Earlier this week, the American Library Association announced the 2022 Youth Media Awards, honoring the best books for children and young adults published in 2021.
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This year marks the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the John Newbery Medal, awarded to "the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children." Donna Barba Higuera won for her novel The Last Cuentista (Levine Querido, $17.99), which also garnered the 2022 Pura Belpré Award, "presented annually to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth." 
The Randolph Caldecott Medal, awarded "to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children," went to Jason Chin for his illustrations in Watercress (Neal Porter Books/Holiday House, $18.99), with text by Andrea Wang. Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley (Holt, $18.99) won the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature; the novel also won the 2022 William C. Morris Award for a debut and was named a 2022 American Indian Youth Literature Award Honor Book.
And for more wonderful children's/YA books, check out the Coretta Scott King Book Award winners, also presented on Monday. Nikki Grimes received the Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award; the committee noted, "After more than 77 books, she has sealed her legacy by weaving poetry and novels in verse into an impressive body of work." Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Floyd Cooper (Carolrhoda Books, $17.99) won both the CSK Author Award and CSK Illustrator Award; the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent went to Amber McBride for Me (Moth) (Feiwel and Friends, $18.99) and to Regis and Kahran Bethencourt for their photography in The Me I Choose to Be (Little, Brown, $17.99). --Siân Gaetano, children's/YA editor, Shelf Awareness