Literature for Children and Young Adults: Coretta Scott King Award

(2024 Coretta Scott King Author Award)
Every Body Looking explores race, feminism, and complicated family dynamics. The ideal next read for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo, Jacqueline Woodson, and Roxane Gay. Warrior Princess. That's what Nigeria Jones's father calls her. He has raised her as part of the Movement, a Black separatist group based in Philadelphia. Nigeria is homeschooled and vegan and participates in traditional rituals to connect her and other kids from the group to their ancestors. But when her mother--the perfect matriarch of their Movement--disappears, Nigeria's world is upended. She finds herself taking care of her baby brother and stepping into a role she doesn't want. Nigeria's mother had secrets. She wished for a different life for her children, which includes sending her daughter to a private Quaker school outside of their strict group. Despite her father's disapproval, Nigeria attends the school with her cousin, Kamau, and Sage, who used to be a friend. ­There, she begins to flourish and expand her universe. As Nigeria searches for her mother, she starts to uncover a shocking truth. One that will lead her to question everything she thought she knew about her life and her family.

(2023 Newbery Medal)
(2023 Coretta Scott King Author Award)
Award-winning author Amina Luqman-Dawson pens a lyrical, accessible historical middle-grade novel about two enslaved children's escape from a plantation and the many ways they find freedom.

(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2022)
(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2022)
Celebrated author Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrator Floyd Cooper provide a powerful look at the Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the worst incidents of racial violence in our nation's history.

(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2021)
For as long as ZJ can remember, his dad has been everyone's hero. As a charming, talented pro football star, he's as beloved to the neighborhood kids he plays with as he is to his millions of adoring sports fans. But lately life at ZJ's house is anything but charming. His dad is having trouble remembering things and seems to be angry all the time. ZJ's mom explains it's because of all the head injuries his dad sustained during his career. ZJ can understand that--but it doesn't make the sting any less real when his own father forgets his name. As ZJ contemplates his new reality, he has to figure out how to hold on tight to family traditions and recollections of the glory days, all the while wondering what their past amounts to if his father can't remember it. And most importantly, can those happy feelings ever be reclaimed when they are all so busy aching for the past?

(Newbery Medal 2020)
(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2020)
Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade. As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds--and not really fitting into either one.

(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2019)
A gripping, measured account of a day at the beach in summer 1919 that precipitated a full-blown race riot in Chicago, tracing the events and forces that made the explosion inevitable.

(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2018)
Tired of being singled out at her mostly-white private school as someone who needs support, high school junior Jade would rather participate in the school's amazing Study Abroad program than join Women to Women, a mentorship program for at-risk girls.

(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2017)
"Two teens--Daniel, the son of Korean shopkeepers, and Natasha, whose family is here illegally from Jamaica--cross paths in New York City on an eventful day in their lives--Daniel is on his way to an interview with a Yale alum, Natasha is meeting with a lawyer to try and prevent her family's deportation to Jamaica--and fall in love"-- Provided by publisher.

(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2016)

"Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern are off to Alabama to visit their grandmother, Big Ma, and her mother, Ma Charles. Across the way lives Ma Charles's half sister, Miss Trotter. The two half sisters haven't spoken in years. As Delphine hears about her family history, she uncovers the surprising truth that's been keeping the sisters apart. But when tragedy strikes, Delphine discovers that the bonds of family run deeper than she ever knew possible"

(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2015).
Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child's soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson's poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.

(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2014)
Sequel to One Crazy Summer.
The Gaither sisters are back in Brooklyn, where changes large and small come to their household as they grow up during the turbulent 1960s.

(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2013)
Presents the stories of ten African-American men from different eras in American history, organized chronologically to provide a scope from slavery to the modern day.

(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2012).
An simple introduction to African-American history, from Revolutionary-era slavery up to the election of President Obama.
The E-resource is an audiobook.

(Newbery Honor Book 2011, Coretta Scott King Author Award 2011).
The story of three sisters who travel to Oakland, California, in 1968 to meet the mother who abandoned them.

(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2010)
Outlaws feared him. Law-abiding citizens respected him. Bass always got his man, dead or alive. He achieved all this in spite of whites who didn't like the notion of a black lawman. The true story of former slave Bass Reeves, is the story of a remarkable African American hero of the Old West.

(Sibert Award for 2009)
(Coretta Scott King Author Award for 2009)
Using an "Everyman" player as his narrator, Kadir Nelson tells the story of Negro League baseball from its beginnings in the 1920s through the decline after Jackie Robinson crossed over to the majors in 1947.

(Newbery Honor Book 2008)
(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2008)
In 1859, eleven-year-old Elijah Freeman, the first free-born child in Buxton, Canada, which is a haven for slaves fleeing the American south, uses his wits and skills to try to bring to justice the lying preacher who has stolen money that was to be used to buy a family's freedom.
The E-resource is audio format only.

(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2007)
Two fifteen-year-old girls--one a slave and the other an indentured servant--escape their Carolina plantation and try to make their way to Fort Moses, Florida, a Spanish colony that gives sanctuary to slaves.

(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2006)
Emma has taken care of the Butler children since Sarah and Frances's mother, Fanny, left. Emma wants to raise the girls to have good hearts, as a rift over slavery has ripped the Butler household apart. Now, to pay off debts, Pierce Butler wants to cash in his slave "assets", possibly including Emma.

(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2005)
Remember is a unique pictorial and narrative journey that introduces children to a watershed period in American history and its relevance to us today.

(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2004)
(Michael L. Printz Award for 2004)
Bobby's carefree teenage life changes forever when he becomes a father and must care for his adored baby daughter.

(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2003)
While studying the Harlem Renaissance, students at a Bronx high school read aloud poems they've written, revealing their innermost thoughts and fears to their formerly clueless classmates.

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2024)
Kwame Alexander, pens a powerful picture book that tells the story of American slavery through the voice of a teacher struggling to help her students understand its harrowing history. With stunning mixed-media illustrations by artist Dare Coulter.

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2023)
A stunning and deeply moving picture book based on the popular spiritual from an award-winning author and critically acclaimed illustrator. The classic lyrics have been reworked to chronicle the milestones, struggles, tragedies, and triumphs of African American history.
... This inspirational book encapsulates African American history and invites conversations at all levels. Stretching more than four hundred years, this book features pivotal moments in history, such as the arrival of enslaved people in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619; Nat Turner's rebellion; the integration of the US military; the Selma to Montgomery marches; and peaceful present-day protests. It also celebrates the feats of African American musicians and athletes, such as Duke Ellington and Florence Griffith Joyner.

(Coretta Scott King Author Award 2022)
(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2022)
Celebrated author Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrator Floyd Cooper provide a powerful look at the Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the worst incidents of racial violence in our nation's history.

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2021)
From a New York Times bestselling author and an acclaimed illustrator comes this vibrant portrait of Aretha Franklin that pays her the R-E-S-P-E-C-T this Queen of Soul deserves. Aretha Franklin was born to sing. The daughter of a pastor and a gospel singer, her musical talent was clear from her earliest days in her father's Detroit church where her soaring voice spanned more than three octaves. Her string of hit songs earned her the title "the Queen of Soul," multiple Grammy Awards, and a place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. But Aretha didn't just raise her voice in song, she also spoke out against injustice and fought for civil rights. This authoritative, rhythmic, Coretta Scott King Illustration Award-winning picture book biography will captivate young readers with Aretha's inspiring story.

(Caldecott Medal 2020)
(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2020)
Originally performed for ESPN's The Undefeated, this poem is a love letter to black life in the United States. It highlights the unspeakable trauma of slavery, the faith and fire of the civil rights movement, and the grit, passion, and perseverance of some of the world's greatest heroes.

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2019)
In a poetic text, Marion Dane Bauer takes readers from the trillionth of a second when our universe was born to the singularities that became each one of us, while vivid illustrations by Ekua Holmes capture the void before the Big Bang and the ensuing life that burst across galaxies.

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2018)
Presents a collection of twenty poems written in tribute to well-known poets from around the world.

(Caldecott Medal 2017)
(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2017)
Jean-Michel Basquiat and his unique, collage-style paintings rocketed to fame in the 1980s as a cultural phenomenon unlike anything the art world had ever seen. But before that, he was a little boy who saw art everywhere: in poetry books and museums, in games and in the words that we speak, and in the pulsing energy of New York City. Now, award-winning illustrator Javaka Steptoe's vivid text and bold artwork echoing Basquiat's own introduce young readers to the powerful message that art doesn't always have to be neat or clean--and definitely not inside the lines--to be beautiful.

(King Illustrator Award for 2016)
"Hailing from the Tremé neighborhood in New Orleans, Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews got his nickname by wielding a trombone twice as long as he was high. A prodigy, he was leading his own band by age six, and today this Grammy-nominated artist headlines the legendary New Orleans Jazz Fest"

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2015)
American Ballet Theatre soloist Misty Copeland encourages a young ballet student, with brown skin like her own, by telling her that she, too, had to learn basic steps and how to be graceful when she was starting out, and that some day, with practice and dedication, the little girl will become a firebird, too. Includes author's note about dancers who led her to find her voice.

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2014)
"A boy wakes up one morning to find his father gone. At first, he feels lost. But his father has left him a letter filled with advice to guide him through the times he cannot be there"

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2013)
Presents the popular poem by one of the central figures in the Harlem Renaissance, highlighting the courage and dignity of the African American Pullman porters in the early twentieth century.

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2012)
A family silently crawls along the ground. They run barefoot through unlit woods, sleep beneath bushes, take shelter in a kind stranger's home. Where are they heading? They are heading for Freedom by way of the Underground Railroad.

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2011; Caldecott Honor Book 2011).
Chronicles the life of Dave, a nineteenth-century slave, and a potter, who went on to become an influential poet and artist.

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2010).
Hughes's spare yet eloquent tribute to his people has been cherished for generations. Now, acclaimed photographer Smith interprets this beloved poem in vivid sepia photographs that capture the glory, the beauty, and the soul of being a black American today.

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2009).
This work features twelve poems complimenting different shades of skin color and connecting those colors with similes and metaphors of foods -- mostly berries. The poems each convey, through the eyes of a child, the beauty of their own complexion and how their skin came to be that color.

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2008)
Illustrated versions of three well-known hymns. Includes musical notation.

(Caldecott Honor Book 2007)
(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2007)
Describes Tubman's spiritual journey as she hears the voice of God guiding her north to freedom on that very first trip to escape the brutal practice of forced servitude. Tubman would make nineteen subsequent trips back south, never being caught, but none as profound as this first one.

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2006)
The story of Rosa Parks and her courageous act of defiance.

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2005)
A tribute to select African American men including Paul Robeson, William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) DuBois, Ray Barretto, Earlington Carl "Sonny Til" Tilghman, John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, Dr. Kwane Nkrumah, Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington, Virgil "Honey Bear" Atkins, and the Clovers.

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2004)
In a story of the Ila people, the colorful birds of Africa ask Blackbird, whom they think is the most beautiful of birds, to decorate them with some of his "blackening brew."

(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award 2003)
A biography of the woman who became the first licensed Afro-American pilot.

(Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award 2019)
When her friend Monday Charles goes missing and Monday's mother refuses to give her a straight answer, Claudia digs into her disappearance.