Around the world: Non-fiction awards for children's and young adult literature

The guest speaker at today's network meeting will be Bob Sibert, CEO of Bound to Stay Bound Books and son of the man for whom the American Library Association's Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal was named.  The medal was founded in 2001 with support from Bound to Stay Bound Books.

Here are some of the other awards for nonfiction or informational books for children and young adults.

 The UK School Library Association started their Information Book Award in 2011 -- for three age categories: under 7s, 7-12 and 12-16.  Read the background information here.  The 2015 winners were announced in November 2015.


In Canada there is the Norma Fleck Award for Non-fiction, established in 1999 by the Canadian Children's Book Centre.  The winner is announced in November each year.

Elsie Locke Award for Non-Fiction is one category of the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, founded in 1997 by the Association of New Zealand Booksellers.  Winners are announced in August of each year.

The Children's Book Council of Australia has sponsored the Eve Pownall Award for Information Books since 1988.  Winners are announced in August.


The Cybil Awards are online awards run by a large group of bloggers about children's literature -- many from the US, but not exclusively.  There's a Non-fiction award in two categories:  Elementary/Middle Grade and Young Adult.  The 2015 winners were just announced on Feb. 14th. 


Are there any other awards I should add to this list?  If so, let me know and I will amend this post.

The Red Dots roll around again...

The goal for announcing the 2016-2017 Red Dot shortlists is June 1st.  Which means we need to be gathering suggested titles and getting volunteers to start reading them.

I'd like to ask everyone in our network to suggest at least 2 titles of books you have already read that could be good Red Dot selections -- by March 1st.  Remember: in the end we need to find 8 books at each level.

Criteria in choosing books:

• Mix of genres, e.g., fiction, nonfiction, poetry, graphic format
• Balance of boy/girl main characters
• Balance of nationalities
• Published (in English) within the last 4 years  (i.e., 2013, 2014, 2015, or 2016)
• Preferably only #1 if in a series
• Preferably no repeat of an author from previous years
• Preferably books that encourage Text-Text, Text-Self, and/or Text-World connections for students (i.e., books worth talking about)

Here are links to all the previous shortlisted titles on our ISLN GoodReads bookshelves:

• All shortlists for Early Years

• All shortlists for Younger Readers

• All shortlists for Older Readers

• All shortlists for Mature Readers

Click here to view all submissions so far -- in a Google Spreadsheet.

Click here for this year's Red Dot website.