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On a day celebrating the best of children's literature, All the Blues in the Sky by Renée Watson won the 2026 Newbery Medal, and Fireworks illustrated by Cátia Chien and written by Matthew Burgess was named the Caldecott Medal winner. The winners of the prestigious and oldest awards in kid lit were announced during the ALA Youth Media Awards ceremony from Chicago on Monday. In all, 22 awards were presented.

Legendary Frybread Drive-In: Intertribal Stories, edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith, won the Michael L. Printz Award for young adult literature. It was the second anthology to win the award. The Collectors: Stories, edited by A.S. King, won the award in 2024.

Legendary Frybread Drive-In also won the American Indian Youth Literature Award for Best Young Adult Book and earned an Odyssey Honor for the audiobook. 

Watson previously earned a Newbery Honor for Piecing Me Together in 2018. There were four Newbery Honor titles: The Nine Moons of Han Yu and Luli by Karina Yan Glaser; A Sea of Lemon Trees: The Corrido of Roberto Alvarez by María Dolores Águila; The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story by Daniel Nayeri; and The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest by Aubrey Hartman.

There were also four Caldecott Honor titles: Every Monday Mabel by Jashar Awan; Our Lake by Angie Kang; Stalactite & Stalagmite: A Big Tale from a Little Cave by Drew Beckmeyer; and Sundust by Zeke Peña.

It was a big day for Candace Fleming, who won two lifetime achievement awards: the Margaret A. Edwards Award and the Children's Literature Legacy Award. In addition, her 2025 title Death in the Jungle: Murder, Betrayal, and the Lost Dream of Jonestown won YALSA's Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. 

For the full list of winners and honors titles, see the press release below.