Earlier this week, the American Library Association awarded the the 2026 Michael L. Printz Award to the short story anthology Legendary Frybread Drive-in edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith . You may have heard of other book awards, but the Printz Award is a little different. First awarded in 2000 and named after a school librarian from Kansas, it is chosen by librarians and given to the best book for teens published in the previous year. Recent winners have included anthologies, graphic novels and traditional novels. They are from a variety of different genres and written by authors from a variety of different backgrounds.
Best of all, we have them at DKPL for you to check out! Read on to learn about the winners from the 2020s.
2020 winner: Dig by A.S. King The Hemmings family are wealthy, but beneath that wealth is family dysfunction. Gottfried and Marla Hemmings have not shared their wealth with their children. As a result, their five grandchildren have led very different lives. The five cousins reconnect to find the truth about their family and fix their relationships.
2021 winner: Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri Khosrou is called “Daniel” at his Oklahoma middle school. He’s different from his classmates and most of them don’t want to hear his stories, but those stories are his family history before fleeing Iran as refugees. This book is based on the author’s own childhood as an Iranian immigrant.
2022 winner: Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley 18-year-old Daunis has a white mother and an Ojibwe father and doesn’t feel fully welcome in either her small Michigan town or the local Ojibwe reservation. She hopes to fix that by going away to college on a hockey scholarship, but a serious injury and a series of family tragedies lead to her staying home. When she witnesses a murder, she becomes part of an FBI investigation of a drug ring that may involve tribal members and players on the local hockey team.
2023 winner: All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir Pakistani-American High Schoolers Salahudin (Sal) and Noor are best friends growing up in the California desert until an argument tears them apart. Both have struggles at home, Sal tries to run his family’s struggling motel while his mom fights cancer and his dad fights alcoholism. Meanwhile, Noor secretly applies to college to escape her controlling uncle. Noor and Sal reunite, but everything could fall apart for both of them once he turns to dangerous means to make money. The book alternates between the perspectives of Sal, Noor and Sal’s mother Misbah talking about her youth in Pakistan.
2024 winner: The Collectors edited by A.S. King An anthology of short stories where 11 authors of Teen books write about different unconventional collections. They range from a grandson collecting memories for his grandmother to a skateboarder collecting empty swimming pools to skate in to a non-binary teen taking small pieces of other people’s collection to make their own.
2025 winner: Brownstone by Samuel Teer and Mar Julia When Almudena’s her mom earns a spot with a touring dance company she is sent to spend a summer with her Guatemalan-American father whom she’s never met. She spends the summer learning about her heritage, the Spanish language and construction as she helps him renovate a brownstone building. This was only the third graphic novel to win the Printz Award.
2026 winner; Legendary Frybread Drive-in edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith From athletes to online gamers to aspiring future leaders, teenagers from more than a dozen Native American tribes across Turtle Island (also known as North America) are featured in this short story collection by 18 indigenous authors. Some stories are stand-alone, but others blend together as the teens come together to find community, love and purpose at the magical Sandy June’s Legendary Frybread Drive-in.
You can find these and other award-winning books in the Teen Fiction section in the Teen Lounge and the Graphic Novels section just outside the Teen Room. You can use your free DKPL library card to check out physical copies of these and other books at DKPL. Many books can also be downloaded to your phone, tablet, or computer as e-books or audiobooks. Stop by the Teen Room with any questions or contact the Teen Services Staff at (815) 756-9568 ext. 2450 or by email at [email protected].