The winners of the annual Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards, which “celebrate excellence in children’s and young adult literature,” were announced Wednesday.
Author Jason Reynolds and illustrator Jason Griffin won in the picture book category for Ain’t Burned All the Bright, their mixed-media poetry and art book. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus called the book “artful, cathartic, and most needed.”
Sabaa Tahir was named the winner of the fiction and poetry award for All My Rage, about two 18-year-old friends, estranged after a fight, living in a small, racist California town.
The nonfiction prize went to Brandy Colbert for Black Birds in the Sky: The Story and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre; the book was previously a YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Honor Book.
The Globe and Horn Book designated six honor books, two in each category. The honored picture books were Moon Pops, written and illustrated by Heena Baek and translated by Jieun Kiaer; and War by José Jorge Letria, illustrated by André Letria and translated by Elisa Amado.
In fiction and poetry, the honors went to Rez Dogs by Joseph Bruchac and Borders, written by Thomas King and illustrated by Natasha Donovan.
The honored nonfiction books were The Waiting Place: When Home Is Lost and a New One Not Yet Found, written by Dina Nayeri with photographs by Anna Bosch Miralpeix; and Your Legacy: A Bold Reclaiming of Our Enslaved History, written by Schele Williams and illustrated by Tonya Engel.
The Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards were established in 1967. Previous winners have included Ursula K. Le Guin for A Wizard of Earthsea and Angie Thomas for The Hate U Give.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
