2018 Indies Choice/E.B. White Read-Aloud Award Finalists Announced

On Wednesday, March 28, the American Booksellers Association announced the finalists for the 2018 Indies Choice Book Awards and the E.B. White Read-Aloud Awards. Booksellers at ABA member stores across the country will choose the winners in nine categories in online balloting between now and Wednesday, May 2. The winners will be announced in Bookselling This Week on Wednesday, May 9.

All of this year’s finalists represent the types of books that indie booksellers champion best. The E.B. White Read-Aloud finalists also reflect the playful, well-paced language, the engaging themes, and the universal appeal to a wide range of ages embodied by E.B. White’s collection of beloved books.

Every bookseller at an ABA member store is encouraged to vote; one ballot per person will be accepted. One book in each category will be declared the winner, with the exception of the Picture Book Hall of Fame, where booksellers will choose three inductees. The winners will be fêted along with the honor book recipients at ABA’s Celebration of Bookselling and Author Awards Lunch on Wednesday, May 30, at BookExpo 2018 at the Javits Convention Center in New York City. Registration for the lunch is open now; space is limited, and there is a limit of four booksellers per store.

The finalists in the Indies Choice Book Award categories of Adult Fiction, Adult Nonfiction, and Adult Debut were chosen by a jury of five ABA member booksellers from titles appearing on the 2017 Indie Next Lists. The finalists for the Indies Choice Book Award in the Young Adult category and for the E.B. White Read-Aloud Middle Reader and Picture Book awards were chosen by a jury of six children’s booksellers from the ABC Children’s Group at ABA. Finalists were chosen from titles appearing on the 2017 Kids’ Indie Next Lists, with additional titles for the E.B. White awards nominated by ABC Group members. The finalists for the 2018 Indie Champion Award were chosen by both juries. The finalists for the new audiobook category were chosen by a jury of three indie booksellers.

This year’s finalists are:

Book of the Year – Adult Fiction

• Exit West: A Novel by Mohsin Hamid (Riverhead Books)
• Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel by George Saunders (Random House)
• Little Fires Everywhere: A Novel by Celeste Ng (Penguin Press)
• Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls (New Directions)
• Pachinko: A Novel by Min Jin Lee (Grand Central Publishing)
• Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward (Scribner)

Book of the Year – Adult Nonfiction

• Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy by Anne Lamott (Riverhead Books)
• Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay (Harper)
• Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann (Doubleday)
• Silence: In the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge, Becky L. Crook (Trans.) (Pantheon)
• Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone by Juli Berwald (Riverhead Books)
• The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel (Knopf)

Book of the Year – Adult Debut

• Fen: Stories by Daisy Johnson (Graywolf Press)
• Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf Press)
• History of Wolves: A Novel by Emily Fridlund (Atlantic Monthly Press)
• The Leavers: A Novel by Lisa Ko (Algonquin Books)
• The Long Haul: A Trucker’s Tales of Life on the Road by Finn Murphy (W.W. Norton & Company)
• Stephen Florida: A Novel by Gabe Habash (Coffee House Press)

Book of the Year – Young Adult

• All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic Press)
• Dear Martin by Nic Stone (Crown Books for Young Readers)
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Balzer + Bray)
• Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books)
• Turtles All the Way Down by John Green (Dutton Books for Young Readers)
• When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon (Simon Pulse)

E.B. White Read-Aloud Award – Picture Book

• After the Fall (How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again) by Dan Santat (Roaring Brook Press)
• Alfie (The Turtle That Disappeared) by Thyra Heder (Harry N. Abrams)
• Come With Me by Holly M. McGhee, Pascal Lemaître (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers)
• Dragons Love Tacos 2: The Sequel by Adam Rubin, Daniel Salmieri (Illus.) (Dial Books)
• Escargot by Dashka Slater, Sydney Hanson (Illus.) (Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers)
• The Wolf, the Duck, and the Mouse by Mac Barnett, Jon Klassen (Illus.) (Candlewick)

E.B. White Read-Aloud Award – Middle Reader

• The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora by Pablo Cartaya (Viking Books for Young Readers)
• The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Pérez (Viking Books for Young Readers)
• One Last Word by Nikki Grimes (Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books)
• Refugee by Alan Gratz (Scholastic)
• The Stars Beneath Our Feet by David Barclay Moore (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
• Wishtree by Katherine Applegate (Feiwel & Friends)

Picture Book Hall of Fame

• Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty, David Roberts (Harry N. Abrams)
• Freight Train by Donald Crews (Greenwillow Books)
• I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King, Kadir Nelson (Illus.) (Schwartz & Wade)
• Otis and the Tornado by Loren Long (Philomel Books)
• Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
• Tuesday by David Wiesner (Clarion Books)
• We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen, Helen Oxenbury (Illus.) (Margaret K. McElderry Books)
• Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears by Verna Aardema, Leo and Diane Dillon (Illus.) (Dial Books)
• Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox, Julie Vevas (Illus.) (Kane Miller)

Audiobook of the Year (New Category)

Because of the growing popularity of audiobooks, the American Booksellers Association is debuting the new Audiobook of the Year category for 2018.

During the voting period, Libro.fm is featuring the Indies Choice Audiobook of the Year nominees through its complimentary Audiobook Listening Copy (ALC) program. Booksellers who are not registered with Libro.fm can access the ALCs by creating a free Libro.fm account and sending an e-mail to [email protected] with the name of their store.

• American War: A Novel by Omar El Akkad, read by Dion Graham (Penguin Random House Audio) (Listen now)
• The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, read by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich (Macmillan Audio) (Listen now)
• Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay, read by Roxane Gay (HarperAudio) (Listen now)
• Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann, read by Will Patton, Ann Marie Lee, and Danny Campbell (Penguin Random House Audio) (Listen now)
• Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, read by Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, George Saunders, and a full cast (Penguin Random House Audio) (Listen now)
• The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott, read by Euan Morton (Macmillan Audio) (Listen now)

Indie Champion Award

The Indie Champion Award is presented to the author, illustrator, or group that, in the opinion of booksellers, has the best sense of the importance of independent bookstores to their communities at large and the strongest personal commitment to foster and support the mission and passion of independent booksellers. ABA invites readers to learn more about the finalists by clicking on their names below:

• Judy Blume
• David Levithan
• Celeste Ng
• Jason Reynolds
• Jesmyn Ward
• Jacqueline Woodson

To help booksellers promote the finalists in newsletters and other marketing materials, the Indies Choice and E.B. White awards logos are available in BookWeb’s Designs and Downloads.

Members of this year’s Indies Choice Book Awards jury for the adult categories were:

• Melissa DeMotte, The Well-Read Moose, Coeur d’Alene, ID
• Lori Feathers, Interabang Books, Dallas, TX
• Steven Salardino, Skylight Books, Los Angeles, CA
• Justin Souther, Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café, Asheville, NC
• Elayna Trucker, Napa Bookmine, Napa, CA

The 2018 jury members for the children’s categories were:

• Kim Brock, Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Cincinnati, OH
• Earl Dizon, Green Bean Books, Portland, OR
• Melissa Fox, Watermark Books & Café, Wichita, KS
• Kristen Gilligan, Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver, CO
• Dave Shallenberger, Little Shop of Stories, Decatur, GA
• Donna Wells, Politics & Prose, Washington, DC

The 2018 jury members for the inaugural audiobook category were:

• Kate Layte, Papercuts J.P., Boston, MA
• Matt Norcross, McLean & Eakin Booksellers, Petoskey, MI
• Melinda Powers, Bookshop Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA

All ABA member booksellers are invited to cast their ballots now.