The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
- NPR Books We Love
Orphaned siblings become teachers among Iran's nomadic peoples while helping a Jewish boy hide from wartime spies.
Selector archive · 2006—2025
National Book Award for Young People's Literature
National Book Award for Young People's Literature selections, presented by recognition year. Each entry links to the selector’s first-party record.
- Selections
- 20
- Authors
- 20
- Years
- 20
Showing 1–20 of 20
Kareem Between
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
A Syrian American boy in 2016 navigates football, family separation, prejudice, and finding his moral voice.
A First Time for Everything
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
A graphic memoir revisits the author's awkward but transformative middle-school trip through Europe.
All My Rage
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
- NPR Books We Love
Two Pakistani American teenagers face grief, abuse, addiction, family burdens, and a threatened motel in California.
Last Night at the Telegraph Club
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
- NPR Books We Love
A Chinese American teenager discovers lesbian community and first love in 1950s San Francisco.
King and the Dragonflies
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
- NPR Books We Love
A Louisiana boy grieving his brother confronts friendship, family expectations, race, and his emerging sexuality.
1919: The Year That Changed America
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
Illustrated nonfiction connects major events of 1919 to civil rights, labor, immigration, and politics today.
The Poet X
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
- NPR Books We Love
A Dominican American teenager in Harlem finds an outlet for conflict, faith, and desire through slam poetry.
Far from the Tree
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
- NPR Books We Love
Three biological siblings separated by adoption meet and navigate family secrets, loyalty, and belonging.
March: Book Three
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
The graphic memoir's final volume follows John Lewis through pivotal civil-rights campaigns and the Voting Rights Act.
Challenger Deep
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
A teenager's imagined ocean voyage intertwines with his experience of severe mental illness and hospitalization.
Brown Girl Dreaming
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
- NPR Books We Love
A verse memoir recalls Woodson's childhood in South Carolina and New York during the civil-rights era.
The Thing About Luck
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
A Japanese American girl spends harvest season working with her grandparents while her parents are abroad.
Goblin Secrets
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
An orphan joins a troupe of mask-wearing goblin actors while searching a strange city for his missing brother.
Inside Out & Back Again
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
A novel in verse follows a Vietnamese girl fleeing Saigon and rebuilding life with her family in Alabama.
Mockingbird
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
An autistic girl seeks closure and connection after her brother dies in a school shooting.
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
This biography recounts how teenager Claudette Colvin resisted bus segregation and challenged it in federal court.
What I Saw and How I Lied
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
In postwar Florida, a teenager uncovers secrets involving her family, a mysterious veteran, and a suspicious death.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
A Spokane teenager leaves his reservation school and narrates the resulting grief, conflict, friendship, and hope.
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party
- National Book Award for Young People's Literature
An enslaved, classically educated boy discovers the cruel purpose behind his unusual upbringing in Revolutionary-era Boston.