Don’t even think about forgetting how talented the authors are in the Lone Star State. Read below to hear about winners of recent awards.

Mom’s Choice Awards

Amanda M. Thrasher's Stranger in a Mushroom Patch was a 2022 Mom’s Choice Awards Gold Recipient for Children's Books. (This book and series will be on tour with Lone Star Book Blog Tours later this month!)
Mom’s Choice Awards evaluates products and services created for children, families, and educators.

National Jewish Books Award

The Jewish Book Council awarded a National Jewish Book Award for Children's Picture Book to Dallas author Nancy Churnin for Dear Mr. Dickens (Albert Whitman and Co.)

The Jew­ish Book Coun­cil is a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to edu­cat­ing, enrich­ing and strength­en­ing the com­mu­ni­ty through Jew­ish lit­er­a­ture.

Dear Mr. Dickens has also won a 2021 Sydney Taylor Honor Book award from the Association of Jewish Libraries; is a 2022 Junior Library Guild selection; is on Tablet Magazine’s Best Jewish Children’s Book List of 2021 and Chicago Public Library’s Best Informational Books for Younger Readers for 2021; and received a starred review from School Library Journal.

Bram Stoker Awards

The Horror Writers Association (HWA), the premier organization of writers and publishers of horror and dark fantasy, announced this year’s Bram Stoker Awards winners at its first in-person ceremony since 2019 during StokerCon™ at Denver, Colorado’s Curtis Hotel.

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones took the top award for Superior Achievement in a Novel.

Américas Awards

David Bowles's My Two Border Towns & Gloria Amescua's Child of The Flower-Song People won the Américas Award.

“The Américas Award is given in recognition of U.S. works of fiction, poetry, folklore, or selected nonfiction (from picture books to works for young adults) published in the previous year in English or Spanish that authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or the Latinx community in the United States. By combining both and linking the Americas, the award reaches beyond geographic borders, as well as multicultural boundaries, focusing instead upon cultural heritages within the hemisphere. The award is sponsored by the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP), and coordinated by the Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University and the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies at Vanderbilt University."

The winning books are honored each fall at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, in a celebration coinciding with Hispanic Heritage Month.

Authors Marketing International

Authors Marketing International awarded The Baby with Three Families, Two Countries, and One Promise: An International Adoption Story (Bayou City Press) by Julie Gianelloni Connor its 2022 Grand Prize in the Children’s Picture Book category. (Click to visit the Lone Star Book Blog Tours tour page.)

In related news, Bayou City Press, owned by Julie Gianelloni Connor, has been selected by the New World Report Magazine as the “Best Publishing Company 2022” for its Texas Business Awards 2022.

Says Connor, “We are sure that there are a lot of publishers in Texas who would beg to differ with that assessment, but here at BCP we think that, as a brand-new publisher starting out in 2019, just surviving the last two years qualifies us for any and all awards—for grit, determination, tenacity, and of course for having published two award-winning books, with a third on the way!”

Christopher Award

Austin-based author/illustrator Don Tate was honored with a second Christopher Award for the book Pigskins to Paintbrushes: The Story of Football-Playing Artist Ernie Barnes, (Abrams Books for Young Readers), for children aged 8 and up. The book is one of 12 for adults and young people chosen as the Awards mark their 73^rd year. The authors join writers, producers, and directors of 10 winning TV/cable and feature films. Tate's first Christopher Award in 2016 was for Poet.

Bank Street College of Education's Best Children's Books of the Year

Lone Star Literary Life featured authors Diana Lopez, Nancy Churnin (x2), David Bowles, Christina Soontornvat, Chris Barton, Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Cynthia Leitich Smith (x2), Margarita Longoria, Kathi Appelt, Varian Johnson, Gloria Amescua, & Lisa Fipps have books named to the Bank Street College of Education's Best Children's Books of the Year! (Apologies to any Texas authors we may have missed.)

The Children’s Book Committee strives to guide librarians, educators, parents, grandparents, and other interested adults to the best books for children published each year. The titles are chosen by reviewers for literary quality and excellence of presentation as well as the potential emotional impact of the books on young readers. Other criteria include credibility of characterization and plot, authenticity of time and place, age suitability, positive treatment of ethnic and religious differences, and the absence of stereotypes.