The annual Youth Media Awards were announced on January 27 during the American Library Association’s final LibLearnX conference. See our interviews with the winners of the three top prizes.
Erin Entrada Kelly's Second Newbery Win: 'A Lot of Screaming and a Lot of Joy'
Erin Entrada Kelly was already cozy in bed, in her jammies, on Sunday night, all set to do some writing. “I had signed up to do a generative writing workshop with Nova Ren Suma—one of my favorite authors,” Kelly told PW. “I was working on my prompt at about nine o’clock when the phone rang. I thought, ‘There’s no way this is going to be the call,’ but I answered it, and sure enough, it was the committee.” On the other end of the line, a voice asked, “Is this Erin?” When Kelly answered in the affirmative, “They told me who they were, and immediately I kind of froze,” she said. “They said, ‘We have good news for you,’ and they told me.”
Rebecca Lee Kunz’s Caldecott Win: 'Beyond Grateful'
Artist Rebecca Lee Kunz’s three daughters—ages 11, 14, and 17—were making art on the family’s kitchen table when she received the call that her debut picture book, Chooch Helped (Levine Querido), had won the Caldecott Medal. “At first, I wasn’t sure what was going on—it was surreal,” she told PW. “I could hear a bunch of people in the background—they were joyful and were celebrating. The whole committee was there. They called me on FaceTime and my kids got to watch the whole thing. It was really special.”
Samuel Teer and Mar Julia's Printz Win: 'Hooting and Hollering'
When Samuel Teer and Mar Julia, author and illustrator of Brownstone, received word on Sunday that their graphic novel had won the 2025 Michael L. Printz Award, neither was anticipating the call. In fact, the award committee had some difficulty getting through to Teer at his home in Aurora, Colo., given that his phone blocks calls from all numbers except two: those of his wife and his literary agent, Jas Perry. “I happened to look at my phone and I had three missed calls, a voicemail, and a text message all within the span of 10 minutes,” he said. “When I noticed ‘YALSA’ in the message, I thought that this was a very targeted scam toward me!”