News & Features

At the 2026 Youth Media Awards, author Candace Fleming became the first person to receive the Children’s Literature Legacy Award and the Margaret A. Edwards Award in the same year. In addition, her book Death in the Jungle won the Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults.

Here are the winners of the 2026 ALA Youth Media Awards, announced Monday, January 26 in Chicago.

All the Blues in the Sky by Renée Watson wins the Newbery; Fireworks, illustrated by Cátia Chien, earns the Caldecott; and Legendary Frybread Drive-In: Intertribal Stories, an anthology edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith, was named the Printz Award winner at the 2026 Youth Media Awards.

As she dealt with grief herself, Watson wrote All the Blues in the Sky to give readers permission to feel all of the emotions related with loss and help them cope with it.

Halfway through the process, the heart of Matthew Burgess's book revealed itself to Cátia Chien, who then created a visual tribute to the freedom of childhood.

The anthology, edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith, includes established and new Indigenous authors in a title Smith says would not have been possible less than 10 years ago.

We Need Diverse Book aims to fight book banning and better literacy with a new initiative; Library of Congressi s accepting applications for Literacy Awards; NCTE to host African American Read-in with Mychal Threets; and more.

Carolina Ixta's sophomore novel, Few Blue Skies, publishes in February 2026. Here, the author reflects on the idea for this ambitious novel, blurring the lines between fiction and nonfiction, and comparing the work to her award-winning debut.