The Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award honors a young adult title selected by the ALAN (Assembly on Literature for Adolescents) Committee as demonstrating a positive approach to life, widespread teen appeal, and literary merit.

2011 Winner:

THE LAST SUMMER OF THE DEATH WARRIORS
by Francisco X. Stork
Seventeen-year-old Pancho is bent on avenging the senseless death of his sister, but after he meets D.Q, who is dying of cancer, and Marisol, one of D.Q.'s caregivers, both boys find their lives changed by their interactions.

2011 Finalists:

AFTER EVER AFTER
by Jordan Sonnenblick
Although Jeff and Tad, encouraged by a new friend, Lindsey, make a deal to help one another overcome aftereffects of their cancer treatments in preparation for eighth grade graduation, Jeff still craves advice from his older brother Stephen, who is studying drums in Africa.

I WILL SAVE YOU
by Matt de la Peña
Seventeen-year-old Kidd Ellison runs away to work for the summer at a beach campsite in California where his hard work and good looks lead to friendship and love but painful past memories surface in menacing ways.

SORTA LIKE A ROCK STAR
by Matthew Quick
Although seventeen-year-old Amber Appleton is homeless, living in a school bus with her unfit mother, she is a relentless optimist who visits the elderly at a nursing home, teaches English to Korean Catholic women with the use of rhythm and blues music, and befriends a solitary Vietnam veteran and his dog, but eventually she experiences one burden more than she can bear and slips into a deep depression.

WOLVES, BOYS, AND OTHER THINGS THAT MIGHT KILL ME
by Kristen Chandler
Two teenagers become close as the citizens of their town fight over the packs of wolves that have been reintroduced into the nearby Yellowstone National Park.

2010 WALDEN AWARDS

For more information, please visit the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award website.