Awards

The SLJ reviews editors rounded up our reviews of the books lauded at the 2025 Youth Media Awards. Here, the reviews of the Schneider Family Book Award winners.

Erin Entrada Kelly became a two-time Newbery Medalist with her win at the 2025 Youth Media Awards, announced Monday morning at LibLearnX in Phoenix.

The First State of Being, a middle grade novel about time travel, Y2K, family, friendship, anxiety, and loss, earned Kelly the coveted award.

Rebecca Lee Kunz has been vaulted into children's literature's elite with the Caldecott win for illustrations in this story of a Cherokee family and a young boy just trying to help.

The coming-of-age graphic novel written by Samuel Teer and illustrated by Mar Julia, which tells the story of a mixed-race teen connecting with her estranged father, tackles themes of family, friendship, culture, and gentrification.

These books are the best of the Rise committee's selection of  "well-written and well-illustrated books with significant feminist content for young readers."

A longtime Printz observer (and former committee member) considers some of the underdog titles that could win this year.