2019 Thumbs Up! Award

The 2019 Thumbs Up! Award Work Group worked throughout the year to read from a list of more than 150 titles to identify the top selections using the following criteria: story, setting, theme, voice, accuracy, style, characters and design. Collectively, the work group spent hundreds of 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 2019. The winner of the 2019 Thumbs Up! Award and honor books were announced at the MLA 2019 Annual Conference in Novi.

2019 Thumbs Up! Award Winner and Honor Books

The winner of the 2019 Thumbs Up! Award is Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi, published by Henry Holt and Co.

Honor books include Sadie by Courtney Summers, published by St. Martin’s Press; and The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang, published by First Second.

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. A teen vote is included in help determine the winner.

2019 Thumbs Up! Award Top Ten Titles

In no particular order:

Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1) by Justina Ireland
I Am Still Alive by Kate Alice Marshall
I Have the Right To: A High School Survivor's Story of Sexual Assault, Justice, and Hope by Chessy Prout and Jenn Abelson
Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orïsha #1) by Tomi Adeyemi
A Heart in a Body in the World by Deb Caletti
Monday's Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson
Sadie by Courtney Summers
Girl Made of Stars by Ashley Herring Blake
The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

I Am Still Alive by Kate Alice Marshall	Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi	Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1) by Justina Ireland	Girl Made of Stars by Ashley Herring Blake	I Have the Right To: A High School Survivor's Story of Sexual Assault, Justice, and Hope by Chessy Prout and Jenn Abelson
A Heart in a Body in the World by Deb Caletti	Monday's Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson	The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo	The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang	Sadie by Courtney Summers