Congratulations to this year’s Stonewall Book Award winners and honors!

Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert

The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

As the Crow Flies by Melanie Gillman

Though we only had the chance to cover one of the four here, these choices didn’t come at us completely out of the blue. You can find some final reflections at the end of this post.

We are so thrilled to see such diverse and intersectional representation honored this year. The committee awarded all women and nonbinary folks, and while this isn’t unprecedented, it’s unusual enough to merit acknowledgement! Both of the winners address disability, and all four of the chosen titles explore race and racism. Two of the titles feature characters with nonbinary identities (Sasha in The 57 Bus is agender and Charlie in As the Crow Flies is nonbinary). At least two of the books feature characters who are bi.

It was also awesome to see books with queer representation win big in other areas. Printz winner We Are Okay by Nina LaCour is about a queer girl, and Geisel winner Charlie & Mouse by Laurel Snyder, with illustrations by Emily Hughes, depicts a gay couple.

We learned a lot from the reading and blogging we did this year–most significantly, that we could use a bigger team! If you are interested in working with Medal on My Mind or know someone who would make a stellar contributor with insightful perspectives on Stonewall eligibles, drop a comment or email us at medalonmymind@gmail.com

We’ll pick back up again in the summer with a broader consideration of 2018’s possibilities. In the meantime, keep up with us on Twitter: Kazia, Alec, Stacy, Dani.

And don’t forget to check out the 2018 Rainbow Booklist! 

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We want to know what you think–always, but especially now! With just a few days left until the Stonewall announcement, what’s at the top of your list of contenders?

We’re getting down to the wire with the ALA YMAs coming up in just over a week! Before they sneak up on us, we’ve got a couple more posts in store. This one takes a look some possible science fiction and fantasy contenders.

There are others that I know I’m remiss not to have included: Shaun David Hutchinson’s At the Edge of the Universe and April Daniels’s Dreadnought and Sovereign, especially. And more have been on MoMM’s radar, too: Julia Ember’s The Seafarer’s Kiss and The Tiger’s Watch (Ashes of Gold #1), Sarah Fine’s The Cursed Queen (The Imposter Queen #2), F. T. Lukens’s Ghosts & Ashes (Broken Moon #2), Linsey Miller’s Mask of Shadows (Mask of Shadows #1), Rick Riordan’s The Dark Prophecy (Trials of Apollo #2), Tara Sim’s Chainbreaker (Timekeeper #2), and AdriAnne Strickland’s Shadow Run (Kaitan Chronicles #1).

Knowing that YA publishing has been a bit slow to catch up on queer representation in any genre that isn’t realism, I’m glad to see a decent number of sci-fi and fantasy books out this year. I regret that I can’t do this selection a bit more justice, but here’s what I’ve got:

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