Greetings, fellow Stonewall Book Award nerds! We missed being a part of the buzz last season. As award blogs like Calling Caldecott, Heavy Medal, and the *new* The Sydney Taylor Shmooze are starting up for the upcoming awards season, we thought we’d give a quick update about this blog.

But, first: congratulations to the 2020 Stonewall Book Award winners and honors!

Winners: When Aidan Became a Brother by Kyle Lukoff, illus. Kaylani Juanita and The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta, illus. Anshika Khullar

Honors: Pet by Akwaeke Emezi, Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian, and The Best at It by Maulik Pancholy

We’re delighted to see such strong BIPOC representation in the winners and honors. We’re also delighted that even more queer books (and creators) got recognized in other ways in 2020:

• Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me by Mariko Tamaki, illus. Rosemary Valero-O’Connell was a Printz honor and Eisner winner for Best Graphic Novel for Teens.
• Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez was a Pura Belpré author winner.
• The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus was a Coretta Scott King author honor.
• The Great Nijinsky: God of Dance by Lynn Curlee was a YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction finalist.
• Redwood & Ponytail by K.A. Holt was an Odyssey honor.
• The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe was the Morris winner.
• Frankly in Love by David Yoon was an Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature honor AND Morris finalist.
• There Will Come a Darkness by Katy Rose Pool was a Morris finalist.
• Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston, and High School by Tegan Quin & Sara Quin were all Alex Award winners.
• Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz was a Syndey Taylor honor.

Oh, and let’s not forget that 3 of the 5 finalists for the National Book Award had queer representation: Pet by Akwaeke Emezi, Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks by Jason Reynolds, and Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay. Two more titles appeared on the longlist: Kiss Number 8 by Colleen A.F. Venable, illus. Ellen T. Crenshaw and Out of Salem by Hal Schrieve. That’s half the longlist!

As this post’s title reveals, we are continuing our hiatus from this blog for another year. One of the big reasons is that Dani and Kazia are on the actual Stonewall Book Award committee! We’re super proud of them and can’t wait to see what their committee chooses. Stacy has been busy publishing articles, curating influential LibGuides, appearing on NPR, and raising the cutest toddler ever. Alec is on the Caldecott committee. 

We really do hope to be back fall 2021 to continue this project. In the meantime, Travis Jonker compiled a list of 2020 books by previous Stonewall winners to get the 2021 Stonewall Book Award hype started. We’ll see you next year!