As the year draws to a close, the critics, reviewers, and awards committees have been rolling out their roundups of the year’s favorites. We’ve gathered a list of the more prominent best-of-the-year lists for children’s and YA books published in 2014.
Publishers Weekly’s Best Children’s Books of 2014: Curated from the thousands of books published this year are our picks for the year’s best books for all ages, from infant to teen.
The 2014 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature: this year’s medalist, Jacqueline Woodson, was a first-time winner, though she had two previous nominations.
The New York Times’s Notable Children’s Books of 2014: Selected by the children’s books editor of the New York Times Book Review.
The New York Times Best Illustrated Book Award for 2014: Every year the Times gathers an independent panel of judges to select a list of 10 picture books based on artistic merit.
The Horn Book’s Fanfare: Every year the editors of the Horn Book select their picks for the best children’s and young adult books of the year.
Amazon’s Best Children’s Books of 2014: Amazon editors select their top 20 picks in categories for all ages.
The NPR Guide to 2014’s Great Reads: NPR staff and critics chose the books they loved the most in the young adult category.
School Library Journal: The SLJ review editors selected the 70 best titles of their more than 250 starred reviews from 2014.
Goodreads Choice Awards 2014: Goodreads users vote annually on their favorite books of the year, and this year they cast a total of 3,317,504 votes. In the middle-grade category, Rick Riordan’s The Blood of Olympus received 63,219 votes, surpassing numbers in all other categories, including adult.
- Best Young Adult Fiction of 2014
- Best Young Adult Fantasy and Science Fiction of 2014
- Best Middle Grade & Children’s of 2014
- Best Picture Books of 2014
Brain Pickings’ Best Children’s Books 2014: Brain Pickings editor Maria Popova has curated a selection of 15 picture books she deems “the most intelligent and imaginative… published this year.”
The Guardian's best children's books of 2014: Selected annually from books published in the U.K. by the Guardian's children's book editor.
The Telegraph’s Best Children’s Books to Read: The paper’s literary critic selected more than 25 best books for children of all ages published in the U.K. this year.
And there are two new shortlists:
2015 William C. Morris YA Debut Award Finalists: Since 2009 ALA has awarded what they deem the most impressive debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens. This year’s five finalists were announced this week.
The YA Book Prize: Established this year, the award shortlist was recently announced for YA books from the U.K.