California Young Reader Medal Winners

The California Young Reader Medal program encourages recreational reading of popular literature among the young people of our state. Since its inception in 1974, millions of California children have nominated, read, and voted for the winners of the California Young Reader Medal. See the California Young Reader Medal official website for more information about the award and past winners.

In this humorous retelling of a Cuban folktale, a cockroach interviews her suitors in order to decide whom to marry.

Imaginative and adventurous Katrina eludes her maniacal guardian to help Morty, a member of a vanishing breed of zorgles, with his quest to uncover the fate of the fabled zorgles of Zorgmazoo as well as of other creatures that seem to have disappeared from the earth.

A young soldier in Vietnam bonds with his bomb-sniffing dog.

In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place.

A humorous look at five of our country's founding fathers.