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Watch us on YouTubeThe Golden Kite Awards, given annually to recognize excellence in children’s literature, grant cash prizes of $2,500 to author and illustrator winners in four categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Picture Book Text, and Picture Book Illustration. Authors and illustrators will also receive an expense-paid trip to Los Angeles to attend the award ceremony at the Golden Kite Luncheon at SCBWI’s Summer Conference in August.
The Civil War of Amos Abernathy
by Michael Leali
Published in 2022 by Harper
ISBN: 9780063119864
Amos Abernathy lives for history. Literally. He's been a historical reenactor nearly all his life. But when a cute new volunteer arrives at his Living History Park, Amos finds himself wondering if there's something missing from history: someone like the two of them. Amos is sure there must have been LGBTQ+ people in nineteenth-century Illinois. His search turns up Albert D. J. Cashier, a Civil War soldier who might have identified as a trans man if he'd lived today. Soon Amos starts confiding in his newfound friend by writing letters in his journal--and hatches a plan to share Albert's story with his divided twenty-first century town. It may be an uphill battle, but it's one that Amos is ready to fight.
2023 Golden Kite Award - Middle Grade Fiction
Red, White, and Whole
by Rajani LaRocca
Published in 2023 by Quill Tree Books
ISBN: 9780063047433
A novel in verse about identity, family, and hope.
2022 Golden Kite Award - Middle Grade Fiction
Ways to Make Sunshine
by Renée Watson
Published in 2020 by Bloomsbury Children’s Books
ISBN: 9781547600564
The Hart family of Portland, Oregon, faces many setbacks after Ryan's father loses his job, but no matter what, Ryan tries to bring sunshine to her loved ones.
2021 Golden Kite Award - Middle Grade Fiction
The Bridge Home
by Padma Venkatraman
Published in 2019 by Puffin Books
ISBN: 9781524738112
Life is harsh in Chennai's teeming streets, so when runaway sisters Viji and Rukku arrive, their prospects look grim. Very quickly, eleven-year-old Viji discovers how vulnerable they are in this uncaring, dangerous world. Fortunately, the girls find shelter - and friendship - on an abandoned bridge. With two homeless boys, Muthi and Arul, the group forms a family of sorts.
2020 Golden Kite Award Winner - Middle Grade Fiction
Lifeboat 12
by Susan Hood
Published in 2018 by Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 9781481468831
This compelling novel in verse, based on true events, tells the story of a boy's harrowing experience on a lifeboat after surviving a torpedo attack during World War II.
2019 Golden Kite Award Winner - Middle Grade Fiction
Vincent and Theo
by Deborah Heiligman
Published in 2017 by Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 9780805093391
The true story of the relationship between brothers Theo and Vincent van Gogh.
2018 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
We Will Not Be Silent
by Russell Freedman
Published in 2016 by Clarion Books
ISBN: 9780544223790
Presents the true story of the White Rose, a group of students in Nazi Germany who were active undercover agents of the resistance movement against Hitler and his regime.
2017 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
Challenger Deep
by Neal Shusterman
Published in 2015 by HarperTeen
ISBN: 9780061134111
A teenage boy struggles with schizophrenia.
2016 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
Revolution
by Deborah Wiles
Published in 2014 by Scholastic Press
ISBN: 9780545106078
It's 1964, and Sunny's town is being invaded. Or at least that's what the adults of Greenwood, Mississippi are saying. All Sunny knows is that people from up north are coming to help people register to vote. They're calling it Freedom Summer. Meanwhile, Sunny can't help but feel like her house is being invaded, too. She has a new stepmother, a new brother, and a new sister crowding her life, giving her little room to breathe.
2015 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
Better Nate than Ever
by Tim Federle
Published in 2013 by Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
ISBN: 9781442446915
An eighth-grader who dreams of performing in a Broadway musical concocts a plan to run away to New York and audition for the role of Elliot in the musical version of "E.T."
2014 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook
by Joanne Rocklin
Published in 2012 by Amulet Books
ISBN: 9781419701924
As ten-year-old Oona and her younger brother conspire to break their sick cat Zook out of the veterinary clinic, Oona tells the story of Zook's previous lives.
2013 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
Between Shades of Gray
by Ruta Sepetys
Published in 2011 by Penguin Group USA
ISBN: 9780399254123
Between Shades of Gray tells the harrowing story of Lina, a young Lithuanian girl fighting for her life and the honor of her family during the Soviet cleansing of the Baltic region in 1941. The daughter of a Lithuanian refugee herself, Sepetys wrote this book in hopes of shedding light on the hundreds of thousands of people who lost their lives during this tragic time. Readers will be inspired by Lina’s strength of spirit and devotion to her family and moved by Sepetys’ heartfelt gift for storytelling.
2012 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
Turtle in Paradise
by Jennifer Holm
Published in 2010 by Random House Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780375836886
In 1935, when her mother gets a job housekeeping for a woman who does not like children, eleven-year-old Turtle is sent to stay with relatives she has never met in far away Key West, Florida.
2011 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
Sea of the Dead
by Julia Durango
Published in 2009 by Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
ISBN: 9781416957782
When thirteen-year-old Kehl, fifth son of the Warrior Prince Amatec, is kidnapped by the Fallen King and forced to map the entire Carillon Empire, he also discovers a secret about his own past.
2010 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
Down Sand Mountain
by Steve Watkins
Published in 2008 by Candlewick Press
ISBN: 9780763638399
In a small Florida mining town in 1966, twelve-year-old Dewey faces one worst-day-ever after another, but comes to know that the issues he faces about bullies, girls, race, and identity are part of the adult world, as well.
2008 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
Home of the Brave
by Katherine Applegate
Published in 2007 by Feiwel & Friends
ISBN: 9780312367657
Kek, an African refugee, is confronted by many strange things at the Minneapolis home of his aunt and cousin, as well as in his fifth grade classroom, and longs for his missing mother, but finds comfort in the company of a cow and her owner.
2007 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
Firegirl
by Tony Abbott
Published in 2006 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780316011716
A middle school boy's life is changed when Jessica, a girl disfigured by burns, starts attending his Catholic school while receiving treatment at a local hospital.
2006 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
A Room on Lorelei Street
by Mary E. Pearson
Published in 2005 by Henry Holt & Company
ISBN: 9780805076677
To escape a miserable existence taking care of her alcoholic mother, seventeen-year-old Zoe rents a room from an eccentric woman, but her earnings as a waitress after school are minimal and she must go to extremes to cover expenses.
2005 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
Bucking the Sarge
by Christopher Paul Curtis
Published in 2004 by Wendy Lamb Books
ISBN: 9780385323079
Deeply involved in his cold and manipulative mother's shady business dealings in Flint, Michigan, fourteen-year-old Luther keeps a sense of humor while running the Happy Neighbor Group Home For Men, all the while dreaming of going to college and becoming a philosopher.
2004 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
Milkweed
by Jerry Spinelli
Published in 2003 by Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780375813740
He's a boy who wants to be a Nazi some day, with tall shiny jackboots and a gleaming Eagle hat of his own. Until the day that suddenly makes him change his mind. And when the trains come to empty the Jews from the ghetto of the damned, he's a boy who realizes it's safest of all to be nobody. Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli takes us to one of the most devastating settings imaginable--Nazi-occupied Warsaw of World War II--and tells a tale of heartbreak, hope, and survival through the bright eyes of a young orphan.
2003 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
Fresh Girl
by Jaira Placide
Published in 2002 by Wendy Lamb Books
ISBN: 9780385327534
After having been sent, at a very young age, from New York to live with her grandmother in Haiti, fourteen-year-old Mardi returns to join her parents and try to shape a new life in Brooklyn.
2002 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
True Believer
by Virginia Euwer Wolff
Published in 2001 by Atheneum Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780689828270
Living in the inner city amidst guns and poverty, fifteen-year-old LaVaughn learns from old and new friends, and inspiring mentors, that life is what you make it--an occasion to rise to.
2001 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
The Boxer
by Kathleen Karr
Published in 2000 by Farrar Straus Giroux
ISBN: 9780374309213
Having learned how to box while in prison, fifteen-year-old Johnny sets out to discover if he can make a decent living as a fighter in late nineteenth-century New York City.
2000 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
Speak
by Laurie Halse Anderson
Published in 1999 by Farrar Straus Giroux
ISBN: 9780374371524
A traumatic event near the end of the summer has a devastating effect on Melinda's freshman year in high school.
1999 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
Rules of the Road
by Joan Bauer
Published in 1998 by G.P. Putnam's Sons
ISBN: 9780399231407
Sixteen-year-old Jenna gets a job driving the elderly owner of a chain of successful shoe stores from Chicago to Texas to confront the son who is trying to force her to retire, and along the way Jenna hones her talents as a saleswoman and finds the strength to face her alcoholic father.
1998 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
Stones in Water
by Donna Jo Napoli
Published in 1997 by Dutton Children's Books
ISBN: 9780525458425
After being taken by German soldiers from a local movie theater along with other Italian boys including his Jewish friend, Roberto is forced to work in Germany, escapes into the Ukrainian winter, before desperately trying to make his way back home to Venice.
1997 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
The Moorchild
by Eloise McGraw
Published in 1996 by Margaret K. McElderry Books
ISBN: 9780689806544
Half Moorfolk and half human, and unable to shape-shift or disappear at will, Moql threatens the safety of the Band. So the Folk banish her and send her to live among humans as a changeling. Named Saaski by the couple for whose real baby she was swapped, she grows up taunted and feared by the villagers for being different, and is comfortable only on the moor, playing strange music on her bagpipes.
1996 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963
by Christopher Paul Curtis
Published in 1995 by Listening Library Inc.
ISBN: 9780440228004
The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an African American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of 1963.
1995 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
Sarah, Plain and Tall
by Patricia MacLachlan
Published in 1985 by
ISBN: 9780060241025
1985 Golden Kite Award Winner - Fiction
