small village in North Wales where they grow what they eat and forage for other essentials — such as books — in abandoned homes. Simultaneously delicate and brutal, this is a contemplative read that makes us examine our lives in the modern world and what we really care about. The English edition is also an exploration of Welsh identity and our relationship with language.
Read expert recommendations
2023 Yoto Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice Medal
A gripping historical novel set in Bucharest in 1989. With hindsight readers know that the Ceaușescu regime will fall by Christmas, but at the start of the book Cristian — a 17 year old schoolboy — is blackmailed to become one of the many civilian informers for the regime. The author clearly takes her background research seriously, using interviews to get a feel for the human story in addition to a very wide range of written sources. I Must Betray You vividly brings to life the atmosphere of constant suspicion and fear, what it is like to grow up without any private space to be yourself, and the damage that the inability to trust anyone does to friendships and family relationships.
Read expert recommendations
Tommie Smith, Derrick Barnes, Dawud Anyabwile (illustrator)
🏆 2023 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults
This is a powerful graphic memoir, propelled by the great combination of a compelling story and dynamic illustrations by an award-winning artist. At the 1968 Olympics, Tommie Smith — having just broken the 200 metre sprint world record — and bronze medal winner John Carlos, raised their fists in an iconic gesture against the injustice inflicted on African Americans. This graphic novel tells the story of that race and the incredible determination it took to win, with flashbacks to Tommie Smith’s childhood. The Olympic medallists’ decision to use their platform to take a stand had severe consequences (including death threats) and still resonates today.
Read expert recommendations
🏆 2023 Stonewall Young Adult Book Award 2023 Michael L. Printz Honor Book (for Young Adult Literature)
In a small shtetl in Poland in the early 20th century, an angel and a demon are studying the Talmud together. With opposing roles in the cosmic order but an intimate personal relationship, they embark on a quest to find out what happened to a local girl who has gone missing on the way to the USA. On the journey they meet Rose, whose best friend — the love of her life — has abandoned her to marry a man. An engaging novel with elements of Yiddish literature and folklore and concerned with early 20th century Ashkenazi immigration history, it is also about queer love and the fluid nature of identity, and about what is good and what is wicked.
Read expert recommendations
Sabaa Tahir, narrated by Deepti Gupta, Kamran R. Khan and Kausar Mohammed
🏆 2023 Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature
2022 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature (USA)
American Library Association Amazing Audiobook for Young Adults 2023
Read expert recommendations
“Of the three different characters, two are best friends who are in a difficult spot with each other. And the third is the mother, whose voice is telling her story in the past leading up to the present. It gets into some heavier topics, where the three of them are facing a lot of hardship. At the same time, there are beautiful relationships that you’re discovering. While there’s a lot of anger and grief, there’s also a lot of joy that’s found.” Read more...
The Best Audiobooks for Kids and Young Adults of 2022
Emily Connelly ,
Journalist
🏆 2022 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults
This is a book about the assassination plot against President James Garfield. But more than that, it is a fascinating – if gory – read for anyone interested in the history of medicine, with a focus on 19th century USA. Garfield wrote to his wife during the Civil War that the fight with disease “is infinitely more horrible than battle”. When Garfield was shot it need not have been fatal; indeed it took over two months for him to die. This book is a powerful reminder that we need to take antibiotic resistance seriously. Similarly, today we are seeing a rise in cases of illnesses such as diphtheria, polio and whooping cough, and this book helps us reflect on what it was like to live without vaccines against them (the Garfields lost a daughter to diphtheria and a son to whooping cough). Ambushed! is part of a series about medical fiascoes.
Read expert recommendations
🏆 2022 Schneider Family Book Award, teen category
Deaf 16-year-old Piper is trying to figure out how to survive in a near-future Australia in chaos due to high inflation and fuel shortages. Learning to sign opens Piper’s world (until now she has been expected to fit in by lipreading and speaking) but complicates her relationship with her mother. Exploring how best to respond in a hearing world as she develops her identity, Piper expresses herself in a mixed media art journal. The result is this unique book, which was first published in Australia as Future Girl .
Read expert recommendations
🏆 2022 Stonewall Young Adult Book Award
American Library Association Amazing Audiobook for Young Adults 2022
2022 Michael L. Printz Honor Book (for Young Adult Literature)
In 1950s San Francisco, 17 year old Lily is a Chinese American who dresses conservatively and does her homework. When she realises that there is such a thing as lesbian romantic love, she feels as if she has “finally cracked the last part of a code she had been puzzling over for so long that she couldn’t remember when she had started deciphering it”. A relationship develops with her classmate Kath who shares Lily’s interest in mathematics. But in the face of the police’s drive against so-called “sex deviates” and the country’s campaign against people who are suspected of communist sympathies (pretty much anyone in Chinatown), can it survive?
Read expert recommendations
🏆 2022 Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature
American Library Association Amazing Audiobook for Young Adults 2022
Read expert recommendations
“It’s a great combination of a young adult thriller and a love story… It’s a story of a community, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians on reservation in Michigan. The story takes place on and off the reservation. The main character, whose name is Daunis, has grown up between those two cultures. She gets caught up in an investigation into a new street drug that has very devastatingly been impacting their communities… There’s a lot about understanding yourself and your family as well. It’s an engrossing story.” Read more...
The Best Audiobooks for Kids and Young Adults of 2021
Emily Connelly ,
Journalist
“It is a local story rooted in Northern Ireland, but I think that it’s a novel for an international audience. With themes of prejudice and radicalisation it speaks to our time, wherever there is conflict and polarisation. Aidan and Iona live in peace time, but their whole world is overshadowed by the past… This novel is about how teenagers can escape from that sort of inherited identity conflict.” Read more...
Great Teen Reads from Ireland’s Great Reads Awards
Breege O'Brien ,
Librarian
🏆 International Thriller Writers’ Awards best young adult novel 2021
Caroline can’t wait to turn eighteen and finish school, to leave her conservative family who refuse to accept her sexual identity. She struggles with mental health problems and is trying to keep her head down, but when her best friend Madison disappears Caroline gets involved in the investigation. She soon discovers that Madison is not the only girl who has disappeared. This book raises important questions about inequality, entitlement and abuse of power, and how class differences are reflected in law enforcement outcomes.
Read expert recommendations
🏆 2021 Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature
Khosrou’s mother converts to Christianity, which leads her to flee Iran with her children in the middle of the night. Following an extended trip via an Italian refugee camp, Khosrou stands in front of his middle school class in Oklahoma explaining how he got there. Doing his best impression of Scheherazade, the legendary storyteller of 1001 Nights Everything Sad Is Untrue is a true story in that it is autobiographical, but memories are unreliable, they are the stories we choose to tell ourselves. There is sadness (Khosrou — now known as Daniel — will never be able to make new memories with loved ones who are still in Iran) and there is hardship. At the same time, there is truth in the beauty of family tales in jasmine-scented Isfahan, of sensory memories, of food shared, of love and everyday survival.
Read expert recommendations
🏆 2020 Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature
The anxieties and individual stories of five teenage cousins are woven together as multigenerational secrets are revealed and an extended family implodes. Said the Printz Award Committee Chair: Dig “unapologetically explores the generational impacts of white privilege and the alienation of fractured families”.
Read expert recommendations
🏆 2019 Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature🏆 2019 Carnegie Medal🏆 2019 Pura Belpré Award Young Adult Winner
American Library Association Amazing Audiobook 2019
2018 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature (USA)
The Poet X is a verse novel about a girl (with a twin brother) coming of age in Harlem in New York City. Her mum is religious and would have preferred to be a nun. "If Medusa was Dominican and had a daughter, I think I'd be her," says the narrator, Xiomara, who eventually finds herself through poetry and the support of an inspiring teacher.
Read expert recommendations
Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected]
Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you've enjoyed this interview, please support us by donating a small amount .
