Every Child a Reader, a nonprofit literacy organization dedicated to inspiring a love of reading in children and teens across America, is proud to announce the finalists in four categories for the 12th Annual Children’s and Teen Choice Book Awards. Launched in 2008 by Every Child a Reader and the Children’s Book Council, the awards provide young readers with an opportunity to “Voice Your Choice” about new books that they loved.
Voting for the awards will begin online at a COPA-compliant website on March 1 and finish June 2 at BookCon in New York City; the winning authors and illustrators will be announced this summer. Teachers, librarians, and booksellers can also collect group or classroom votes to enter online. Starting March 1, the online “voting booth” will feature jacket art and descriptions; a list of the finalists is available online now. Also available are paper ballots and visual materials to help display the finalists.
There are five finalists in each of the three Children’s Choice Book Awards categories: K – 2nd grade, 3rd – 4th grades, and 5th– 6th grades, and five finalists in the Teen Choice Book Award category. The three categories of children’s award finalists were chosen in pre-voting by children from different regions of the U.S. with supervision by the International Literacy Association. The teen category finalists were nominated at TeenReads.com.
The 20 finalists for the 2019 Children’s & Teen Choice Book Awards are rich in relevance, plotline and prose. Subject matter for the finalists includes non-fiction books about social justice, a pizza-loving dinosaur, a National Book Award winner, and a boy who wants to be a mermaid.
Shaina Birkhead, Associate Executive Director for Children’s Book Council and Every Child a Reader, stated: “It’s wonderful that these are the only national book awards chosen only by kids and teens! They know the books they love and we are proud to work with so many teachers, librarians, and booksellers to help have the books read and gather the votes.”
About Every Child a Reader & the Children’s Book Council
Every Child a Reader is a 501(c)(3) literacy charity dedicated to inspiring a lifelong love of reading in children and teens. Every Child a Reader’s national programs include Children’s Book Week (celebrating its 100th anniversary this year), Get Caught Reading, the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature program (in conjunction with the Library of Congress), and the Children’s & Teen Choice Book Awards. Every Child a Reader is managed by the Children’s Book Council, the nonprofit trade association for children’s book publishers in North America, partnering with national organizations on reading lists, educational programming, and diversity initiatives.
