Kirkus Best Books of the Year - YA Fiction (Awarded by Kirkus)

Awards List

2023

Savage Her Reply
(*)
Deirdre Sullivan

All That It Ever Meant
(*)
Blessing Musariri

We Are All So Good at Smiling
(*)
Amber McBride

Mindwalker
(*)
Kate Dylan

An Appetite for Miracles
(*)
Laekan Zea Kemp

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls
(*)
Cherie Dimaline

Spin
(*)
Rebecca Caprara

Throwback
(*)
Maurene Goo

Wings in the Wild
(*)
Margarita Engle

America Redux
(*)
Ariel Aberg-Riger

Forever Is Now
(*)
Mariama J. Lockington

Star Splitter
(*)
Matthew J. Kirby

Fire From the Sky
(*)
Moa Backe Astot

All the Fighting Parts
(*)
Hannah V. Sawyerr

Impossible Escape
(*)
Steve Sheinkin

Into the Bright Open
(*)
Cherie Dimaline

The Blackwoods
(*)
Brandy Colbert

Gather
(*)
Kenneth M. Cadow

Salt the Water
(*)
Candice Iloh

The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be
(*)
Shannon Gibney

2022

I Was Born for This
(*)
Alice Oseman

Ain't Burned All the Bright
(*)
Jason Reynolds

Lawless Spaces
(*)
Corey Ann Haydu

Bitter
(*)
Akwaeke Emezi

Full Flight
(*)
Ashley Schumacher

The Gaps
(*)
Leanne Hall

Lakelore
(*)
Anna-Marie McLemore

The Words We Keep
(*)
Erin Stewart

The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin
(*)
Kip Wilson

Nothing Burns as Bright as You
(*)
Ashley Woodfolk

The Ghosts of Rose Hill
(*)
R.M. Romero

The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester
(*)
Maya MacGregor

We Weren't Looking to Be Found
(*)
Stephanie Kuehn

Baby Teeth
(*)
Meg Grehan

The Dragons Club
(*)
Cyn Bermudez

This Is Why They Hate Us
(*)
Aaron H. Aceves

What's Coming to Me
(*)
Francesca Padilla

The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen
(*)
Isaac Blum

What the Fact?
(*)
Seema Yasmin

I Miss You, I Hate This
(*)
Sara Saedi

2021

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega
(*)
Crystal Maldonado

When We Were Infinite
(*)
Kelly Loy Gilbert

The Cost of Knowing
(*)
Brittney Morris

Zara Hossain Is Here
(*)
Sabina Khan

On the Hook
(*)
Francisco X. Stork

Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun
(*)
Jonny Garza Villa

When We Make It
(*)
Elisabet Velasquez

Tonight We Rule the World
(*)
Zack Smedley

The Words in My Hands
(*)
Asphyxia

2020

Jane Anonymous
(*)
Laurie Faria Stolarz

Not So Pure and Simple
(*)
Lamar Giles

What I Carry
(*)
Jennifer Longo

How to Build a Heart
(*)
Maria Padian

The Edge of Anything
(*)
Nora Shalaway Carpenter

Tigers, Not Daughters
(*)
Samantha Mabry

When You Were Everything
(*)
Ashley Woodfolk

Wicked As You Wish
(*)
Rin Chupeco

The Lucky Ones
(*)
Liz Lawson

The Black Flamingo
(*)
Dean Atta

A Breath Too Late
(*)
Rocky Callen

Clap When You Land
(*)
Elizabeth Acevedo

We Are Not From Here
(*)
Jenny Torres Sanchez

Everything's Not Fine
(*)
Sarah Carlson

I'll Be the One
(*)
Lyla Lee

Where We Go From Here
(*)
Lucas Rocha

Accidental
(*)
Alex Richards

Being Toffee
(*)
Sarah Crossan

The Voting Booth
(*)
Brandy Colbert

Darius the Great Deserves Better
(*)
Adib Khorram

Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything
(*)
Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

The Stepping Off Place
(*)
Cameron Kelly Rosenblum

This Is My America
(*)
Kim Johnson

Bearmouth
(*)
Liz Hyder

Blood Moon
(*)
Lucy Cuthew

Each of Us a Desert
(*)
Mark Oshiro

Early Departures
(*)
Justin A. Reynolds

Every Body Looking
(*)
Candice Iloh

Furia
(*)
Yamile Saied Mendez

Punching the Air
(*)
Ibi Zoboi

Smash It!
(*)
Francina Simone

Watch Over Me
(*)
Nina LaCour

Dear Justyce
(*)
Nic Stone

The End
(*)
Mats Strandberg

My Heart Underwater
(*)
Laurel Flores Fantauzzo

The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling
(*)
Wai Chim

The Way Back
(*)
Gavriel Savit

Sanctuary
(*)
Paola Mendoza

Award Categories

Affirming Picture Books

Bedtime Books

Beginning Readers

Board Books

Book Club Fiction

Books for Beginning Readers

Debut Fiction

Empowering Picture Books

Environmental Fiction

Fiction

Fiction in Translation

Fictional Families

Fictional Voices

Funniest Picture Books

Historical Fiction

Informational Picture Books

Joyous Picture Books

Middle-Grade About Speaking Up

Middle-Grade Activist

Middle-Grade Adventures

Middle-Grade Family Stories

Middle-Grade Fantasy and SF

Middle-Grade Fiction

Middle-Grade Friendship Stories

Middle-Grade Graphic Fiction

Award Years

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019