2024 Winners

91´«Ã½

Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction

Congratulations to the winners of the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction. The winners were announced by 2024 selection committee chair Aryssa Damron at the Reference and User Services Association’s Book and Media Awards event during in Baltimore on Saturday, January 20, 2024. A celebratory event, including presentations by the winners and a featured speaker, was held at the 2024 in in San Diego. Carnegie Medal winners each receive $5,000.

Press release: “The Berry Pickers,” “We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America” receive 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction

Share your favorite Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence titles on social media using the #91´«Ã½_Carnegie hashtag!

Book cover: The Berry Pickers, Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, 2024 Finalist

Fiction Winner

91´«Ã½

Amanda Peters
The Berry Pickers
(Catapult)

In 1962, an Indigenous Mi’kmaq family is in Maine to pick summer blueberries when their youngest child, four-year-old Ruthie, disappears. Her six-year-old brother, Joe, saw her last. Told in alternating, first-person chapters from Joe and a narrator called Norma, this braided novel fascinates. While little is easy for Peters’ characters, in the end, for all of them, there is hope.

Book cover: We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America, Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in fNoniction, 2024 Winner

Nonfiction Winner

91´«Ã½

Roxanna Asgarian
We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Investigative reporter Asgarian’s years of work getting to know the birth families of six children killed by their adoptive parents in 2018 uncovered a devastating web of intergenerational poverty, violence, and wrenching separations. She exposes the tragedy of what happened and the ongoing, insupportable failings of the foster system.

Fiction Finalists

Book cover: The Berry Pickers, Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, 2024 Finalist

91´«Ã½


Amanda Peters
(Catapult)

In 1962, an Indigenous Mi’kmaq family is in Maine to pick summer blueberries when their youngest child, four-year-old Ruthie, disappears. Her six-year-old brother, Joe, saw her last. Told in alternating, first-person chapters from Joe and a narrator called Norma, this braided novel fascinates. While little is easy for Peters’ characters, in the end, for all of them, there is hope.

Book cover: Denisen Avenue, Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, 2024 Finalist

91´«Ã½


Christina Wong and Daniel Innes
(ECW Press)

In a mixed-media narrative saturated with a sense of poignancy and grief, Wong Cho Sum navigates the sudden death of her husband by a hit-and-run driver. As an “invisible” elderly observer, she compares the old Chinatown she remembers with this new, slowly gentrifying one. Innes’ detailed and beautiful hand-drawn illustrations are eye-catching complements to Wong’s writing.

Book cover: Let Us Descend, Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, 2024 FInalist

91´«Ã½


Jesmyn Ward
(Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.)

Sold away from her mother, teenage Annis, daughter of a Black mother and the white man who enslaved them, must endure a grueling march to the slave markets of New Orleans with only her wits and her mother’s ivory awl to help her survive. Ward’s vivid imagery and emotionally resonant prose convey the horrors of chattel slavery in stark, unforgettable detail.

Nonfiction Finalists

Book cover: The Great Displacement, Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, 2024 Finalst

91´«Ã½


Jake Bittle
(Simon & Schuster)

This multifaceted examination considers numerous communities that have been wiped out by changing weather patterns and foretells a future filled with additional displacements. Environmental journalist Bittle uses a combination of science reporting and individuals’ stories to explain the fates of towns deemed uninhabitable, and ends with a plea for comprehensive environmental policy change and urgent action.

Book cover: The Talk, Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, 2024 Finalist

91´«Ã½


Darrin Bell
(Henry Holt and Company)

In 2019, Bell became the first Black editorial cartoonist to win a Pulitzer Prize. In this brilliant graphic memoir, Bell’s growth from a trusting child afraid of dogs to an esteemed, nationally syndicated cartoonist is a marvel to witness through his spectacular panels and pages. A must-read manifesto against racist brutality.

Book cover: We Were Once a Family, Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, 2024 Finalist

91´«Ã½


Roxanna Asgarian
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Investigative reporter Asgarian’s years of work getting to know the birth families of six children killed by their adoptive parents in 2018 uncovered a devastating web of intergenerational poverty, violence, and wrenching separations. She exposes the tragedy of what happened and the ongoing, insupportable failings of the foster system.

Fiction Longlist

91´«Ã½

Adjei-Brenyah, Nana Kwame.
Published by Pantheon

91´«Ã½

Allen, Jeffery Renard.
Published by Graywolf

91´«Ã½

Blaché, Sin and Helen Macdonald.
Published by Grove

91´«Ã½

Brinkley, Jamel.
Published by Farrar

91´«Ã½

Chun, Ye.
Published by Catapult

91´«Ã½

Cosby, S. A.
Published by Flatiron

91´«Ã½

Daniell, Sebastián Martínez. Translated by Jennifer Croft.
Published by Charco

91´«Ã½

Earling, Debra Magpie.
Published by Milkweed

91´«Ã½

Heng, Rachel.
Published by Riverhead

91´«Ã½

Herawi, Siamak. Translated by Sara Khalili.
Published by Archipelago

91´«Ã½

Huang, S. L.
Published by Tordotcom

91´«Ã½

Innes, Daniel and Wong, Christina
Published by ECW Press

91´«Ã½

Labatut, Benjamin
Published by Penguin Press

91´«Ã½

Lee, Helen Elaine
Published by Atria

91´«Ã½

Norris, Kelsey
Published by Scribner

91´«Ã½

Peters, Amanda
Published by Catapult

91´«Ã½

Pin, Cecile
Published by Henry Holt and Co.

91´«Ã½

Qian, Cleo
Published by Tin House

91´«Ã½

Shroff, Parini
Published by Ballantine

91´«Ã½

Sze-Lorrain, Fiona
Published by Scribner

91´«Ã½

Ward, Jesmyn
Published by Scribner

Nonfiction Longlist

91´«Ã½

Asgarian, Roxanna.
Published by Farrar

91´«Ã½

Bagby, Meredith.
Published by Morrow

91´«Ã½

Bailar, Schuyler.
Published by Hachette Go

91´«Ã½

Bell, Darrin.
Published by Holt

91´«Ã½

Berg, Scott W.
Published by Pantheon

91´«Ã½

Bittle, Jake.
Published by Simon & Schuster

91´«Ã½

Cooper, Christian.
Published by Random

91´«Ã½

Desmond, Matthew.
Published by Crown

91´«Ã½

Egan, Timothy.
Published by Viking

91´«Ã½

Habib, Shahnaz.
Published by Catapult

91´«Ã½

Higa, Susumu. Translated by Jocelyne Allen.
Published by Fantagraphics

91´«Ã½

Holley, Santi Elijah.
Published by Mariner

91´«Ã½

Leland, Andrew.
Published by Penguin

91´«Ã½

Lowery, Wesley.
Published by Mariner

91´«Ã½

Nguyen, Viet Thanh.
Published by Grove

91´«Ã½

Nuila, Ricardo.
Published by Scribner

91´«Ã½

Sharkey, Erin.
Published by Milkweed

91´«Ã½

Sevigny, Melissa L.
Published by Norton

91´«Ã½

Swarns, Rachel L.
Published by Random

91´«Ã½

Tobar, Héctor.
Published by Farrar/MCD

91´«Ã½

Vanderbes, Jennifer.
Published by Random

91´«Ã½

Wilbur, Matika.
Published by Ten Speed

91´«Ã½

Winston, Ali and Darwin BondGraham.
Published by Atria

91´«Ã½

Woo, Ilyon.
Published by Simon & Schuster