2022 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award Winner & Finalists Announced
The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is pleased and proud to announce the 2022 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award for Young Adult Fiction winner and finalists. Established in 2008 to honor the wishes of young adult author Amelia Elizabeth Walden, the award allows for the sum of $5,000 to be presented annually to the author of a young adult title selected by the ALAN Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award Committee as demonstrating a positive approach to life, widespread teen appeal, and literary merit.
The 2022 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award winner is:
In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner
(Crown Books for Young Readers / Random House)
The 2022 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award finalists are:
Furia by Yamile Saied Méndez
(Algonquin Young Readers / Algonquin Books)
How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe by Raquel Vásquez Gilliland
(Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers / Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing)
The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen
(Random House Graphic / Random House Children’s Books)
We Are Not Free by Traci Chee
(Clarion Books / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
The winning title and finalists will be honored at the 2022 ALAN Workshop on Monday, November 21st in Anaheim, CA and the authors will be invited to participate in a panel discussion.
The 2022 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Committee would like to thank: the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Foundation, the ALAN Executive Council, the ALAN Board of Directors, NCTE, and the many publishers who submitted titles for consideration.
The 2022 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Committee considered nearly 300 young adult titles throughout the process. The committee was comprised of eleven members representing the university, K-12 school, and library communities. They are:
Jodi Blair, Committee Chair
Librarian
Alcoa High School, Alcoa, TN
Sarah Mulhern Gross, Past Committee Chair
Teacher
High Technology High School, Lincroft, NJ
Edith Campbell
Associate Librarian
Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN
Alison Daniels
English Teacher/11th Grade English Team Leader
Long Reach High School, Columbia, MD
Maria Goff
Secondary ELA & Social Studies Facilitator
Renton School District, Renton, WA
Morgan Jackson
English Teacher
Bishop Gorman High School, Las Vegas, NV
Jung Kim
Associate Professor of Literacy
Lewis University, Romeoville, IL
L.E. Oldham
English Language Arts Content Specialist
Deming Public Schools, Deming, NM
Elizabeth Parker
Professor/Lecturer
University of Michigan-Flint, Flint, MI
Shannon Schilling
Teen Librarian
Delaware County District Library, Delaware, OH
Julia Torres
ELA Teacher
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Early College/Denver Public Schools, Denver, CO
For more information on the award, please visit ALAN Online: The Official Site of the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents: http://www.alan-ya.org/awards/walden-award/.