Award of the Week: California Young Reader Medal

The California Young Reader Medal (CYRM) program encourages recreational reading of popular literature among the young people of California. Young people recommend the titles of their favorite books for nomination, or teachers and librarians note repeatedly read or requested titles, and these are submitted to the California Young Reader Medal Committee. Members of the committee read the suggested books, discuss their merits and appeal to children, and then decide upon a well-balanced list of nominees. To be considered for nomination, a book must be an original work of fiction published within the last four years by a living author.

2018 Winners
Primary
	The Book with No Pictures By: B. J. Novak In this book with no pictures, the reader has to say every silly word, no matter what.
Picture Books for Older Readers
	Barbed Wire Baseball By: Marissa Moss Illustrated by: Yuko Shimizu As a boy, Kenichi “Zeni” Zenimura dreams of playing professional baseball, but everyone tells him he is too small. Yet he grows up to be a successful player, playing with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig! When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in 1941, Zeni and his family are sent to one of ten internment camps where more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry are imprisoned without trials. Zeni brings the game of baseball to the camp, along with a sense of hope. This true story, set in a Japanese internment camp during World War II, introduces children to a little-discussed part of American history through Marissa Moss’s rich text and Yuko Shimizu’s beautiful illustrations. The book includes author and illustrator notes, archival photographs, and a bibliography.
Intermediate
	Pax By: Sara Pennypacker Illustrated by: Jon Klassen After being forced to give up his pet fox Pax, a young boy named Peter decides to leave home and get his best friend back.
Middle School/Junior High
	A Night Divided By: Jennifer A. Nielsen When the Berlin Wall went up, Gerta, her mother, and her brother Fritz are trapped on the eastern side where they were living, while her father, and her other brother Dominic are in the West–four years later, now twelve, Gerta sees her father on a viewing platform on the western side and realizes he wants her to risk her life trying to tunnel to freedom.
Young Adult
	Salt to the Sea By: Ruta Sepetys As World War II draws to a close, refugees try to escape the war’s final dangers, only to find themselves aboard a ship with a target on its hull.