ABA Announces 2015 Indies Choice and E.B. White Award Winners

Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version

Today, the American Booksellers Association announces the winners of the 2015 Indies Choice Book Awards and the E.B. White Read-Aloud Awards, as voted by independent booksellers nationwide.

“This year’s winners and honor award recipients are representative of the outstanding titles hand-sold at ABA member stores nationwide,” said ABA CEO Oren Teicher. “We congratulate their authors and illustrators and look forward to honoring them at this year’s Celebration of Bookselling and Author Awards Lunch at BEA.”

The 2015 Indies Choice Book Award winners, reflecting the spirit of independent bookstores nationwide, are:

ADULT FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR
All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel, by Anthony Doerr (Scribner)

ADULT NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, by Atul Gawande (Metropolitan Books)

ADULT DEBUT BOOK OF THE YEAR
The Martian: A Novel, by Andy Weir (Crown)

YOUNG ADULT BOOK OF THE YEAR
The Darkest Part of the Forest, by Holly Black (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

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
Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson (Nancy Paulsen Books)

E.B. WHITE READ-ALOUD AWARD – PICTURE BOOK
Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, by Mac Barnett, Jon Klassen (Illus.) (Candlewick)

The Indie Champion Award 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 winners are:

INDIE CHAMPION AWARD
Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer (HarperCollins/Hachette)

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

PICTURE BOOK HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES

Blueberries for Sal, by Robert McCloskey (Viking Books for Young Readers)

Frog and Toad, by Arnold Lobel (HarperCollins)

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, by Laura Numeroff, Felicia Bond (Illus.) (HarperCollins)

In addition to the winners, five 2015 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

  • The Bone Clocks: A Novel, by David Mitchell (Random House)
  • The Magician’s Land: A Novel, by Lev Grossman (Viking)
  • The Museum of Extraordinary Things: A Novel, by Alice Hoffman (Scribner)
  • Natchez Burning: A Novel, by Greg Iles (William Morrow)
  • Station Eleven: A Novel, by Emily St. John Mandel (Knopf)

ADULT NONFICTION HONOR AWARDS

  • Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?: A Memoir, by Roz Chast (Bloomsbury)
  • The Empathy Exams: Essays, by Leslie Jamison (Graywolf Press)
  • In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette, by Hampton Sides (Doubleday)
  • Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson (Spiegel & Grau)
  • On Immunity: An Inoculation, by Eula Biss (Graywolf Press)

ADULT DEBUT HONOR AWARDS

  • Fourth of July Creek: A Novel, by Smith Henderson (Ecco)
  • I Am Pilgrim: A Thriller, by Terry Hayes (Emily Bestler Books/Atria)
  • Painted Horses: A Novel, by Malcolm Brooks (Grove Press)
  • The Queen of the Tearling: A Novel, by Erika Johansen (Harper)
  • Shotgun Lovesongs: A Novel, by Nickolas Butler (Thomas Dunne Books)

YOUNG ADULT HONOR AWARDS

  • Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future, by A.S. King (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
  • Noggin, by John Corey Whaley (Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
  • The Shadow Hero, by Gene Luen Yang, Sonny Liew (Illus.) (First Second)
  • Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel: A Novel, by Sara Farizan (Algonquin Young Readers)
  • This One Summer, by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki (First Second)

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

  • The Boundless, by Kenneth Oppel, Jim Tierney (Illus.) (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
  • The Fourteenth Goldfish, by Jennifer L. Holm (Random House Books for Young Readers)
  • A Snicker of Magic, by Natalie Lloyd (Scholastic)
  • The Terrible Two, by Mac Barnett and Jory John, Kevin Cornell (Illus.) (Amulet Books)
  • The War That Saved My Life, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (Dial Books for Young Readers)

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

  • Goodnight Already!, by Jory John, Benji Davies (Illus.) (HarperCollins)
  • Kid Sheriff and the Terrible Toads, by Bob Shea, Lane Smith (Illus.) (Roaring Brook Press)
  • Last Stop on Market Street, by Matt de la Peña, Christian Robinson (Illus.) (Putnam Young Readers)
  • The Smallest Girl in the Smallest Grade, by Justin Roberts, Christian Robinson (Illus.) (Putnam Young Readers)
  • This Is a Moose, by Richard T. Morris, Tom Lichtenheld (Illus.) (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

INDIE CHAMPION HONOR AWARDS

  • Authors United, represented by Douglas Preston (Hachette)
  • Jeff Kinney (Abrams)
  • Dav Pilkey (Scholastic)
  • Richard Russo (Knopf/Vintage)
  • Garth Stein (Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins)

The winners and honor books 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 2014, with additional titles for the E.B. White Read-Aloud Awards nominated by bookseller members of the ABC Children’s 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 28, 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 May 15, whichever comes first. Table assignments will be sent the week of May 18. 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.