During an online event hosted by the Austin Central Library, Kirkus Reviews, the nation’s leading prepublication journal of book reviews, announced the winners of the seventh annual Kirkus Prize in the categories of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature.

The Kirkus Prize was created in 2014 to celebrate the discerning, thoughtful criticism that Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large since it was founded in 1933. For more information about Kirkus Reviews and the Kirkus Prize, please click here.
 

2020 Winners

FICTION
LUSTER by Raven Leilani (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

NONFICTION
STAKES IS HIGH: Life After the American Dream, by Mychal Denzel Smith (Bold Type Books)

YOUNG READERS’ LITERATURE
I AM EVERY GOOD THING by Derrick Barnes, illustrated by Gordon C. James (Nancy Paulsen Books)
 

2020 Finalists

FICTION

• BLACK SUNDAY by Tola Rotimi Abraham (Catapult)
• FIEBRE TROPICAL by Juli Delgado Lopera (Feminist Press)
• THE LYING LIFE OF ADULTS by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein (Europa Editions)
• LUSTER by Raven Leilani (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• DEACON KING KONG by James McBride (Riverhead Books)
• SHUGGIE BAIN by Douglas Stuart (Grove Press)

 
NONFICTION

• A FURIOUS SKY: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America's Hurricanes, by Eric Jay Dolin (Liveright)
• FATHOMS: The World in the Whale, by Rebecca Giggs (Simon & Schuster)
• THE ADDRESS BOOK: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power, by Deirdre Mask (St. Martin's Press)
• WORLD OF WONDERS: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (Milkweed Editions)
• STAKES IS HIGH: Life After the American Dream, by Mychal Denzel Smith (Bold Type Books)
• CASTE: The Origins of Our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson (Random House)

 
YOUNG READERS’ LITERATURE
 
Picture Books

• I AM EVERY GOOD THING by Derrick Barnes, illustrated by Gordon C. James (Nancy Paulsen Books)
• WE ARE WATER PROTECTORS by Carole Lindstrom, illustrated by Michaela Goade (Roaring Brook Press)

Middle Grade

• THE GIRL AND THE GHOST by Hanna Alkaf (Harper/HarperCollins)
• FIGHTING WORDS by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (Dial Books)

Young Adult

• CLAP WHEN YOU LAND by Elizabeth Acevedo (Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins)
• STAMPED: Racism, Antiracism, and You, by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi (Little, Brown)