Students from central Texas announced the Texas Library Association’s (TLA) 2020-2021 Texas Bluebonnet Award (TBA) Master List at the Texas Book Festival on Saturday, October 26. The Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List is one of the most prestigious children’s literature lists in the country.

Two Texas authors were honored on the 2020-21 list: They Call Me Güero: A Border Kid’s Poems by David Bowles (Cinco Puntos Press, 2018) and What Do You Do With a Voice Like That? The Story of Extraordinary Congresswoman Barbara Jordan by Chris Barton, illustrated by Ekua Holmes (Beach Lane Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Books, 2018).

Students, parents, teachers, librarians, booksellers, and authors eagerly await the yearly release. “Since the first Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List was created, the excitement about this children’s choice award has grown beyond the borders of Texas,” said Jacqui Bridges-Sheppherd, TBA coordinator. “Our primary goals are to introduce children to a variety of quality books, develop critical reading skills, and honor and encourage imaginative authors. The committee considers more than five hundred books in order to select five outstanding books of various genres for grades 3, 4, 5, and 6.”

2020-2021 Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List

• A Place to Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech that Inspired a Nation by Barry Wittenstein, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney ( Neal Porter Books / Holiday House Publishing, Inc., 2019)
• A Wolf Called Wander by Rosanne Parry (Greenwillow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing, 2019)
• Bernice Buttman, Model Citizen by Niki Lenz (Random House Publishing, 2019)
• Caterpillar Summer by Gillian McDunn (Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2019)
• Charlie Hernandez and the League of Shadows by Ryan Calejo (Aladdin Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Books, 2018)
• Frankie Sparks & the Class Pet by Megan Frazer Blakemore, illustrated by Nadja Sarell (Aladdin, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Books, 2019)
• From an Idea to Disney: How Imagination Built a World of Magic by Lowey Bundy Sichol, illustrated by C.S. Jennings (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2019)
• Greystone Secrets #1: The Strangers by Margaret Petersen Haddix (Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing, 2019)
• If I Built a School by Chris Van Dusen (Dial Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2019)
• New Kid by Jerry Craft (Harper an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing, 2019)
• Nightbooks by J.A. White (Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing, 2018)
• No More Poems! A Book in Verse That Just Gets Worse by Rhett Miller, illustrated by Dan Santat (Little Brown and Company, 2019)
• Pass Go and Collect $200: The Real Story of How MONOPOLY Was Invented by Tanya Lee Stone, illustrated by Steven Salerno (Christy Ottaviano Books / Henry Holt, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, 2018)
• Rocket to the Moon (Big Ideas That Changed the World)by Don Brown (Amulet, an imprint of Abrams Books, 2019)
• Stay by Bobbie Pyron (Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing, 2019) 
• Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster by Jonathan Auxier (Amulet, an imprint of Abrams Books,  2018)
• The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman (Nancy Paulsen, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2019)
• The Rhino in the Right Field by Stacy Dekeyser (Margaret K. McElderry Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Books, 2018)
• They Call Me Güero: A Border Kid’s Poems by David Bowles (Cinco Puntos Press, 2018)
• What Do You Do With a Voice Like That? The Story of Extraordinary Congresswoman Barbara Jordan by Chris Barton, illustrated by Ekua Holmes (Beach Lane Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Books, 2018)