Center for Children’s Literature

Irma Black Award

The Irma Simonton Black and James H. Black Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature (Irma Black Award) goes to an outstanding book for young children—a book in which text and illustrations are inseparable, each enhancing and enlarging on the other to produce a singular whole. The Irma Black Award is unusual in that children are the final judges of the winning book.

2025 Award Ceremony

Thousands of children in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and the United Arab Emirates will participate in the voting process in 2025. We will share links to videos from the gold and silver medalists on this page in late May.

2025 Irma Black Award Contenders


Meena’s Saturday
Claudette Colvin
The Book That Almost Rhymed
Pedro’s Yo-Yos

Irma Black Award Contenders

  • Meena’s Saturday by Kusum Mepani; illustrated by Yasmeen Ismail (Kokila)
  • Claudette Colvin: I Want Freedom Now! by Claudette Colvin and Phillip Hoose; illustrated by Bea Jackson (Farrar Straus and Giroux)
  • The Book That Almost Rhymed by Omar Abed; illustrated by Hatem Aly (Dial Books for Young Readers)
  • Pedro’s Yo-Yos: How a Filipino Immigrant Came to America and Changed the World of Toys by Rob Peñas; illustrated by Carl Angel (Lee & Low Books)

2024 Irma Black Award Winner

The King Penguin
Author: Vanessa Roeder
Publisher: Dial Books for Young Readers, Penguin Random House

Honor Books

  • Summer Is For Cousins by Rajani LaRocca, illustrated by Abhi Alwar (Abrams)
  • The Green Piano: How Little Me Found Music by Roberta Flack with Tonya Bolden, illustrated by Hayden Goodman (Random House Kids)
  • Rainbow Shopping by Qing Zhuang (Holiday House)