On January 27, 2025, the Youth Media Awards were announced, as usual, during what was long known as the American Library Association’s Midwinter Conference (in recent years: LibLearnX). It seems likely that this was the last wintertime conference in that form. With so much upheaval and uncertainty (e.g., book bans, AI, the attempted dismantling of IMLS, the unceremonious dismissal of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden) surrounding our industry (and our world!), it can be hard to predict what the future may hold. Looking back at the past “year in words and pictures,” though, finds a celebration of creativity and resilience, familiarity and memory-keeping, through the words of and the images created by the award winners in our July/August issue and beyond.

The Caldecott Medal went to illustrator Rebecca Lee Kunz (Cherokee), only the second Native artist to win the gold (after Michaela Goade, Tlingit, in 2021). Chooch Helped (written by Cherokee author Andrea L. Rogers) is one of those lived-in, everyday-family stories that are both individualistic and universal, as little sibling Chooch’s idea of helping doesn’t match that of the frustrated narrator. It is also Kunz’s picture-book debut, putting her in the rare category of artists who have won the Caldecott with their very first picture book. Erin Entrada Kelly, whose book The First State of Being is (per Sarah Ellis’s Horn Book review) a “well-crafted adventure surrounding a big philosophical idea with a side of middle-grade romance” (and time travel), became only the seventh author — and the first author of color — to win a second Newbery Medal.

A diverse group of creators earned Newbery and Caldecott Honors, with many highlighting culturally specific stories and experiences. As observed by our Calling Caldecott blog, three Caldecott Honor Books — Home in a Lunchbox by Cherry Mo; Noodles on a Bicycle, illustrated by Gracey Zhang, written by Kyo Maclear; and Up, Up, Ever Up!: Junko Tabei: A Life in the Mountains, illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, written by Anita Yasuda —  “feature the work of Asian American artists (perhaps the most so honored in a single year?) and focus on uniquely Asian topics” (with, of course, resonances beyond that community). The fourth Caldecott Honor Book, My Daddy Is a Cowboy, illustrated by C. G. Esperanza and written by Stephanie Seales, again per Calling Caldecott, “centers the experience of a Panamanian American girl and is a tribute to Black dads everywhere.”

The Newbery recognized solely female creators and centered stories from underrepresented perspectives. In addition to Kelly (who is Filipino American), the Newbery slate includes Chanel Miller’s Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All, about two Asian American new friends; Ruth Behar’s Across So Many Seas, historical fiction about a Sephardic Jewish family; Lesa Cline-Ransome’s One Big Open Sky, a historical verse novel about a Black American homesteader family; and Kate O’Shaughnessy’s The Wrong Way Home, realistic fiction about a mother and daughter, cued white, who escape a cult. The Newbery and Caldecott’s overlap with identity-based awards includes the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for My Daddy Is a Cowboy, a CSK Author Honor for One Big Open Sky, and a Sydney Taylor Middle Grade Honor for Across So Many Seas.

Jason Chin, 2022’s Caldecott Medalist for Watercress (written by Andrea Wang; and also a Newbery honoree, APALA winner, and Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Book) is this year’s Sibert Medalist with author Lynn Brunelle for Life After Whale: The Amazing Ecosystem of a Whale Fall. The honor books for this “informational book” award category showed off the span of what nonfiction can be, while also showcasing diversity in terms of creators and subject matter. They ranged from picture-book biographies (Call Me Roberto!: Roberto Clemente Goes to Bat for Latinos by Nathalie Alonso, illustrated by Rudy Gutierrez, and Wings of an Eagle: The Gold Medal Dreams of Billy Mills by Billy Mills and Donna Janell Bowman, illustrated by S. D. Nelson) to a graphic memoir (The Girl Who Sang: A Holocaust Memoir of Hope and Survival by Estelle Nadel with Sammy Savos and Bethany Strout, illustrated by Sammy Savos) to a longer work of narrative nonfiction (The Enigma Girls: How Ten Teenagers Broke Ciphers, Kept Secrets, and Helped Win World War II by Candace Fleming).

We’ve anecdotally noticed a recent uptick in both graphic and verse novels, and both made strong showings among this year’s awards. The Printz Award went to graphic novel (and younger YA book!) Brownstone (by Samuel Teer, illustrated by Mar Julia), and a Printz Honor went to The Deep Dark (by Molly Knox Ostertag). Graphic novel Lunar Boy by Jes Wibowo and Cin Wibowo won the Stonewall Award in the children’s category; graphic memoir Continental Drifter by Kathy MacLeod won the APALA Award in the children’s literature category, with graphic novels Mabuhay! by Zachary Sterling and Lunar New Year Love Story, written by Gene Luen Yang, illustrated by LeUyen Pham, receiving APALA Honors in the children’s literature and young adult categories, respectively. In addition to its Sibert Honor, The Girl Who Sang won the Sydney Taylor Book Award in the middle grade category. Verse novel honors included the aforementioned One Big Open Sky, and Pura Belpré Author honorees Ultraviolet by Aida Salazar in the children’s category and Wild Dreamers by Margarita Engle in the YA category. And verse novels and other poetry were also presences among awards beyond ALA. See National Book Award winner Kareem Between; Kin: Rooted in Hope, for which the 2024 Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards had to tweak their own categories to recognize a separate Poetry winner; and autobiographical poetry collection Black Girl You Are Atlas — from ALA, a CSK Author Honor Book and an Odyssey honoree for its audio, and from We Need Diverse Books, the Walter Award winner in the teen category.

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Our May/June 2025 special issue theme was Perception and Reality, and now it’s hard not to look at everything through that lens, even as those in power make grasping attempts to control perceptions by controlling what “realities” are and aren’t presented to students and young readers (as well as to adults). Our July/August issue is filled with the words of those fighting to counteract those attempts. As Children’s Literature Legacy Award winner Carole Boston Weatherford says in her acceptance remarks, “Black history is too epic to erase”; her profile writer, Dawnavyn James, and CSK–Virginia Hamilton Practitioner Award winner Carolyn L. Garnes touch on similar themes. The same is true of a myriad other realities that some might be trying to keep from young readers, while book creators, publishers, librarians, educators, and others in our field fight to continue presenting them. “I do not believe that children are too tender for tough topics,” says Weatherford. “They deserve and will demand the truth…Children recognize injustice and know how to interrogate it.” And children and teens deserve varied, honest portrayals of all sorts of experiences; see Jason Reynolds’s CSK Author Award acceptance for eloquent reflections.

In her Newbery Medal Acceptance remarks, Erin Entrada Kelly discusses her own changed perceptions as she was faced with painful realities. “In a world that is increasingly dark and disappointing and sorrowful and frightening, I was reminded that there are people — many, many people — who are kind, compassionate, caring, and empathetic.” The Newbery committee’s description of The First State of Being (as Sharon Huss Roat’s profile of Kelly tells us) said that it “leaves readers knowing that each of us matters.” We hope the books that our children’s book community uplifts and celebrates will continue to do just that.

See the July/August 2025 Horn Book Magazine for acceptance remarks by, and profiles of, the Newbery, Caldecott, Children’s Literature Legacy, and Coretta Scott King award winners.