2018 Thumbs Up! Award

The 2018 Thumbs Up! Award Work Group worked throughout the year to read from a list of more than 160 titles to identify the top selections using the following criteria: story, setting, theme, voice, accuracy, style, characters and design. Collectively, the work group spent nearly 700 hours reading and reviewing titles and narrowing down selections to the Top Ten Titles. Then teens aged 13 to 18 voted online for their favorite to help determine this year’s winner and honor books. The Top Ten Titles were announced at Spring Institute 2018. The winner of the 2018 Thumbs Up! Award and honor books were announced at the MLA 2018 Annual Conference in Novi.

2018 Thumbs Up! Award Top Ten Titles

Top Ten Titles (pdf)

• Bull by David Elliott
• Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia
• Landscape with Invisible Hand by M.T. Anderson
• Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
• One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus
• Solo by Kwame Alexander with Mary Rand Hess
• The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue #1 by Mackenzi Lee
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
• Warcross (Warcross #1) by Marie Lu
• Who Killed Christopher Goodman? by Allan Wolf

2018 Thumbs Up! Award Winner and Honor Books

The Hate U Give Wins MLA 2018 Thumbs Up! Award

The Michigan Library Association (MLA) is pleased to announce The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, published in 2017 by HarperCollins Publisher, is the winner of the 2018 MLA Thumbs Up! Award.

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

Angie Thomas was born, raised, and still resides in Jackson, Mississippi as indicated by her accent. She is a former teen rapper whose greatest accomplishment was an article about her in Right-On Magazine with a picture included. She holds a BFA in Creative Writing from Belhaven University and an unofficial degree in Hip Hop. She is an inaugural winner of the Walter Dean Myers Grant 2015, awarded by We Need Diverse Books.

The Thumbs Up! Award recognizes and promotes an outstanding contribution to teen literature that has both literary quality and teen appeal for those 13 to 18 years of age. The award was established in 1986 by the Teen Services Division of the Michigan Library Association. Since 2001, the selection process has also included a teen vote.

2018 Thumbs Up! Award Honor Books

• One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus
• Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
• Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia
• Solo by Kwame Alexander with Mary Rand Hess

Thumbs Up! Award Home