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The John and Patricia Beatty AwardThe California Library Association's John and Patricia Beatty Award honors the authors and illustrators of a distinguished books for children and young adults that best promote an awareness of California and its people. A committee of CLA members selects the winning titles from books published in the United States during the preceding year. Patricia Beatty donated the initial cash endowment for the Award which now honors both her husband, John Beatty, who served as professor of English history and humanities at the University of California at Riverside prior to his death in 1975, and Patricia herself who died in 1991. Together the Beattys wrote eleven books of fiction for young readers; Patricia Beatty wrote numerous other books for young people, of which many have California or western settings. It was Patricia Beatty's hope
that the award will encourage the writing of quality children's books
that bring us an awareness of California, its heritage or its future. The Beatty Award Medal was designed by Miyo LeFever. The prize of $500 and a certificate are presented to the recipient during the CLA Beatty Award and California Young Reader Award (CYRM) breakfast at the CLA annual conference. The literary breakfast also provides the author with a forum to speak about his/her book and provides an opportunity for attendees to meet the author during a book signing.
In 2023 we began awarding authors of both Children books for ages 0-12 years old or preschool through middle grade and Young Adults books for teen readers aged 13-18. The addition of this second category allows for viewing elements of illustrated picture books, the ease of text for the young reader as well as the more descriptive content and context of a story developed in teen literature. By not judging the two items against one another, the awards are based on how the authors celebrate the cultural experiences of California and its youth. 2025 Beatty Award Winning Authors The California Library Association is honored to announce the 2025 John and Patricia Beatty Literature Award in Children’s and Young Adult Literature. The winning Children’s title is Barrio Rising: The Protest that Built Chicano Park, written by María Dolores Águila and published by Dial Books Books in 2024. The winning Young Adult title is Rising from the Ashes: Los Angeles, 1992. Edward Jae Song Lee, Latasha Harlins, Rodney King, and a City on Fire , written by Paula Yoo and published by Norton Young Readers in 2024
Beatty Award - Children's CategoryJoin us in congratulating the 2025 Beatty Award-Winning Children’s author María Dolores Águila , for her Barrio Rising: The Protest that Built Chicano Park!
Barrio Rising: The Protest that Built Chicano Park
chronicles Barrio Logan, one of San Diego’s oldest Chicane neighborhoods, which once brimmed with families and stretched all the way to the glorious San Diego Bay. But in the decades after WWII, the community lost their beach and bayfront to factories, junkyards, and an interstate that divided the neighborhood and forced around 5,000 people out of their homes. Then on April 22, 1970, residents discovered that the construction crew they believed was building a park—one the city had promised them years ago—was actually breaking ground for a police station. That’s when they knew it was time to make their voices heard.
Barrio Rising
invites readers to join a courageous young activist and her neighbors in their successful twelve-day land occupation and beyond, when Barrio Logan banned together and built the colorful park that would become the corazón of San Diego’s Chicane
community.
María Dolores Águila s a San Diego–based, self-taught Chicana writer who believes that stories can change the world. In all her work, she seeks to honor where we come from and spark new connections, always rooted in the belief that creativity can heal and transform. Her writing is shaped by the histories she carries, the comunidad that raised her, and a lifelong love of words that create space for hope . Beatty Award - Young Adults's CategoryJoin us in congratulating our 2025 Beatty Award-Winning Young Adult author, Paula Yoo, for her book Rising from the Ashes: Los Angeles, 1992. Edward Jae Song Lee, Latasha Harlins, Rodney King, and a City on Fire. Award-winning author Paula Yoo delivers a compelling, nuanced account of Los Angeles’s 1992 uprising and its impact on its Korean and Black American communities. In the spring of 1992, after a jury returned not guilty verdicts in the trial of four police officers charged in the brutal beating of a Black man, Rodney King, Los Angeles was torn apart. Thousands of fires were set, causing more than a billion dollars in damage. In neighborhoods abandoned by the police, protestors and storeowners exchanged gunfire. More than 12,000 people were arrested and 2,400 injured. Sixty-three died. In Rising from the Ashes, Yoo draws on the experience of the city’s Korean American community to narrate and illuminate this uprising, from the racism that created economically disadvantaged neighborhoods torn by drugs and gang-related violence, to the tensions between the city’s minority communities. At its heart are the stories of three lives and three families: those of Rodney King; of Latasha Harlins, a Black teenager shot and killed by a Korean American storeowner; and Edward Jae Song Lee, a Korean American man killed in the unrest. Woven throughout, and set against a minute-by-minute account of the uprising, are the voices of dozens others: police officers, firefighters, journalists, business owners, and activists whose recollections give texture and perspective to the events of those five days in 1992 and their impact over the years that followed.
Paula Yoo is an acclaimed book author, TV writer/producer, and musician. Her children’s and Young Adult nonfiction books and novels have won many awards, including the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the National Book Award Longlist for Young People’s Literature, YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award, Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist, the Asian Pacific American Youth Literature Award, several IRA Notables and Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selections, plus many starred reviews. The 2025 Beatty Award Committee hopes that library professionals from around California will join us for our presentation of the awards at the Youth Literature Awards Breakfast at California Library Association's Annual Conference on Saturday, October 25 at 10 a.m. Attendees get a chance to hear the authors speak about their winning books! Many thanks to the 2025 Beatty Award Committee for reading and reviewing all of our children’s and young adult nominees:
Co-Chair: Beth Gousman, Oakland Unified School Library Co-Chair: Yesica Hurd, Berkeley Public Library Allison Bridgewater, Ontario City Library Madeline Bryant, Marin County Free Library Genevieve Egana, Kern County Library Pauline Harris, San Francisco Public Library Kari Leos, Stockton-San Joaquin County Public Library Angela Moffett, Alameda County Library Elizabeth Perez, San Francisco Public Library Lauren Regenhardt, Irvine Public Library Valerie Tohom, Los Angeles Public Library James Tyner, Fresno County Library 2026 Beatty Award Committee
Submissions for the 2026 Beatty Award The 2026 committee will need your help to find children's and young adult books that are published in the 2025 calendar year, set in California, and highlighting California's cultural heritage or people.
The nomination/submission window for the 2026 Beatty Award will be from April 1, 2025 to February 28, 2026. To submit your books published in 2025, please contact the 2026 Beatty Co-Chairs:
Lauren Regenhardt, Irvine Public Library Lregenhardt@cityofirvine.org
Madeline Bryant, Marin County Free Library, madeline.bryant@marincounty.
Check back on this page for updates about where to send your books for submission.
Eureka! Bibliography First presented in 1989 for a book published in 1988, the John and Patricia Beatty Award winner(s) is announced each year during National Library Week. All other qualifying books are evaluated for possible inclusion in the “Eureka! California in Children's Literature” bibliography. A compilation of the work from over twenty years of Beatty Award committees, “Eureka! California in Children's Literature” is a bibliography of noteworthy children's and young adult books set in California and highlighting California history and culture. Critical annotations describe each title, and estimated grade levels are also included. Titles are organized into two categories, fiction and non-fiction, and within each category, by author. In July 2018, the current list was updated and titles no longer in print are indicated by a print status of [OP]. Publishers listed are in all cases the original publishers, although some of the original editions have been supplemented and/or replaced by paperback editions. The Beatty Award Committee members, both past and present, hope that this list will be useful and will lead to further discoveries about California, as well as to an appreciation for Patricia Beatty that includes not only her own and her husband's novels, but her love of the state that inspired so many of their works. Eureka! California Children's Literature bibliography: sortable file (through 2023) (XLS, 502 KB) |
10/9/20252025 CLA Election Results
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