YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction

The YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction is an award by the Young Adult Library Services Association of the American Library Association that annually "honors the best nonfiction book published for young adults (ages 12-18)".^[1] It was first given in 2010.^[2] The award is announced at ALA's Midwinter Meeting.^[3]

Recipients

2015

Winner

• Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek by Maya Van Wagenen

Finalists

• Laughing at My Nightmare by Shane Burcaw
• The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming
• Ida M. Tarbell: The Woman Who Challenged Big Business -- and Won! by Emily Arnold McCully
• The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin

Nominations

• Strike! The Farm Workers’ Fight for Their Rights by Larry Dane Brimmer
• Pure Grit: How American World War II Nurses Survived Battle and Prison Camp In The Pacific by Mary Cronk Farrell
• Eyes Wide Open: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines by Paul Fleischman
• Because They Marched: The People’s Campaign for Voting Rights That Changed America by Russell Freedman
• Red Madness: How A Medical Mystery Changed What We Eat by Gail Jarrow
• Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin
• Leaving China: An Artist Paints His World War II Childhood by James McMullan
• The Freedom Summer Murders by Don Mitchell
• Tomboy: A Graphic Memoir by Liz Prince
• Freedom Summer: The 1964 Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi by Susan Goldman Rubin
• The White House Is Burning, August 24, 1814 by Jane Sutcliffe
• Boundaries: How The Mason-Dixon Line Settled A Family Feud And Divided A Nation by Sally M. Walker
• Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

2014

Winner

• The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb

Finalists

• Go: A Kidd's Guide to Graphic Design by Chip Kidd
• Imprisoned: The Betrayal of Japanese Americans During World War II by Martin W. Sandler
• Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles, America's First Black Paratroopers by Tanya Lee Stone
• The President Has Been Shot! The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by James L. Swanson

Nominations

• Tillie Pierce: Teen Eyewitness to the Battle of Gettysburg by Tanya Anderson
• Emancipation Proclamation: Lincoln and the Dawn of Liberty by Tonya Bolden
• Becoming Ben Franklin: How a Candle-Maker's Son Helped Light the Flame of Liberty by Russell Freedman
• Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
• March (Book One) by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, Illustrated by Nate Powell
• Fourth Down and Inches: Concussions and Football's Make-or-Break Moment by Carla Killough McClafferty
• Call of the Klondike: A True Gold Rush Adventure by David Meissner and Kim Richardson
• Women of the Frontier: 16 Tales of Trailblazing Homesteaders by Brandon Marie Miller
• Kennedy's Last Days: The Assassination That Defined a Generation by Bill O'Reilly
• Eruption!: Volcanoes and the Science of Saving Lives by Elizabeth Rusch
• Branded by the Pink Triangle by Ken Setterington
• Lincoln's Grave Robbers by Steve Sheinkin

2013

Winner^[1]

• Bomb: The Race to Build - and Steal- the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin

Finalists

• Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different by Karen Blumenthal
• Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 by Phillip Hoose
• Titanic: Voices from the Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson
• We've Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children's March by Cynthia Levinson

Nominations^[4]

• Chuck Close Face Book by Chuck Close
• The Amazing Harry Kellar: Great American Magician by Gail Jarrow
• Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World by Sy Montgomery
• Invincible Microbe: Tuberculosis and the Never-Ending Search for a Cure by Jim Murphy and Alison Blank
• The Mighty Mars Rovers: The Incredible Adventures of Spirit and Opportunity by Elizabeth Rusch
• Impossible Rescue: The True Story of an Amazing Arctic Adventure by Martin W. Sandler
• Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917 by Sally M. Walker
• Their Skeletons Speak: Kennewick Man and the Paleoamerican World by Sally M. Walker
• Charles Dickens and the Street Children of London by Andrea Warren

2012

Winner^[5]

• The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism, & Treachery by Steve Sheinkin

Finalists

• Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom and Science by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos
• Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition by Karen Blumenthal
• Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way) by Sue Macy
• Music Was IT: Young Leonard Bernstein by Susan Goldman Rubin

Nominations^[6]

• Can I See Your I.D.?: True Stories of False Identities by Chris Barton
• Unraveling Freedom: The Battle for Democracy on the Home Front During World War I by Ann Bausum
• How They Croaked: The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous by Georgia Bragg
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: A Friendship That Changed the World by Penny Colman
• Elephant Talk: The Surprising Science of Elephant Communication by Ann Downer
• Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart by Candace Fleming
• Father Abraham: Lincoln and His Sons by Harold Holzer
• Scribbling Women: True Tales From Astonishing Lives by Marthe Jocelyn
• Mysterious Bones: The Story of the Kennewick Man by Katherine Kirkpatrick
• World Without Fish by Mark Kurlansky
• Flesh & Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire & Its Legacy by Albert Marrin
• The Many Faces of George Washington by Carla Killough McClafferty
• Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans by Kadir Nelson
• Jane Austen: A Life Revealed by Catherine Reef
• Into the Unknown: How Great Explorers Found Their Way by Land, Sea, and Air by Stewart Ross
• I. M. Pei: Architect of Time, Place, and Purpose by Jill Rubalcaba
• Wideness & Wonder: The Life and Art of Georgia O'Keeffe by Susan Goldman Rubin
• Witches!: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem by Rosalyn Schanzer
• To Timbuktu: Nine Countries, Two People, One True Story by Casey Scieszka
• Ghosts on the Fog: The Untold Story of Alaska’s WWII Invasion by Samantha Seiple
• Tom Thumb : the Remarkable True Story of a Man in Miniature by George Sullivan
• Terezin: Voices from the Holocaust by Ruth Thomson
• Raggin’ Jazzin’ Rockin’: A History of American Musical Instrument Makers by Susan VanHecke

2011

Winner^[5]

• Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing by Ann Angel

Finalists

• They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
• Spies of Mississippi: The True Story of the Spy Network that Tried to Destroy the Civil Rights Movement by Rick Bowers
• The Dark Game: True Spy Stories by Paul Janeczko
• Every Bone Tells a Story: Hominin Discoveries, Deductions, and Debates by Jill Rubalcaba and Peter Robertshaw

Nominations^[7]

• Frederick Douglass: A Noble Life by David Adler
• FDR's Alphabet Soup: New Deal America by Tanya Bolden
• Lost Boy, Lost Girl: Escaping Civil War in the Sudan by John Bul Dau
• Watch This Space: Designing, Defending and Sharing Public Spaces by Hadley Dyer
• Sir Charlie Chaplin: the Funniest Man in the World by Sid Fleischmann
• The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy by James Giblin
• Sex: A Book for Teens: An Uncensored Guide to Your Body, Sex, and Safety by Nikol Hasler
• Teen Cyberbullying Investigated: Where Do Your Rights End and Consequences Begin? by Tom Jacobs
• We Are Not Beasts of Burden: Cesar Chavez and the Delano Grape Strike by Stuart Kallen
• Get Real: What Kind of World Are You Buying? by Mara Rockliff
• The Smart Aleck's Guide to American History by Adam Selzer
• The Good, the Bad and the Barbie: A Doll's History and Her Impact on Us by Tanya Lee Stone
• Frozen Secrets: Antarctica Revealed by Sally Walker
• The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton: A Biography by Connie Wooldridge
• Simeon's Story: An Eyewitness Account of the Kidnapping of Emmett Till by Simeon Wright and Herb Boyd

2010

Winner^[2]

• Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman

Finalists

• Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone
• Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose
• The Great and Only Barnum: The Tremendous, Stupendous Life of Showman P. T. Barnum by Candace Fleming
• Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland by Sally M. Walker

Nominations^[8]

• Rachael Ray: Food Entrepreneur by Dennis Abrams
• Mr. Lincoln's High-Tech War by Thomas B. Allen and Roger MacBride Allen
• Gay America: Struggle for Equality by Linas Alsenas
• The War to End All Wars: The Story of World War I by Jack Batten
• Denied, Detained, Deported: Stories from the Dark Side of American Immigration by Ann Bausum
• Beyond: A Solar System Voyage by Michael Benson
• Diego: Bigger Than Life by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand
• Gettysburg: The Graphic Novel by C. M. Butzer
• Leaving Glorytown: One Boy's Struggle under Castro by Eduardo F. Calcines
• Harry Houdini for Kids: His Life and Adventures with 21 Magic Tricks and Illusions by Laurie Carlson
• Mission Control, This is Apollo: The Story of the First Voyages to the Moon by Andrew Chaikin and Victoria Kohl
• The Word Snoop by Ursula Dubosarsky
• Say What? The Weird and Mysterious Journey of the English Language by Gena K. Gorrell
• Babe Ruth by Wilborn Hampton
• The Girls' Guide to Rocking: How to Start a Band, Books Gigs, and Get Rolling to Rock Stardom by Jessica Hopper
• The Secret of the Yellow Death: A True Story of Medical Sleuthing by Suzanne Jurmain
• 1968 by Michael T. Kaufman
• Harper Lee by Kerry Madden
• Years of Dust: The Story of the Dust Bowl by Albert Marrin
• The Mysteries of Beethoven's Hair by Russell Martin and Lydia Nibley
• Anne Frank: Her Life in Words and Pictures from the Archives of the Anne Frank House by Menno Metselaar and Ruud Van der Rol
• Truce: The Day the Soldiers Stopped Fighting by Jim Murphy
• Sweethearts of Rhythm: The Story of the Greatest All-Girl Swing Band in the World by Marylin Nelson
• Encyclopedia of the End: Mysterious Death in Fact, Fancy, Folklore, and More by Deborah Noyes
• After Gandhi: One Hundred Years of Nonviolent Resistance by Anne Sibley O'Brien and Perry Edmond O'Brien
• Traveling the Freedom Road: From Slavery and the Civil War through Reconstruction by Linda Barrett Osborne
• Marching For Freedom: Walk Together, Children, and Don't You Grow Weary by Elizabeth Partridge
• The Omnivore's Dilemma: The Secrets behind What You Eat by Michael Pollan and Richie Chevat
• The Vermeer Interviews: Conversations with Seven Works of Art by Bob Raczka
• Ernest Hemingway: A Writer's Life by Catherine Reef
• The Anne Frank Case: Simon Wiesenthal's Search for the Truth by Susan Rubin
• The Secret Subway: The Fascinating Tale of an Amazing Feat of Engineering by Martin W. Sandler
• Ghosts of War: The True Story of a 19-year-old GI by Ryan Smithson
• The Duel: The Parallel Lives of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr by Judith St. George
• The Frog Scientist by Pamela S. Turner
• A Life in the Wild: George Schaller's Struggle to Save the Last Great Beasts by Pamela S. Turner
• Under Siege!: Three Children at the Civil War Battle for Vicksburg by Andrea Warren

References