Here are the shortlists. I was thrilled to see “Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus” and “The Hate U Give” on the list. I read both last year and they were excellent. I’m disappointed that they had to skip the audiobooks category, I was pretty happy to see that category last year and the Graphic Novel shortlists seem a little lackluster, but I could be wrong about that.
I’m not planning on reading them all (again) this year but I do plan on reading a bunch of them (again.)
Easy Readers and Early Chapter Books
Charlie & Mouse & Grumpy: Book 2
I Like the Farm
King & Kayla and the Case of the Secret Code (King and Kayla)
My Kite is Stuck! and Other Stories (A Duck, Duck, Porcupine Book)
There’s a Pest in the Garden! (The Giggle Gang)
Tooth Fairy’s Night (Step into Reading)
We Need More Nuts! (Penguin Young Readers, Level 2)
What Is Chasing Duck? (The Giggle Gang)
Barkus
Dragons and Marshmallows (Zoey and Sassafras)
Heartwood Hotel, Book 2 The Greatest Gift
My Fantástica Family (Sofia Martinez)
Overboard! (Survivor Diaries)
Princess Cora and the Crocodile
The Princess in Black Takes a Vacation
Wedgie & Gizmo
Elementary/Middle Grade Non-Fiction
Adrift at Sea: A Vietnamese Boy’s Story of Survival
Danza!: Amalia Hernández and Mexico’s Folkloric Ballet
Dazzle Ships: World War I and the Art of Confusion
Hatching Chicks in Room 6
Once Upon a Jungle
Shark Lady: The True Story of How Eugenie Clark Became the Ocean’s Most Fearless Scientist
What Makes a Monster?: Discovering the World’s Scariest Creatures (The World of Weird Animals)
Beauty and the Beak: How Science, Technology, and a 3D-Printed Beak Rescued a Bald Eagle
Fred Korematsu Speaks Up (Fighting for Justice)
Lost in Outer Space (Lost #2): The Incredible Journey of Apollo 13
Pathfinders: The Journeys of 16 Extraordinary Black Souls
Red Cloud
Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive!
Zoo Scientists to the Rescue
Elementary/Middle Grade Graphic Novels
Pashmina
Real Friends
Sure and the Shadow
The Big Bad Fox
The Dam Keeper
Where’s Halmoni?
Elementary/Middle-Grade Speculative Fiction
A Face Like Glass
A Properly Undaunted Place
Last Day on Mars
Miss Ellicott’s School for the Magically Minded
Spirit Hunters
The Countdown Conspiracy
The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart
Fiction Picture Books
After the Fall (How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again)
Baabwaa and Wooliam
Big Cat, Little Cat
Creepy Pair of Underwear!
Escargot
Flowers for Sarajevo
The Book of Mistakes
Board Books
Bears Are Big
Changing Faces: Meet Happy Bear
Circle, Triangle, Elephant
Hair (Leslie Patricelli Board Books)
One Happy Tiger
Peek-a Moo!
When Your Lion Needs a Bat
Poetry
Bull
Fresh-Picked Poetry: A Day at the Farmers’ Market
I’m Just No Good at Rhyming: And Other Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups
Keep a Pocket in Your Poem: Classic Poems and Playful Parodies
Miguel’s Brave Knight: Young Cervantes and His Dream of Don Quixote
One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance
Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets
Middle-Grade Fiction
Amina’s Voice
Armstrong and Charlie
Caleb and Kit
Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus
Refugee
Restart
The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora
Junior/Senior High Non-Fiction
Bound by Ice: A True North Pole Survival Story
Isaac the Alchemist: Secrets of Isaac Newton, Reveal’d
Locked Up for Freedom: Civil Rights Protesters at the Leesburg Stockade
Motor Girls: How Women Took the Wheel and Drove Boldly Into the Twentieth Century
The Whydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked, and Found
Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team
A Dog in the Cave: The Wolves Who Made Us Human
Alice Paul and the Fight for Women’s Rights: From the Vote to the Equal Rights Amendment
How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child
Queer, There, and Everywhere: 23 People Who Changed the World
The March Against Fear: The Last Great Walk of the Civil Rights Movement and the Emergence of Black Power
Uprooted: The Japanese American Experience During World War II
Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers
Young Adult Graphic Novels
Buddha: An Enlightened Life
New Super-Man Vol. 1: Made In China (Rebirth) (Super-Man – New Super-Man (Rebirth))
Soupy Leaves Home
Spill Zone
Spinning
Tyson Hesse’s Diesel: Ignition
Young Adult Fiction
A Short History of the Girl Next Door
Moxie: A Novel
Piecing Me Together
Saints and Misfits
The Hate U Give
The Inexplicable Logic of My Life
The Lake Effect
Young Adult Speculative Fiction
Scythe (Arc of a Scythe)
Song of the Current
The Hearts We Sold
The Rules and Regulations for Mediating Myths and Magic
They Both Die at the End
Wonder Woman: Warbringer