WinnerWhen You Can SwimJack WongChildren and families spend time swimming outdoors, encountering both the pleasures and fears of water. The book follows children learning to swim while exploring water in nature. Pastel and watercolor illustrations show families together outside, pairing swimming with the varied feelings that can arise as children become more familiar with water.Picture BookView book detailsBoston Globe–Horn Book Awards 2023
The 2023 Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards recognize nine books in picture books, fiction and poetry, and nonfiction. Jack Wong's When You Can Swim, Angeline Boulley's Warrior Girl Unearthed, and Jarrett J. Krosoczka's Sunshine receive the three awards. Each category also includes two Honor Books, among them Remember, Promise Boys, When Clouds Touch Us, H Is for Harlem, and Choosing Brave.
2023 Boston Globe–Horn Book AwardsSee the original list
Selections9
Published byThe Horn Book
Sections3 sections
Browse sections3 sections
Picture Book
3 selections
WinnerWhen You Can SwimJack WongChildren and families spend time swimming outdoors, encountering both the pleasures and fears of water. The book follows children learning to swim while exploring water in nature. Pastel and watercolor illustrations show families together outside, pairing swimming with the varied feelings that can arise as children become more familiar with water.Picture BookView book details
HonorRememberJoy HarjoThis presentation of Joy Harjo’s poem considers the bonds between people, the earth, and one another. Grounded in Mvskoke tradition, it is accompanied by art from Michaela Goade that evokes Tlingit creation stories and landscapes. The book is an adaptation of Harjo’s poem and pays attention to nature, Indigenous culture, and the idea that people are deeply connected with the natural world.Picture BookLexile Text Measure AD480LATOS Book Level 2.1View book details
HonorStanding in the Need of Prayer: A Modern Retelling of the Classic SpiritualCarole Boston WeatherfordThis picture book draws on a classic African American spiritual and reworks its lyrics to trace African American history. Its pages highlight historical milestones alongside struggles, tragedies, and triumphs. The retelling also centers the resilience of the Black community, connecting a traditional spiritual with moments from Black history. The book brings together music, cultural heritage, history, and community perseverance in a modern picture-book form.Picture BookView book detailsFiction and Poetry
3 selections
WinnerWarrior Girl UnearthedAngeline BoulleySixteen-year-old Perry Firekeeper-Birch spends the summer as an intern in a tribal museum, where she learns about NAGPRA and the failure to return Native ancestral remains and sacred items. Disturbed by what she sees at a nearby college, Perry takes impulsive action while local Indigenous women disappear. A trustee’s murder leads her to a devastating discovery involving ancestral remains, exposing further secrets hidden on the land.Fiction and PoetryLexile Text Measure HL720LATOS Book Level 5.09View book details
HonorPromise BoysNick BrooksAfter the principal of a tightly disciplined preparatory school is murdered, three students are arrested. All three are boys of color, and they decide to work together to establish their innocence before blame settles on them. As they pursue the truth behind the killing, the students must navigate the consequences of the investigation at their school and the suspicion directed at them.Fiction and PoetryLexile Text Measure 731LATOS Book Level 4.7View book details
HonorWhen Clouds Touch UsThanhhà LạiTwo years after leaving Vietnam, Hà has begun to feel at home in Alabama when her mother announces another move, this time to Texas for work. Starting over means leaving familiar places and friends just as life has become more settled. Told in verse and drawing on Thanhhà Lại's childhood, this sequel to Inside Out and Back Again follows Hà and her family through another year of change. The story explores the strain of repeated upheaval alongside the friendships, opportunities, and family bonds that can help make a new place feel like home.Fiction and PoetryLexile Text Measure 880LATOS Book Level 5.4View book detailsNonfiction
3 selections
WinnerSunshineJarrett J. KrosoczkaIn this graphic novel, sixteen-year-old Jarrett joins a summer camp serving seriously ill children and their families as a counselor. He initially fears the work will be depressing, but time at camp changes his understanding as he forms connections with the children and their families. The story follows a camp community shaped by illness, empathy, hope, and resilience.NonfictionLexile Text Measure HL460LATOS Book Level 3.1View book details
HonorH Is for HarlemDinah JohnsonAn alphabetical book explores Harlem’s Black history and culture through people, buildings, institutions, works of art, landmarks, performance spaces, museums, community centers, and traditions. Entries include places such as the Apollo Theatre, Liberation Bookstore, and Uptown. Different elements of Harlem’s past and present are brought together in an illustrated archive of a neighborhood that has shaped American culture across generations.NonfictionView book details
HonorChoosing Brave: How Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till Sparked the Civil Rights MovementAngela JoyThis picture-book biography tells of Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till. In 1955, Emmett, then fourteen, was murdered while visiting the South. The book follows how Mamie Till-Mobley turned her grief after his death into a call for action within the civil rights movement. It places her story in the history of racial violence and the movement for civil rights.NonfictionLexile Text Measure 680LATOS Book Level 4.4View book details