Friday, January 14, 2011

The 2011 Stonewall Children's and Young Adult Literature Award goes to "Almost Perfect" by Brian Katcher!

The Stonewall Children's and Young Adult Literature Award is now given annually to "English-language children's and young adult books of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered experience."

The 2011 winner, announced this week, is:

"Almost Perfect," written by Brian Katcher,



Four honor books were selected:
"will grayson, will grayson," written by John Green and David Levithan (which was also an honor book for the Odyssey Award for being one of the best audiobooks produced for children and/or young adults!)
"Love Drugged," written by James Klise
"Freaks and Revelations," written by Davida Willis Hurwin
"The Boy in the Dress," written by David Walliams, illustrated by Quentin Blake.


It's pretty exciting that really great books with GLBTQ content and characters are now included in the American Library Association's announcements of the top books for children and young adults published last year!

So, if you've been wondering WHICH books to read first out of the hundreds listed on this website, these five would be a great place to start!

Enjoy, and Namaste,
Lee

6 comments:

Sally Bibrary said...

Almost Perfect has been on my to-read list for far too long now. One of the challenges I've set for myself in 2011 is to read more books from age groups and genres that I wouldn't normally read, so this is a perfect excuse to get started.

Lisa Jenn Bigelow said...

I agree, it was great to give the Stonewalls greater visibility by announcing them with the other Youth Media Awards. It was nice to see two trans-related titles on the list, too. I am disappointed that there's no lesbian or bi focus in the five books. Not that the ones that won weren't deserving of praise (at least the three I've read), but I know I read some good books from the past year starring queer female characters, and it's too bad not to see any of them here.

Lee Wind, M.Ed. said...

Lisa Jenn, which queer female books would you have put on the short list?
Namaste,
Lee

Jonathon Arntson said...

Awesome! The creation of this list is inspiring me to wrap up my work-in-progress and get it out there into the hands of gay youth.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this, Lee. Almost Perfect and Will Grayson, Will Grayson have been on my to read list for too long! I will check out the others as well. So many books and...well, know...plenty of time!

Cheers

Deb

Jennifer Morian Frye said...

Thanks for sharing these! A couple of these were already on my TBR list, but didn't know all of them.