Alex Awards


The Alex Awards annually recognize "ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults ages 12 through 18". Essentially, the award is a listing by the American Library Association parallel to its annual Best Books for Young Adults, a longer list of recommended books that have been promoted in the YA category. YALSA also names several other "Top Tens" annually.
The awards, named after Baltimore librarian Margaret Alexander Edwards, who was known as "Alex," are sponsored by the Margaret Alexander Edwards Trust and Booklist magazine. The list of books published during the previous year serves to provide the choice of titles selected for the awards, which were initially bestowed in 1998 and, since 2002, have been administered by the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association.

Alex recipients

YearAuthorTitleReference
2020C.A. FletcherA Boy and His Dog at the End of the World
2020Temi OhDo You Dream of Terra-Two?
2020Angie CruzDominicana
2020Maia KobabeGender Queer: A Memoir
2020Tegan and SaraHigh School
2020AJ DungoIn Waves
2020Seanan McGuireMiddlegame
2020Colson WhiteheadThe Nickel Boys
2020Casey McQuistonRed, White & Royal Blue
2020Lisa LutzThe Swallows
2019
2019
2019Circe
2019Educated: A Memoir
2019
2019Green
2019Home After Dark
2019How Long ’Til Black Future Month?
2019Lawn Boy
2019Spinning Silver
2018All Systems Red
2018
2018Down Among the Sticks and Bones
2018Electric Arches
2018
2018Malagash
2018Roughneck
2018She Rides Shotgun
2018Things We Have in Common
2018
2017
2017
2017 with Michelle Burford'
2017Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded
2017Arena
2017Every Heart a Doorway
2017Romeo and/or Juliet: A Choosable-Path Adventure
2017Die Young with Me: A Memoir
2017
2017
2016All Involved
2016Between the World and Me
2016
2016Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits
2016Girl at War
2016Half the World
2016'
2016Sacred Heart
2016Undocumented: A Dominican Boy's Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League
2016
2015
2015
2015
2015
2015
2015
2015
2015
2015
2015
2014
2014
2014
2014
2014
2014
2014
2014
2014
2014
2013
2013
2013
2013
2013
2013
2013Pure
2013
2013Tell The Wolves I'm Home
2013Where'd You Go, Bernadette?
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2011
2011
2011
2011
2011
2011
2011
2011
2011
2011
2010
2010
2010
2010
2010
2010
2010
2010
2010
2010
2009
2009
2009Finding Nouf
2009
2009Just After Sunset: Stories
2009Mudbound
2009Over and Under
2009
2009Sharp Teeth
2009Three Girls and Their Brother
2008American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China
2008Bad Monkeys
2008Essex County Volume 1: Tales from the Farm
2008'
2008
2008
2008Mister Pip
2008
2008
2008
2007
2007
2007Eagle Blue: A Team, A Tribe, and A High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska
2007Water for Elephants
2007Floor of the Sky
2007Color of the Sea
2007
2007Black Swan Green
2007
2007
2006Midnight at the Dragon Café
2006Upstate
2006Anansi Boys
2006As Simple As Snow
2006Never Let Me Go
2006Gil's All Fright Diner
2006
2006My Jim
2006Jesus Land: A Memoir
2006
2005Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America
2005Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer
2005Donorboy
2005Shadow Divers
2005Work of Wolves
2005
2005My Sister's Keeper
2005Thinner Than Thou
2005Project X
2005Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants
2004Wonder When You'll Miss Me
2004
2004
2004
2004Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
2004'
2004True Notebooks
2004Persepolis
2004Maisie Dobbs
2004Leave Myself Behind
2003One! Hundred! Demons!
2003My Losing Season
2003Seeing in the Dark: How Backyard Stargazers Are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth from Interplanetary Peril
2003
2003Crow Lake
2003
2003When the Emperor was Divine
2003
2003
200310th Grade
2002Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague
2002
2002Gabriel's Story
2002Nickel and Dimed: On Getting by in Boom-Time America
2002Peace Like a River
2002
2002Kit's Law
2002
2002Motherland
2002Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self
2001Chang and Eng: A Novel
2001Counting Coup
2001Daughter of the Forest
2001Diamond Dogs
2001Flags of Our Fathers
2001Girl with a Pearl Earring
2001'
2001
2001
2001Soldier: A Poet's Childhood
2000High Exposure: An Enduring Passion for Everest and Unforgiving Places
2000Ender's Shadow
2000River, Cross My Heart
2000
2000
2000Stardust
2000
2000Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child
2000Plainsong
2000Imani All Mine
1999
1999Getting In
1999Needles
1999At All Costs
1999Space
1999Last Days of Summer
1999'
1999Antarctica
1999Almost a Woman
1999Caucasia
1998
1998All Over but the Shoutin
1998Sugar in the Raw: Voices of Young Black Girls in America
1998What Girls Learn
1998Snow in August
1998
1998'
1998Lest We Forget: The Passage from Africa to Slavery and Emancipation
1998Only Twice I've Wished for Heaven
1998To Say Nothing of the Dog; or, How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last''