Interested in knowing which children's books received awards and medals, or have been named on special "Best Book lists?  This page lists websites for many important awards, from Florida's Sunshine State Young Reader's Program annual lists through the Newbery and Caldecott Medals, to important awards given in Great Britain and Canada.

The Sunshine State Young Reader's Awards is a statewide reading motivation program for students in grades 3-8. Over 101,000 students read enough books to qualify for voting in the statewide balloting for the favorite book for the year.

The Caldecott Medal was named in honor of nineteenth-century English Illustrator Randolph Caldecott. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Services to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children. The 2009 winner is The House in the Night, illustrated by Beth Krommes and written by Susan Marie Swanson, Houghton Mifflin Co.  Caldecott Honor Books include A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever by Marla Frazee, How I Learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz, and A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams, illustrated by Melissa Sweet and written by Jen Bryant.

The Newbery Medal was named for the eighteenth-century British bookseller, John Newbery. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Services to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. The 2009 winner is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, HarperCollins Children's Books.  Newbery Honor Books include The Underneath by Kathi Appelt, The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle, Savvy by Ingrid Law, After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson

The Michael L. Printz Award is an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature.  It is named for a Topeka, Kansas school librarian who was a long-time active member of the Young Adult Library Services Association. The 2009 winner is Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta. Haunted by the past, Taylor Markham reluctantly leads the students of the Jellicoe School in their secret territory wars against the Townies and the Cadets.  Marchetta’s lyrical writing evokes the Australian landscape in a suspenseful tale of raw emotion, romance, humor and tragedy. Honors for 2009 are The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II, The Kingdom on the Waves, by M.T. Anderson;  The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart;  Nation by Terry Pratchett; Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan.

The Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award, established by the Association for Library Services to Children in 2001, is awarded annually to the author of the most distinguished informational book published in English during the preceding year.  The award is named in honor of Robert F. Sibert, the long-time President of Bound to Stay Bound Books, Inc. of Jacksonville, Illinois, and is sponsored by the company.  We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball written and illustrated by Kadir Nelson. Sibert Honor Books include Bodies from the Ice: Melting Glaciers and Rediscovery of the Past written by James M. Deem, What to Do about Alice?: How Alice Roosevelt Broke the Rules, Charmed the World, and Drove Her Father Teddy Crazy! written by Barbara Kerley.
 

The Batchelder Award honors Mildred L. Batchelder, a former executive director of the Association of Library Services to Children.  This award, established in her honor in 1966, is a citation awarded to an American publisher for a children's book considered to be the most outstanding of those books originally published in a foreign language in a foreign country, and subsequently translated into English and published in the United States. The 2009 winner is Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic, Inc., publisher of Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit by Nahoko Uehashi, translated from the Japanese by Cathy Hirano.  Above all, before everything, Balsa is a fighter.  She protects children and adults, the rich and the poor, in a quest to redeem eight lives lost for her sake. She is a master of the short spear and expert in the martial arts, dazzling even her opponents with her fearlessness in combat. Honor Books include Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., publisher of Garmann's Summer written and illustrated by Stian Hole, translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett, and Amulet Books, an imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc., publisher of Tiger Moon written by Antonia Michaelis, translated from the German by Anthea Bell

The Coretta Scott King Awards are presented annually by the Coretta Scott King Committee of the American Library Association's Ethnic Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table (EMIERT). The 2009 winner is Kadir Nelson, We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball. Author Honor Books include Hope Anita Smith for Keeping the Night Watch, Joyce Carol Thomas for The Blacker the Berry, and Carole Boston Weatherford for Becoming Billie Holiday. The Illustrator Award winner is Floyd Cooper for The Blacker the Berry. Illustrator Honor Books include Kadir Nelson for We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, Jerry Pinkney for The Moon Over Star, and Sean Qualls for Before John Was a Jazz Giant. The John Steptoe New Talent Award goes to Illustrator Shadra Strickland for Bird.

The Pura Belpré Award is presented to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.  The award is named after Pura Belpré, the first Latina librarian from the New York Public Library. Belpré Author Award for 2009 is The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle. Belpré Author Honor Books include Just in Case by Yuyi Morales, Reaching Out by Francisco Jiménez,  and The Storyteller's Candle/La velita de los cuentos by Lucia Gonzalez.  Belpré Illustrator Award for this year goes to Just in Case by Yuyi Morales.  Belpré Illustrator Honor Books include Papa and Me illustrated by Rudy Gutierrez, The Storyteller's Candle/La velita de los cuentos illustrated by Lulu Delacre, and What Can You Do with a Rebozo illustrated by Amy Cordova.

The Geisel Award is given annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished American book for beginning readers published in English in the United States during the preceding year. The award is named for the world-renowned children’s author, Theodor Geisel. "A person’s a person no matter how small," Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, would say. "Children want the same things we want: to laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained and delighted." The 2009 winner is Are You Ready to Play Outside? written and illustrated by Mo Willems and the 2009 Geisel Honor Books include Chicken Said, "Cluck!" written by Judyann Ackerman Grant, One Boy written and illustrated by Laura Vaccaro Seeger, Stinky written and illustrated by Eleanor Davis, and Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator written by Sarah C. Campbell.

The Edgar Allan Poe Awards® for Mystery/Suspense Fiction (the "Edgars®) are named after the MWA's (Mystery Writer's Association) patron saint, Edgar Allan Poe, and are awarded to authors of distinguished work in various categories of the genre.  The Best Children's Mystery Award [2007 winner, right]  is given to the best mystery book from Preschool - age 11.  The Night Tourist by Katherine Marsh tells the story of Jack, a lonely 14-year-old Classics prodigy, who travels to the New York City version of the Greek mythological underworld to search for his dead mom. His guide is a 14-year-old ghost who calls herself Euri. The Best Young Adult Mystery Award goes to the mystery book [2007 winner, left]  for young adult readers (ages 12 - up) is Rat Life by Tedd Arnold. The dead body found in the Chemanga River had nothing to do with Todd. He was busy making beds at the family motel and writing alien stories to entertain his friends. Then he met Rat. .