Books Honored with The Kirkus Prize
First awarded in 2014, The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers' literature. It was created to celebrate the 86 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earn the Kirkus Star are automatically nominated for the Kirkus Prize. The Kirkus Prize judges select three winners each year in October. Below are books written by writers of African descent.
Select Year2020201920182017201620152014
8 Books Honored with The Kirkus Prize in 2019
Winner - Fiction
The Nickel Boys: A Novel
by Colson Whitehead
Selected for 1 Book Club's Reading List
Kirkus Prize Finalist/Winner 2019
Imprint: Doubleday
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Parent Company: Bertelsmann
Read a Description of The Nickel Boys: A Novel
In this bravura follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning #1 New York Times bestseller The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.
As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as good as anyone." Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South in the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called The Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says it provides "physical, intellectual and moral training" so the delinquent boys in their charge can become "honorable and honest men."
In reality, The Nickel Academy is a grotesque chamber of horrors, where the sadistic staff beats and sexually abuses the students, corrupt officials and locals steal food and supplies, and any boy who resists is likely to disappear "out back." Stunned to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to Dr. King's ringing assertion "Throw us in jail and we will still love you." His friend Turner thinks Elwood is worse than naive, that the world is crooked and the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble.
Based on the real story of a reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers.
Winner - Nonfiction
by Saeed Jones
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Parent Company: CBS Corporation
Read Our Review of How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir
Read a Description of How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir
>From award-winning poet Saeed Jones, How We Fight for Our Lives is a stunning coming-of-age memoir written at the crossroads of sex, race, and power.
"People don't just happen," writes Saeed Jones. "We sacrifice former versions of ourselves. We sacrifice the people who dared to raise us. The 'I' it seems doesn't exist until we are able to say, 'I am no longer yours.'"
Haunted and haunting, Jones's memoir tells the story of a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence—into tumultuous relationships with his mother and grandmother, into passing flings with lovers, friends and strangers. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another—and to one another—as we fight to become ourselves.
Blending poetry and prose, Jones has developed a style that is equal parts sensual, beautiful, and powerful—a voice that's by turns a river, a blues, and a nightscape set ablaze. How We Fight for Our Lives is a one of a kind memoir and a book that cements Saeed Jones as an essential writer for our time.
Winner - Young Readers' Literature
New Kid
by Jerry Craft
Coretta Scott King Award Winning Book 2020
Newbery Medal Winner or Honor 2020
Target Age Group: Middle Grade
Imprint: HarperCollins
Parent Company: News Corporation
Read Our Review of New Kid
Read a Description of New Kid
Class Act, the follow up to New Kid will be published in October. AALBC will be the first to reveal Class Act's, cover on February 7, 2020 at noon.
Perfect for fans of Raina Telgemeier and Gene Luen Yang, New Kid is a timely, honest graphic novel about starting over at a new school where diversity is low and the struggle to fit in is real, from award-winning author-illustrator Jerry Craft.
Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade.
As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds—and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighborhood friends and staying true to himself?
New Kid is the Most Critically Acclaimed Graphic Novel of 2019
Winner of the 2020 Newbery Medal
Winner of the 2020 Coretta Scott King Book Awards Author Award
Winner of the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Young Readers' Literature
Finalist for Audie Award — Middle Grade Book of the Year
San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller
Indie Bestseller for Early & Middle Grade Readers
One of Publishers Weekly's Best Middle Grade Books of 2019
New England Independent Booksellers Association Best Children's Book of 2019
New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association 2019 Book of the Year for Middle Readers
Top 10 Spring 2019 Indie Next List Pick
Amazon Best Book of the Month, Ages 9–12
2019 Harvey Award for Best Children's Book Nominee
One of Booklist's 2019 Top 10 Diverse Fiction for Youth
One of Publishers Weekly's Most Anticipated Children's Books, Spring 2019
#1 Indie Comics & Graphic Works Bestseller
One of the Best Graphic Novels of 2019 — School Library Journal
One of the 5 Best Fiction Books of 2019 — Washington Post
One of the Best Graphic Novels of 2019 — Washington Post
2020 Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children — Honor Book
One of the Best Books of the Year — Time.com
Best Books of 2019 — New York Public Library
Best Fiction for Older Readers of 2019 — Chicago Public Library
25 Best Children's Books of 2019 — New York Times
Best Multicultural Children's Books of 2019 — Center for the Study of Multicultural Children's Literature
The Best New Gift Books for Kids — People
Finalist - Fiction
Publication Date: Mar 26, 2019
Imprint: Pantheon Books
Read a Description of The Other Americans
Late one spring night, Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant living in California, is walking across a darkened intersection when he is killed by a speeding car. The repercussions of his death bring together a diverse cast of characters: Guerraoui's daughter Nora, a jazz composer who returns to the small town in the Mojave she thought she'd left for good; his widow, Maryam, who still pines after her life in the old country; Efraín, an undocumented witness whose fear of deportation prevents him from coming forward; Jeremy, an old friend of Nora's and an Iraq War veteran; Coleman, a detective who is slowly discovering her son's secrets; Anderson, a neighbor trying to reconnect with his family; and the murdered man himself.
Finalist - Nonfiction
Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest
by Hanif Abdurraqib
Imprint: University of Texas Press
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Parent Company: University of Texas at Austin
Read a Description of Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest
A New York Times Best Seller
A February IndieNext Pick
Named A Most Anticipated Book of 2019 by Buzzfeed, Nylon, The A. V. Club, CBC Books, and The Rumpus. And a Winter's Most Anticipated Book by Vanity Fair and The Week
Starred Reviews: Kirkus and Booklist
"Warm, immediate and intensely personal."—New York Times
How does one pay homage to A Tribe Called Quest? The seminal rap group brought jazz into the genre, resurrecting timeless rhythms to create masterpieces such as The Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders. Seventeen years after their last album, they resurrected themselves with an intense, socially conscious record, We Got It from Here . . . Thank You 4 Your Service, which arrived when fans needed it most, in the aftermath of the 2016 election. Poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib digs into the group's history and draws from his own experience to reflect on how its distinctive sound resonated among fans like himself. The result is as ambitious and genre-bending as the rap group itself.
Abdurraqib traces the Tribe's creative career, from their early days as part of the Afrocentric rap collective known as the Native Tongues, through their first three classic albums, to their eventual breakup and long hiatus. Their work is placed in the context of the broader rap landscape of the 1990s, one upended by sampling laws that forced a reinvention in production methods, the East Coast-West Coast rivalry that threatened to destroy the genre, and some record labels' shift from focusing on groups to individual MCs. Throughout the narrative Abdurraqib connects the music and cultural history to their street-level impact. Whether he's remembering The Source magazine cover announcing the Tribe's 1998 breakup or writing personal letters to the group after bandmate Phife Dawg's death, Abdurraqib seeks the deeper truths of A Tribe Called Quest; truths that—like the low end, the bass—are not simply heard in the head, but felt in the chest.
Finalist - Young Readers' Literature
by Kwame Alexander, Illustrated by Kadir Nelson
Caldecott Medal Winner or Honor 2020
Imprint: Versify
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Parent Company: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Read Our Review of The Undefeated
Read a Description of The Undefeated
The Newbery Award-winning author of THE CROSSOVER pens an ode to black American triumph and tribulation, with art from a two-time Caldecott Honoree.
Originally performed for ESPN's The Undefeated, this poem is a love letter to black life in the United States. It highlights the unspeakable trauma of slavery, the faith and fire of the civil rights movement, and the grit, passion, and perseverance of some of the world's greatest heroes. The text is also peppered with references to the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others, offering deeper insights into the accomplishments of the past, while bringing stark attention to the endurance and spirit of those surviving and thriving in the present.
On The Come Up
by Angie Thomas
Publication Date: Jun 05, 2018
Target Age Group: Young Adult
Imprint: Balzer + Bray
Read a Description of On The Come Up
This is the highly anticipated second novel by Angie Thomas, the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling, award-winning The Hate U Give. Sixteen-year-old Bri wants to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. Or at least get some streams on her mixtape. As the daughter of an underground rap legend who died right before he hit big, Bri's got massive shoes to fill. But when her mom unexpectedly loses her job, food banks and shut-off notices become as much a part of her life as beats and rhymes. With bills piling up and homelessness staring her family down, Bri no longer just wants to make it—she has to make it.
On the Come Up is Angie Thomas's homage to hip hop, the art that sparked her passion for storytelling and continues to inspire her to this day. It is the story of fighting for your dreams, even as the odds are stacked against you; of the struggle to become who you are, and not who everyone expects you to be; and of the desperate realities of poor and working class black families.Brilliant, insightful, full of heart, this novel is another modern classic from one of the most influential literary voices of a generation.
Genesis Begins Again
by Alicia D. Williams
Imprint: Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
Read Our Review of Genesis Begins Again
Read a Description of Genesis Begins Again
"Reminiscent of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
2020 Winner of The Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent
John Newbery Honor for Outstanding Contribution to Children's Literature
2020 William C. Morris Award Finalist
A Kirkus Prize Finalist 2019
William C. Morris Debut Award Finalist 2019
An NPR Favorite Book of 2019
A School Library Journal Best Middle Grade Book of 2019
A Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Book of 2019
Top AALBC Book on the subject of "Colorism"
This deeply sensitive and powerful debut novel tells the story of a thirteen-year-old who is filled with self-loathing and must overcome internalized racism and a verbally abusive family to finally learn to love herself.
There are ninety-six things Genesis hates about herself. She knows the exact number because she keeps a list. Like #95: Because her skin is so dark, people call her charcoal and eggplant—even her own family. And #61: Because her family is always being put out of their house, belongings laid out on the sidewalk for the world to see. When your dad is a gambling addict and loses the rent money every month, eviction is a regular occurrence.
What's not so regular is that this time they all don't have a place to crash, so Genesis and her mom have to stay with her grandma. It's not that Genesis doesn't like her grandma, but she and Mom always fight—Grandma haranguing Mom to leave Dad, that she should have gone back to school, that if she'd married a lighter skinned man none of this would be happening, and on and on and on. But things aren't all bad. Genesis actually likes her new school; she's made a couple friends, her choir teacher says she has real talent, and she even encourages Genesis to join the talent show.
But how can Genesis believe anything her teacher says when her dad tells her the exact opposite? How can she stand up in front of all those people with her dark, dark skin knowing even her own family thinks lesser of her because of it? Why, why, why won't the lemon or yogurt or fancy creams lighten her skin like they're supposed to? And when Genesis reaches #100 on the list of things she hates about herself, will she continue on, or can she find the strength to begin again?