With all of the prestigious accolades an author can earn for his writing, some of the more meaningful ones come from the lesser known judges. One such award is the Indies Choice Award, as the judges are none other than the member booksellers of the American Booksellers’ Association, the individuals who hand sell the titles to loyal bookshop patrons and have firsthand knowledge of the quality of content that their customers clamor for.
The categories for this year’s awards included adult fiction, adult non-fiction, adult debut author, and young adult titles, along with the E.B. White Read-Aloud Awards for middle reader and picture book. Also named this year was the newly coined Indie Champion Award, formerly known as the award for Most Engaging Author. The awards categories continued with the list of honoree titles in each of the categories.
The Adult Fiction winner for this year is The Round House: A Novel, by Louise Erdrich (Harper), while the Adult Non-Fiction winner is Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, by Cheryl Strayed (Knopf). The highly-acclaimed novel, The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green (Dutton Juvenile), earned top honors for Young Adult Book of the Year.
Several beloved children’s books were also inducted into the Picture Book Hall of Fame: Bread and Jam for Frances, by Russell Hoban, Lillian Hoban (Illus.) (HarperCollins), Caps for Sale, by Esphyr Slobokina (HarperCollins), Harold and the Purple Crayon, by Crockett Johnson (HarperCollins), and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, by Jon Scieszka, Lane Smith (Illus.) (Viking Juvenile).
The award winners will be honored at a lunch held in conjunction with BookExpo America on May 30th. For a complete list of the winning titles and their authors, click here.
Mercy Pilkington is a Senior Editor for Good e-Reader. She is also the CEO and founder of a hybrid publishing and consulting company.