2018 Indies Choice and E.B. White Read-Aloud Award Winners Announced

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T2018 Indies Choice Book Award logooday, the American Booksellers Association announces the winners of the 2018 Indies Choice Book Awards and the E.B. White Read-Aloud Awards, as voted by independent booksellers nationwide.

“All the winning titles of the Indies Choice and E.B. White Read-Aloud awards — as well as the notable honor titles — showcase the amazing range of writing talent that is discovered and hand-sold every day by thousands of booksellers at indie bookstores nationwide,” said ABA CEO Oren Teicher. “A highlight of BookExpo will be the opportunity of honoring these authors and illustrators at the upcoming Celebration of Bookselling and Author Awards Lunch on Wednesday, May 30.”

The 2018 Indies Choice Book Award winners, reflecting the spirit of independent bookstores nationwide, are:

ADULT FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR

  • Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward (Scribner)

ADULT NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR

  • Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann (Doubleday)

ADULT DEBUT BOOK OF THE YEAR

  • Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf Press)

AUDIOBOOK OF THE YEAR

  • Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, read by Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, George Saunders, and a full cast (Random House Audio)

YOUNG ADULT BOOK OF THE YEAR

  • The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Balzer + Bray)

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

  • Wishtree by Katherine Applegate (Feiwel & Friends)

E.B. WHITE READ-ALOUD AWARD – PICTURE BOOK

  • The Wolf, the Duck, and the Mouse by Mac Barnett, Jon Klassen (Illus.) (Candlewick)

INDIE CHAMPION AWARD
The Indie Champion Award is presented to the author or illustrator who booksellers feel understands the importance of independent bookstores to their communities at large and has a strong personal commitment to foster and support the mission and passion of independent booksellers. This year’s winner is:

  • Jason Reynolds

PICTURE BOOK HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES
Indie booksellers chose these three classic picture books for induction into the Picture Book Hall of Fame.

  • Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty, David Roberts (Illus.) (Harry N. Abrams)
  • I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King Jr., Kadir Nelson (Illus.) (Schwartz & Wade)
  • We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen, Helen Oxenbury (Illus.) (Margaret K. McElderry Books)

In addition to the winners, five honorees were named in each category, with the exception of Picture Book Hall of Fame.

Adult Fiction Honor Books

  • Exit West: A Novel by Mohsin Hamid (Riverhead Books)
  • Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel by George Saunders (Random House)
  • Little Fires Everywhere: A Novel by Celeste Ng (Penguin Press)
  • Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls (New Directions)
  • Pachinko: A Novel by Min Jin Lee (Grand Central Publishing)

Adult Nonfiction Honor Books

  • Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy by Anne Lamott (Riverhead Books)
  • Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay (Harper)
  • Silence: In the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge, Becky L. Crook (Trans.) (Pantheon)
  • Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone by Juli Berwald (Riverhead Books)
  • The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel (Knopf)

Adult Debut Honor Books

  • Fen: Stories by Daisy Johnson (Graywolf Press)
  • History of Wolves: A Novel by Emily Fridlund (Atlantic Monthly Press)
  • The Leavers: A Novel by Lisa Ko (Algonquin Books)
  • The Long Haul: A Trucker’s Tales of Life on the Road by Finn Murphy (W.W. Norton & Company)
  • Stephen Florida: A Novel by Gabe Habash (Coffee House Press)

Audiobook Honor Books

  • American War: A Novel by Omar El Akkad, read by Dion Graham (Penguin Random House Audio)
  • The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, read by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich (Macmillan Audio)
  • Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay, read by Roxane Gay (HarperAudio)
  • Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann, read by Will Patton, Ann Marie Lee, and Danny Campbell (Penguin Random House Audio)
  • The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott, read by Euan Morton (Macmillan Audio)

Young Adult Honor Books

  • All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic Press)
  • Dear Martin by Nic Stone (Crown Books for Young Readers)
  • Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books)
  • Turtles All the Way Down by John Green (Dutton Books for Young Readers)
  • When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon (Simon Pulse)

E.B. White Read-Aloud Middle Reader Honor Books

  • The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora by Pablo Cartaya (Viking Books for Young Readers)
  • The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Pérez (Viking Books for Young Readers)
  • One Last Word by Nikki Grimes (Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books)
  • Refugee by Alan Gratz (Scholastic)
  • The Stars Beneath Our Feet by David Barclay Moore (Knopf Books for Young Readers)

E.B. White Read-Aloud Picture Book Honor Books

  • After the Fall (How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again) by Dan Santat (Roaring Brook Press)
  • Alfie (The Turtle That Disappeared) by Thyra Heder (Harry N. Abrams)
  • Come With Me by Holly M. McGhee, Pascal Lemaître (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers)
  • Dragons Love Tacos 2: The Sequel by Adam Rubin, Daniel Salmieri (Illus.) (Dial Books)
  • Escargot by Dashka Slater, Sydney Hanson (Illus.) (Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers)

Indie Champion Honorees

The winners and honor books in all categories with the exceptions of Indie Champion and Picture Book Hall of Fame were chosen from titles appearing on the Indie Next Lists in 2017, 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 will be invited both to the Celebration of Bookselling and Author Awards Lunch on Wednesday, May 30, at BookExpo and to autograph their books in the ABA Booksellers Lounge immediately following the lunch.

Up to four booksellers per ABA member store location 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 May 16 or the event reaches capacity, whichever comes first. Table assignments will be sent the week of May 21. Questions about the lunch should be addressed to ABA Director of Development and Publisher Relations Matthew Zoni.

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 BookExpo are available on BookWeb.org.