This week, The New Yorker will announce the finalists for the 2023 National Book Award. Check back this afternoon for a list of translated literature.
Three works on this year’s young adult literature longlist all feature holiday themes with unexpected plot twists: In Huda Fahmy’s graphic novel Huda F. Cares? in Huda Fahmy’s graphic novel Huda F. Cares? In Dan Santat’s graphic memoir “There’s a First Time for Everything,” an awkward middle schooler falls in love during a class trip to Europe; in Betty C. Tang ’s graphic novel “The Parachute Boys,” three Taiwanese siblings dive headfirst into American culture while visiting California.
Other books on the long list illuminate complex historical and scientific events. Hidden Systems: The Secrets Behind Water, Electricity, the Internet, and the Systems We Use Every Day, written and illustrated by Dan Knott, explores the origins and environmental impacts of the complex structures that underpin society. Yohuru Williams and Michael G. Long’s More Than a Dream: The Radical March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom uses black newspaper photos and reports to illuminate the role of black women in the March on Washington. Catherine Marsh’s The Lost Year explores the Holodomor in Ukraine, a government-imposed famine in the 1830s that killed millions.
The ten books on the longlist were selected from three hundred and forty-eight titles submitted by publishers. All eleven authors are first-time National Book Award winners. The full list is below.
Erin Bow“Simon Says”
Disney Hyperion Books/Disney Publishing Worldwide
Kenneth M. Cardow,”gather”
Candlewick Press
Alison Derek“Do not forget me”
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster
Huda Fahmy“Does Huda F care?”
Dial Books for Young Readers/Penguin Random House
Vashti Harrison“big”
Little Brown Books for Young Readers/Hachette Book Group
Catherine Marsh“The Lost Year: A Story of Survival from the Ukrainian Famine”
Roaring Brooke/Macmillan
Dan Knott“Hidden Systems: The Secrets Behind Water, Electricity, the Internet, and the Systems We Use Every Day”
Random House Photo/Penguin Random House
And Santat“There is a first time for everything”
First Second/Macmillan
betty don“Parachute Child”
Graphix / Scholastic, Inc.
Yohuru Williams and Michael G. Long“More Than a Dream: The Radical March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom”
Books for Young Readers by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux/Macmillan
This year’s judges for the category are Sarah Park Dahlen, associate professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Kyle Lukoff, whose novel “Too Bright to See” is a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award; Crow Claudette S. McLinn, executive director of the Center for Multicultural Children’s Literature; Justin A. Reynolds, author of the novel “Always the Opposite”; Sabaa Tahir’s latest novel “My Rage” won the 2022 National Book Award for Young Adult Literature.
