For the second time in three years, an anthology has won the Printz Award for literary excellence in young adult literature. But the 2026 winner—Legendary Frybread Drive-In: Intertribal Stories, edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith—is noteworthy for more than just its format of multiple authors. It is these authors and the stories they told that show publishing progress truly worth celebrating.

In 2018 when Smith published her award-winning novel Hearts Unbroken, such an anthology of Indigenous stories was “impossible,” she told SLJ on Monday.

 “There weren't enough of us for a long, long time,” said Smith. “When publishing retracted after the multicultural boom, it largely defaulted to Joseph Bruchac and that one YA novel by Sherman Alexie. There weren't women's voices. There weren't Two Spirit voices. There wasn't a lot of intertribal diversity. It was more of a ‘the box has been checked’ sort of approach. I wouldn't have been able to assemble this group.”

Legendary Frybread Drive-In contains stories from Smith, Kaua Mahoe Adams, Marcella Bell, Angeline Boulley, K. A. Cobell, A. J. Eversole, Jen Ferguson, Eric Gansworth, Byron Graves, Kate Hart, Christine Hartman Derr, Karina Iceberg, Cheryl Isaacs, Darcie Little Badger, David A. Robertson, Andrea L. Rogers, and Brian Young.

Its existence and success are also a credit to Heartdrum, an imprint of HarperCollins run by Smith.

“This year is our five-year anniversary,” said Smith. “When we started, we were talking about doing two to four books a year. That seems a little quaint for what the 2026 list looks like. … We have had such tremendous support from our literary community. Established authors have gone out of their way to leverage their own events and platforms to shine a light on our up-and-comers. That, for someone who's been around since the year 2000, is truly gratifying.”

That community and time and energy from established authors was part of the Legendary Frybread Drive-In as well. The anthology’s roster was a combination of well-established, award-winning authors with those who had yet to be published.

“Their heads are spinning,” Smith said of the debut authors who had reached out to her on Monday.

They worked closely and collaboratively with the more experienced writers, she said.

“I really give great tribute to the more experienced authors for being such good aunties and uncles and taking them under wing and talking in-depth about what they were going to do with craft and options, and taking such a revolutionary Indigenous approach that was deconstructing what fiction is expected to be, and rebuilding it with very Indigenous sensibility,” said Smith. “And I give great credit to those new voices who said, ‘We're in, we'll do it. We will rise to the occasion.’ And they all did beautifully.”

The original concept came from Smith: “These would be stories in the shared liminal space. The book would be threading the needle for teens of all ages in a way that you do in conversation when you bring all the cousins of a family together. We would be leaning into stories that often aren't shared about people like us. [Stories] that may seem universal, like a first romance or a grief story or sibling rivalry, only putting them in our context, our cultures, our world views.”

[READ: SLJ Reviews Printz Award Medalist ‘Legendary Frybread and Drive-In’ and Honors | ALA Youth Media Awards 2026]

The Printz committee members were struck with the quality of the writing and throughline of the title.

“Often in collections there are some stories that are strong, while others may be less so,” Jodeana Kruse, Printz committee chair, told SLJ. “Legendary Frybread Drive-In was unique in the consistent quality of the prose and poetry throughout. The use of the setting as a unifying element was another choice that made this title unique, and the authors—while bringing their own unique perspectives to the story—really embraced that aspect of the book's construction.” 

Said Smith, “To the point about the stories all being of what they would consider Printz quality, that's extraordinarily heartening to hear.”

As the Printz committee deliberated, members asked themselves: Will this title be such a classic that it will be discussed for years to come? 

With Legendary Frybread Drive-In, the answer to the question was “a resounding yes.”

“The themes of intergenerational community and unconditional belonging were gorgeously rendered, which left a lasting impression on our committee,” said Kruse. “The fact that it is developmentally appropriate for the whole spectrum of young adult readers was a bonus. The stories and poetry within it dealt with serious topics, but those issues were handled in such a way that it is accessible to our audience of readers from ages 13–19.”

The anthology also won the American Indian Youth Literature Award for Best Young Adult Book.

"We like to think of the Indigenous writing that we do as writing to a tree trunk," said Smith. "We write first for the kids most closely reflected in the innermost circles. But every child is a ring in the circle of the story. So, to us, for our native librarians to say, 'This is something that we are excited to give our teenagers in such a vulnerable time of life,'—native kids have unique challenges and everyday teenage challenges—it tells us that they see in our work how seriously we take our responsibility, not only to accuracy and authenticity, but to using the story as good medicine, using it for the purposes that it was historically and traditionally intended, in a very contemporary way."

Lastly, on its big day of recognition, the audiobook of Legendary Frybread Drive-In was named an Odyssey Honor title.

"I was thrilled," said Smith, noting that one of the exciting upsides in the growth of Indigenous children's and YA literature is to see young Native voice actors grow as well.