ABA Announces 2014 Indies Choice and E.B. White Read-Aloud Award Winners

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The winners of the 2014 Indies Choice Book Awards and the E.B. White Read-Aloud Awards, as voted by independent booksellers nationwide, were announced today by the American Booksellers Association.

“We congratulate the authors and illustrators of these accomplished and thought-provoking titles that ABA members have chosen as their handselling favorites of the past year,” said ABA CEO Oren Teicher. “They, along with the 2014 honor award recipients, are a great example of the outstanding titles to be discovered at independent bookstores across the country. We look forward to honoring them at this year’s Celebration of Bookselling and Author Awards Lunch at BEA.”

The 2014 Indies Choice Book Award winners, reflecting the spirit of independent bookstores nationwide, are:

ADULT FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR
Life After Life: A Novel, by Kate Atkinson (Reagan Arthur Books)

ADULT NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, by Daniel James Brown (Viking)

ADULT DEBUT BOOK OF THE YEAR
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena: A Novel, by Anthony Marra (Hogarth)

YOUNG ADULT BOOK OF THE YEAR
Eleanor & Park: A Novel, by Rainbow Rowell (St. Martin’s Griffin)

The winners of the E.B. White Read-Aloud Awards, reflecting the playful, well-paced language, the engaging themes, and the universal appeal embodied by E.B. White’s collection of beloved books, are:

E.B. WHITE READ-ALOUD AWARD – MIDDLE READER
Flora and Ulysses, by Kate DiCamillo, K.G. Campbell (Illus.) (Candlewick)

E.B. WHITE READ-ALOUD AWARD – PICTURE BOOK
The Day the Crayons Quit, by Drew Daywalt, Oliver Jeffers (Illus.) (Philomel)

The Indie Champion Award, formerly called Most Engaging Author, is presented to the author or illustrator who booksellers feel has the best sense of the importance of independent bookstores to their communities at large and the strongest personal commitment to foster and support the mission and passion of independent booksellers. This year’s winner is:

INDIE CHAMPION AWARD
James Patterson

Indie booksellers choose three classic picture books each year for induction into the Picture Hall of Fame. This year’s inductees are:

PICTURE BOOK HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr. and Eric Carle (Holt Books for Young Readers)

Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown, Clement Hurd (Illus.) (HarperCollins)

Stellaluna, by Janell Cannon (HMH Books for Young Readers)

In addition to the winners, five 2014 Honor Award recipients were named in each category except Picture Book Hall of Fame.

This year’s Honor Award recipients are:

ADULT FICTION HONOR AWARDS

  • Gun Machine: A Novel, by Warren Ellis (Mulholland Books)
  • Snow Hunters: A Novel, by Paul Yoon (Simon & Schuster)
  • The Son: A Novel, by Philipp Meyer (Ecco)
  • A Tale for the Time Being: A Novel, by Ruth Ozeki (Viking)
  • Tenth of December: Stories, by George Saunders (Random House)

ADULT NONFICTION HONOR AWARDS

  • Men We Reaped: A Memoir, by Jesmyn Ward (Bloomsbury)
  • My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, by Ari Shavit (Spiegel & Grau)
  • A Reader’s Book of Days: True Tales From the Lives and Works of Writers for Every Day of the Year, by Tom Nissley, Joanna Neborsky (Illus.) (W.W. Norton)
  • The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese, by Michael Paterniti (Dial Press)
  • This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, by Ann Patchett (Harper)

ADULT DEBUT HONOR AWARDS

  • Burial Rites: A Novel, by Hannah Kent (Little, Brown)
  • The Golem and the Jinni: A Novel, by Helene Wecker (Harper)
  • In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods: A Novel, by Matt Bell (Soho)
  • Norwegian by Night: A Novel, by Derek B. Miller (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
  • We Need New Names: A Novel, by NoViolet Bulawayo (Reagan Arthur Books)

YOUNG ADULT HONOR AWARDS

  • Dark Triumph, by Robin LaFevers (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
  • The Dream Thieves, by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic)
  • More Than This, by Patrick Ness (Candlewick)
  • Rose Under Fire, by Elizabeth Wein (Hyperion)
  • The Summer Prince, by Alaya Dawn Johnson (Arthur A. Levine Books)

E.B. WHITE READ-ALOUD HONOR AWARDS – MIDDLE READER

  • Counting By 7s, by Holly Goldberg Sloan (Dial Books for Young Readers)
  • The Mouse With the Question Mark Tail, by Richard Peck, Kelly Murphy (Illus.) (Dial Books for Young Readers)
  • Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy, by Karen Foxlee (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
  • Rooftoppers, by Katherine Rundell, Terry Fan (Illus.) (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
  • The Year of Billy Miller, by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow Books)

E.B. WHITE READ-ALOUD HONOR AWARDS – PICTURE BOOK

  • Crankenstein, by Samantha Berger, Dan Santat (Illus.) (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
  • Dream Animals: A Bedtime Journey, by Emily Winfield Martin (Random House Books for Young Readers)
  • Mr. Tiger Goes Wild, by Peter Brown (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
  • Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great, by Bob Shea (Disney-Hyperion)
  • Warning: Do Not Open This Book! by Adam Lehrhaupt, Matthew Forsythe (Illus.) (Paula Wiseman Books)

INDIE CHAMPION HONOR AWARDS

  • Jarrett J. Krosoczka
  • Richard Russo
  • Brandon Sanderson
  • David Sedaris
  • Jesmyn Ward

The winners and finalists in all categories with the exceptions of Most Engaging Author and Picture Book Hall of Fame were chosen from titles appearing on the Indie Next Lists in 2013, with additional titles for the E.B. White Read-Aloud Awards nominated by bookseller members of the ABC Group at ABA.

All of the Indies Choice and E.B. White winners and honor recipients are being invited to the Celebration of Bookselling and Author Awards Lunch on Thursday, May 29, at BookExpo America, as well as to autograph their books in the ABA Indie Booksellers Lounge at a special reception immediately following the luncheon.

Up to three booksellers per ABA member store can make a reservation for the Celebration Lunch. Space at this popular, free event, which is open exclusively to ABA members, is limited and will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis until the event reaches capacity or until May 9, whichever comes first. Table assignments will be sent the week of May 19. Questions about the lunch should be addressed to ABA Development Officer Mark Nichols.

The Indies Choice and E.B. White logos are available to ABA members in the Bookseller DIY  for use in promoting the winners and finalists in newsletters and other marketing materials.

Complete details about ABA programming at BEA is available on BookWeb.org.