Alex Awards
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The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18. The winning titles are selected from the previous year's publishing.
The Alex Awards were first given annually beginning in 1998, and became an official ALA award in 2002.
The award is sponsored by the Margaret Alexander Edwards Trust and Booklist. Edwards was a young adult specialist for many years at the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore. Her work is described in her book Fair Garden and the Swarm of Beasts, and over the years she has served as an inspiration to librarians who serve young adults. The Alex Awards are named after Edwards, who was called "Alex" by her friends.
Past Winners
2008
- American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China, Matthew Polly
- Bad Monkeys, Matt Ruff
- Essex County Volume 1: Tales from the Farm, Jeff Lemire
- Genghis: Birth of an Empire, Conn Iggulden
- The God of Animals, Aryn Kyle
- A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael Beah
- Mister Pip, Lloyd Jones
- The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
- The Night Birds, Thomas Maltman
- The Spellman Files, Lisa Lutz
2007
- The Book of Lost Things, John Connolly
- The Whistling Season, Ivan Doig
- Eagle Blue: A Team, A Tribe, and A High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska, Michael D'Orso
- Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
- Floor of the Sky, Pamela Carter Joern
- Color of the Sea, John Hamamura
- The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, Michael Lewis
- Black Swan Green, David Mitchell
- The World Made Straight, Ron Rash
- The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
2006
- Midnight at the Dragon Café, Judy Fong Bates
- Upstate, Kalisha Buckhanon
- Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman
- As Simple As Snow, Gregory Galloway
- Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
- Gil’s All Fright Diner, A. Lee Martinez
- The Necessary Beggar, Susan Palwick
- My Jim, Nancy Rawles
- Jesus Land: A Memoir, Julia Scheeres
- The Glass Castle: A Memoir, Jeannette Walls
2005
- Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America, Steve Almond
- Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer, Lynn Cox
- Donorboy, Brendan Halpin
- Shadow Divers, Robert Kurson
- Work of Wolves, Kent Meyers
- Truth & Beauty: A Friendship, Ann Patchett
- My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult
- Thinner Than Thou, Kit Reed
- Project X, Jim Shepard
- Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants, Robert Sullivan
2004
- Wonder When You’ll Miss Me, Amanda Davis
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon
- The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
- The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
- Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, Z.Z. Packer
- Stiff, Mary Roach
- True Notebooks, Mark Salzman
- Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
- Maisie Dobbs, Jacqueline Winspear
- Leave Myself Behind, Bart Yates
2003
- One Hundred Demons, Lynda Barry
- My Losing Season, Pat Conroy
- Seeing in the Dark: How Backyard Stargazers Are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth from Interplanetary Peril, Timothy Ferris
- The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
- Crow Lake, Mary Lawson
- The Year of Ice, Brian Malloy
- When the Emperor Was Divine, Julie Otsuka
- The Dive from Clausen’s Pier, Ann Packer
- The Fall of Rome, Martha Southgate
- 10th Grade, Joseph Weisberg
2002
- Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague, Geraldine Brooks
- An American Insurrection: The Battle of Oxford, Mississippi, William Doyle
- Gabriel's Story, David Anthony Durham
- Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in Boom-Time America, Barbara Ehrenreich
- Peace Like a River, Leif Enger
- The Wilderness Family: At Home with Africa's Wildlife, Kobie Kruger
- Kit's Law, Donna Morrissey
- The Rover, Mel Odom
- Motherland, Vineeta Vijayaraghavan
- Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self, Rebecca Walker
2001
- Chang And Eng, Darin Strauss
- Counting Coup, Larry Colton
- Daughter Of The Forest, Juliet Marillier
- Diamond Dogs, Alan Watt
- Flags Of Our Fathers, James Bradley and Ron Powers
- The Girl With A Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
- In The Heart Of The Sea: The Tragedy Of The Whaleship Essex, Nathaniel Philbrick
- The Man Who Ate The 747, Ben Sherwood
- The Sand Reckoner, Gillian Bradshaw
- Soldier: A Poet's Childhood, June Jordan
2000
- High Exposure: An Enduring Passion for Everest and Unforgiving Places, David Breashears
- Ender's Shadow, Orson Scott Card
- River, Cross My Heart, Breena Clarke
- Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year, Esmé Raji Codell
- The Reappearance of Sam Webber, Jonathon Scott Fuqua
- Stardust, Neil Gaiman
- The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain's Journey, Linda Greenlaw
- Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child, Elva Trevino Hart
- Plainsong, Kent Haruf
- Imani All Mine, Connie Porter
1999
- The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition, Caroline Alexander
- Getting In, James Finney Boylan
- Needles, Andie Dominick
- At All Costs, John Gilstrap
- Space, Jesse Lee Kercheval
- Last Days of Summer, Steve Kluger
- Legends: Stories by the Masters of Modern Fantasy, editor: Robert Silverberg
- Antarctica, Kim Stanley Robinson
- Almost a Woman, Esmeralda Santiago
- Caucasia, Danzy Senna
1998
- The Secret Family: Twenty-four Hours inside the Mysterious Worlds of Our Minds and Bodies, David Bodanis
- All Over but the Shoutin', Rick Bragg
- Sugar in the Raw: Voices of Young Black Girls in America, Rebecca Carroll
- What Girls Learn, Karin Cook
- Snow in August, Pete Hamill
- The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men against the Sea, Sebastian Junger
- Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster, Jon Krakauer
- Lest We Forget: The Passage from Africa to Slavery and Emancipation, Velma Maia Thomas
- Only Twice I've Wished for Heaven, Dawn Turner Trice
- To Say Nothing of the Dog; or, How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last, Connie Willis