Jeni Schomber's DPI Youth Services Weekly Reminders and Resources is an email newsletter chockfull of great resources we've come to rely on. If you are a WI youth library staffer and you don't receive this weekly missive in your email inbox, please contact Jeni (jennifer.schomber@dpi.wi.gov) to be placed on the list!
Here is the March 5, 2026 edition:
|
 |
| Photo from Penguin Random House |
This year's ALA Youth Media Awards are in!! The ALA released their top picks for children and young adults. This includes the Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, Newbery and Printz awards as well as recognizing the honor books that were considered. Here are some highlights from the awards:
 |
| When thirteen-year-old Sage's best friend dies, Sage struggles with grief and feels that she is at fault, but when she joins a grief group, she slowly learns to heal. |
 |
| Part poem, part portable fireworks display with a vertical gatefold, this picture book from the award-winning team of Matthew Burgess and Catia Chien highlights the simple delights of a steamy July day in the city as two siblings eagerly await a spectacular fireworks display. POP! |
 |
| During the land rush of 1889, African American Will and his father journey from Texas to Oklahoma, racing thousands of others to stake their claim. |
 |
| A Black family maintains a farm in North Carolina until, after the crops are destroyed two years running, Junior’s father moves his wife and son into town. Although the library there excludes Black residents, Junior discovers a log cabin in a forest clearing, where he can borrow three books per visit. This library’s collection includes many books by Black writers. |
 |
| Sixteen-year-old Jaelyn Coleman lives for Saturdays at WestSide Roll, the iconic neighborhood roller rink. On these magical nights, Jae can lose herself in the music of DJ Sunny, the smell of nachos from the concession, and the crowd of some of her favorite people: old heads, dance crews, and other regulars like herself. Here, Jae and other Black teens can fully be themselves. |
 |
| Set at a classic drive-in restaurant that seems to exist in every Native community, this anthology unites the stories of teens from all kinds of backgrounds through the shared theme of Native joy, with stories and poems reflecting hope, healing, humor, love, friendship, romance, and joy. |
 |
| Growing up in Puerto Rico, Wanda Díaz Merced wanted to study the stars. But when she lost her sight, she had to find a new way to work. Through the use of sonification, which turns data into sound, she was able to make a path for herself and other scientists with disabilities. |
 |
| During the worst storm of the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma, twins Howe and Joanna must put their differences aside and work together to save their farm from ruin. |
 |
| From Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker James Robinson comes a breathtaking illustrated memoir for middle-grade readers (and adults, too)-inspired by the viral, Emmy-nominated short film Whale Eyes. Told through an experimental mix of intimate anecdotes and interactive visuals, this book immerses readers in James's point of view, allowing them to see the world through his disabling eye conditions. |
 |
| In 1930s San Antonio, after her father's death, thirteen-year-old Petra must quit school to work at a pecan shelling factory where dangerous conditions and low wages push her to take a vital stand for change. |
 |
| Death waits for Estrella (Noche) Villanueva. In her human form, she is a lonely science girl grieving the tragic accidental drowning of her girlfriend, Dante Fuentes. At night, she is a Lechuza who visits her dead girlfriend at the lake, desperate for more time with her. The longer Dante's soul roams the earth, the more likely it is that she will fade into the unknown, lost forever, but Noche cannot let go. |
 |
| Ave must adjust to a new country, a new school, and a new family dynamic when their mom and younger brother move to Kansas while their father and older sister stay in Mexico during the parents' divorce. |
 |
| Aiden has always dreamed of playing football like his star quarterback brother, Brandon. After struggling with an overstimulation meltdown during summer tryouts, Aiden gets a second chance when a spot unexpectedly opens on the team. However, not all teammates are happy with his inclusion, worried about how Aiden's autism will affect the game. |
 |
| A chronicle of one of American history's most notorious cults, a book including first-person accounts follows Jim Jones from humble origins to "Jonestown" in Guyana, South America, and traces his transformation of Peoples Temple into a nefarious experiment in mind control. |
 The Children’s Book Awards Committee of the Wisconsin Library Association (WLA) has announced its Children’s Book Awards for 2025.
They will be recognized at the Awards & Honors Banquet during the WLA Annual Conference at the Madison Marriott West in Middleton. Many thanks to the Children's Book Awards Committee for their hard work, and to everyone who submitted a nomination.
In addition, ten noteworthy honor titles written and/or illustrated by Wisconsin book creators were selected for Outstanding Achievement Award in children’s literature:
|
 |
| Photo by Katie Alford |
I plan to write about building Manga collections, advocating for it, and how to stay up to date on new manga titles in a later blog post but for now I want to shout out the American Manga Awards.
The second annual awards announced their winner last Thursday (determined by votes from professionals working in an editorial capacity with North American manga publishers). The pertinent ones for Teen collections were:
The Manga Librarian, Ashley Hawkins, wrote a great round up of the nominees with links to reviews for most of the titles. The reviews come from SLJ, Booklist, Manga in the Middle, Anime News Network, and the Manga Librarian herself. I found it incredibly helpful to have all the titles and links in one place.
To the entire round up, stop here. [American Manga Awards: Nominee Review Round Up! Ashley Hawkins. Manga Librarian blog. August 17, 2025.]
According to the Latino Awards website, "Since 1997, Empowering Latino Futures has celebrated literature through its book awards. The objective has been to recognize the greatness in both Latino writers and in non-Latinos who are writing on Latino topics. In 2007 the Latino Book Awards were renamed International Latino Book Awards. Up to date, 3,194 authors and publishers have been honored over the years. In 2020, 297 authors were recognized in 96 book categories. Categories include: Children’s, Young Adult, Nonfiction, Fiction, Design, Translation, and Best First Books. While 85% of our winners are not yet well known, the awards has proven to be an appropriate launching pad for the next generation of authors who work with smaller publishing houses. These awards have grown to become the largest Latino cultural awards in the U.S. In 2020, it took 214 judges to evaluate all book entries. This is a dedicated effort to growing the awareness for books written by, for and about Latinos."
To see the youth award winners, please stop here at the Latinxs in Kids Lit blog
The South Asia Book Awards honor high-quality children’s and young adult books that portray cultures, histories, and contemporary issues in South Asia or dealing with South Asians living abroad. The award encourages and commends authors and publishers who produce such books, and provide librarians and teachers with recommendations for educational use. The South Asia National Outreach Consortium (SANOC) is the sponsor of the South Asia Book Award.
2022 Award Winners
2022 Honor Books
Where Three Oceans Meet by Rajani LaRocca; illustratred by Archana Sreenivasan (Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2021). Sejal, Mommy and Pati travel to Kanyakumari, the coastal town where three oceans meet, on India’s southern tip. On this wonderful intergenerational journey, they visit friends, devour tasty foods, and explore the country which connects them. (PreK-Grade 3)
Burying the Moon by Andrée Poulin; illustrated by Sonali Zohra (Groundwood Books, 2021). Latika’s village lacks proper sanitation facilities for women, and they are forced to silently tread to the field every night to relieve themselves. Fearful of scorpions, snakes and harmful germs, and dreading leaving school once she menstruates, Latika gathers courage to approach a government agent to change this shameful problem. (Grades 4-7)
American Betiya by Anuradha D. Rajurkar (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2021). In this gripping coming of age story, Indian-American teenager, Rani, must decide whether to be drawn into a dysfunctional relationship with her first love, Oliver, or stay true to who she is and where she comes from. (Grades 10-12)
2022 Highly Commended Books
Chaiwala! by Priti Birla Maheshwari; illustrated by Ashley Barron (Owlkids Books, 2021). When their train makes a 10-minute stop at the Jaipur station, a young girl and her mother dash to get in line for chai. Waiting for her milky spiced tea, she experiences the delicious sights, smells and sounds of the Chaiwala’s cart. Mmmm! (PreK-K)
Samira Surfs by Rukhsanna Guidroz; illustrated by Fahmida Azim (Kokila, 2021). This novel in verse transports middle grade readers to the sandy beaches of Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh where twelve-year-old Rohingya refugee, Samira, discovers a passion for surfing following her family’s perilous escape from war torn Myanmar.
Strong as Fire, Fierce as Flame by Supriya Kelkar (Lee & Low Books, 2021). In 1857, twelve-year old Meera has become a widow before she even moves into her husband’s house. Desperate to escape her husband’s funeral pyre, Meera joins the household of a British commander as a maid and is drawn into a burgeoning soldiers’ rebellion against the British Raj.
Piece by Piece: The Story of Nisrin’s Hijab by Priya Huq (Abrams, 2021). In this beautiful graphic novel, Bangladeshi-American Nisrin, a traumatized victim of a hate crime, emerges from her home for her freshman year, having decided to wear the hijab at her new school. What follows leads to Nisrin’s discovery of her complex family history with both Islam and Bangladesh.
Untold: Defining Moments of the Uprooted edited by Gabrielle Deonath and Kamini Ramdeen (Mango & Marigold Press, 2021). Editors Gabrielle Deonath and Kamini Ramdeen have curated a brave and beautiful anthology filled with Brown Girls’ voices telling their personal stories of discovery, self-love, mental health, and more across the South Asian diaspora.
2022 Award Committee
Ashley Borman, Technical Services Librarian at the Clintonville (WI) Public Library and YSS board member, is back with her monthly column and has some great advice on making sure your collections are updated.
Happy Awards
Season everyone! The beginning of the year always marks the best new books from
the previous year. But we only have so much room on our shelves and we can’t
buy every award winner, much less keep all of the ones we do purchase. I know I
sometimes have a difficult time throwing award winners on the discard pile, and
I know I’m not the only one. So how do we know when it’s time to toss an award
winner in the weeding pile?
For me, the
key is to not overthink it. For the most part, I treat award winners the same
as all other books. I work in a public library. We don’t have space to hang on
to things that don’t get used, so award winners live and die by the same
criteria as any other book. That’s not to say you can’t spend a little bit of
effort to try and save them. You could make a display of award-winning books;
you could make a last chance cart or display; you could even throw them into
your storytimes and try to re-invigorate interest that way. But if these
tactics don’t work and the books still don’t go out, maybe it’s time to let
them go.
Happy
weeding!
That’s kind of an open-ended question, so let me narrow it down a bit. Several years back when I began working at my library, staff told me that after the announcement of award winners and honor winners I was to pull these books so staff could update the records and place award stickers on the books. We had stickers for the Caldecott and the Newbery award winners and honor books. But, we didn’t put stickers on any other award winning books.
When I went back to school for my library degree I remember learning about all the different ALA categories that books could win awards for—audiobooks, non-fiction books, Coretta Scott King Award books and more. As the years have progressed the Youth Media Awards have encompassed more and more diverse and inclusive book awards and I am super glad about that.
But….and here is my question, what do libraries do to draw attention to these books? Do we put stickers on them and place them on display? Or highlight them somehow? Obviously, if the books won awards they deserve recognition and usage. As librarians we should be recommending these titles to our patrons and highlighting their finer points too.
This year as I eagerly awaited the announcement of the winners, I thought about what that meant for these books in my library. As time has gone on, my library has opted to only put stickers on the spines of the Caldecott and Newbery winners. No longer do we denote honor books for these awards and we don’t include any other annual awards either. How am I to get my co-workers and patrons excited about these books if I don’t have a way of drawing attention to them?
In recent years, I started compiling a list of the winners on a single page handout that I display along with the award winning titles. This list and the display features books from ALL the categories of winners, not just the Caldecott and Newbery. I have nothing against the Caldecott and Newbery awards, but there are so many other award winning books that seem to get lost in the shuffle of the two “biggies”. What can we do to make sure our patrons are noticing these other award winners?
So, what do you do with your award winning books? Stickers? Displays? Lists? I’d love to hear what you have found that works for your library.
A snowy day, a trip to Grandma’s, time spent cooking with one another, and space to pause and discover the world around you come together in this perfect book for reading and sharing on a cozy winter day.One winter morning, Lina wakes up to silence. It’s the sound of snow — the kind that looks soft and glows bright in the winter sun. But as she walks to her grandmother’s house to help make the family recipe for warak enab, she continues to listen. As Lina walks past snowmen and across icy sidewalks, she discovers ten ways to pay attention to what might have otherwise gone unnoticed. With stunning illustrations by Kenard Pak and thoughtful representation of a modern Arab American family from Cathy Camper, Ten Ways to Hear Snow is a layered exploration of mindfulness, empathy, and what we realize when the world gets quiet. (book description from cathycamper.com)
Join YSS for special virtual luncheon with guest speaker, Geoff Herbach, author of the 2020 Elizabeth Burr/Worzalla Award-winning title, Cracking the Bell!
