National Book Awards Winners & Finalists

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Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind (2020) is a work of apocalyptic fiction that examines the relationship between race and class during an unspecified disaster that cuts off all communication, forcing two families together. The book uses omniscient narration and interpersonal conflict to heighten the fear of disconnection in the Information Age, treating the apocalypse as an event that happens on a human scale. Published to great acclaim, it has been longlisted for the National... Read Leave the World Behind Summary

Let the Circle Be Unbroken (1981) is part of the Logan Family Saga by author Mildred D. Taylor. The series follows the fortunes of a Black farming family, the Logans, through more than one generation as they experience the tribulations of life in the South before the Civil Rights era. The saga consists of 10 novels and novellas. The award-winning novels include The Land (2001), Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (1976), and The Road... Read Let The Circle Be Unbroken Summary

The book begins with a prologue that describes a tightrope walker crossing between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. It is set in 1974, long before the towers were destroyed on 9/11.  In the first chapter, the scene shifts to Dublin, Ireland. There, two brothers, John Andrew Corrigan, called Corrigan, and Ciaran, live with their mother. Their father abandoned the family years ago. After their mother’s death, Corrigan begins studying for the priesthood. He eventually drops... Read Let the Great World Spin Summary

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Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America is a work of nonfiction by James Forman Jr., an American lawyer and legal scholar specializing in racial inequities in criminal justice. Published in 2017, this critically acclaimed book examines the complex role Black leaders played in advancing tough-on-crime policies that ultimately contributed to the mass incarceration of Black people in the United States. Drawing on his experience as a public defender and his extensive... Read Locking Up Our Own Summary

Locomotion, Jacqueline Woodson’s 2003 novel in verse, follows the perspective of Lonnie Collins Motion, nicknamed Locomotion. After his parents die in a fire and his sister is adopted, Lonnie grieves and navigates life, first in a group home and then with Miss Edna, his foster mother. Through poetry, he slowly finds joy in life again, highlighting the themes of The Search for Identity and Belonging, The Healing Power of Writing, and The Enduring Support of... Read Locomotion Summary

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Charles S. Johnson’s Middle Passage, winner of the National Book Award for fiction, was published in 1990. Set in New Orleans and on the Atlantic Ocean, the historical novel centers on the disastrous voyage of the slave ship Republic.In 1830, Rutherford Calhoun, an ex-slave from Illinois, stows away on the Republic to avoid debts he owes to underworld boss Papa Zeringue or marriage to Isadora Bailey, who has offered to pay off those debts. Once... Read Middle Passage Summary

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Monster, a YA novel about a Black New York teenager accused of murder, quickly became one of Walter Dean Myers's most acclaimed works when it was published in 1999, winning the Coretta Scott King Award, receiving the Prime Excellence Award of the American Library Association, named a National Book Award Finalist. The completion and release of the novel occurred during the arc of the conviction and eventual exoneration of the Central Park 5, Black teenagers... Read Monster Summary

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My Brother Sam Is Dead tells the story of the Tim Meeker and his family during the years of the American Revolutionary War. Published in 1974, the novel won many awards, including a Newbery Honor, an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book designation, and National Book Award nomination. James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier, the authors, are brothers who together wrote a series of historical novels for young adults. James, a journalist, wrote most of... Read My Brother Sam Is Dead Summary

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Nimona is a young adult graphic novel created by N. D. Stevenson and published in 2015 by HarperCollins. It is based on Stevenson’s webcomic, also titled Nimona, which was published in 2012 and earned Slate magazine’s 2012 Cartoonist Studio Prize for Best Web Comic of the Year. The graphic novel adaptation also received critical acclaim, earning the 2016 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: Reprint and becoming a 2015 National Book Award Finalist.Nimona is a... Read Nimona Summary