Each year Illinois students in grades 9-12 can vote for their favorite book from the Lincoln Award Master list of 20 titles. The Lincoln Award is given to the book that earns the highest number of student votes. For a book to reach the master list, adult and young adult fiction and nonfiction titles must be nominated by teachers or librarians and vetted by the nominations committee. While the popularity of a particular title is important, the overall quality of the work is of primary importance. Each year, a panel of high school librarians, teachers, public librarians and students determines the final master list of twenty titles.
See more info at the official Lincoln Award website located here
Printable PDF version of the list here
See below for the 2025/2026 academic year’s booklist:
You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron
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Charity has the summer job of her dreams, playing the “final girl” at Camp Mirror Lake. Guests pay to be scared in this full-contact terror game, as Charity and her summer crew recreate scenes from a classic slasher film, Curse of Camp Mirror Lake. The more realistic the fear, the better for business. But on the last weekend of the season, Charity’s co-workers begin disappearing. And when one ends up dead, Charity’s role as the final girl suddenly becomes all too real. If Charity and her girlfriend, Bezi, hope to survive the night, they’ll need to figure out what this killer is after. As they unravel the bloody history of the real Mirror Lake, Charity disocvers that there may be more to the story than she ever suspected…
Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce
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Musical lover Riley has big aspirations to become a director on Broadway… but when Riley takes her mom’s car without permission, she’s grounded and stuck with the worst punishment: spending her after-school hours working at her dad’s game shop. Riley can’t waste her time working… so she convinces Nathan – a nerdy teen employee – to cover her shifts and, in exchange, she’ll flirt with him to make his gamer-girl crush jealous… Soon, Riley starts to think that flirting with Nathan doesn’t require as much acting as she would’ve thought.
Promise Boys by Nick Brooks
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J.B., Ramón, and Trey, students of the Urban Promise Prep School, must follow the school’s strict rules, but when their principal is murdered, the three boys must badn together to track down the real killer before they are arrested.
Plan A by Deb Caletti
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Ivy can’t entirely believe it when the plus sign appears on the test. She didn’t even know it was possible from… what happened. But it is, and now she is, and instead of spending the summer working at the local drugstore and swooning over her boyfriend, Lorenzo, suddenly she’s planning a cross-country road trip to her grandmother’s house on the West Coast, where she can legally obtain an abortion. Escaping her small Texas town and the judgment of her friends and neighbors, Ivy hits the road with Lorenzo, who, determined to make the best of their ‘abortion road trip love story,’ has transformed the journey into a whirlwind tour of the world: all the way from Paris, Texas to Rome, Oregon… and every rest-stop diner and corny roadside attraction along the way. And while Ivy can’t run from the incessand pressure of others’ opinions about her body or from her own expectations and insecurities, she discovers a new world of healing and hope. As the women she encounters share their stories, she chips away at the stigma, silence, and shame surrounding reproductive rights while those collective experiences guide her to her own rightful destination.
Looking for Smoke by K.A. Cobell
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When local girl Loren includes Mara in a traditional Blackfeet Giveaway to honor Loren’s missing sister, Mara thinks she’ll finally make some friends on the Blackfeet reservation. Instead, a girl from the Giveaway, Samantha White Tail, is found murdered. Because the four members of the Giveaway group were the last to see Samantha alive, each becomes a person of interest in the investigation. And all of them – Mara, Loren, Brody, and Eli – have a complicated history with Samantha. Despite deep mistrust, the four must now take matters into their own hands and clear their names. Even though one of them may be the murderer.
Rez Ball by Byron Graves
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These days, Tre Brun is happiest when he is playing basketball on the Red Lake Reservation high school team – even though he can’t help but he constantly gut-punched with memories of his big brother, Jaxon, who died in an accident. When Jaxon’s former varsity teammates offer to take Tre under their wings, he sees this as his shot to represent his Ojibwe rez all the way to their first state championship. This is the first step toward his dream of playing in the NBA, no matter how much the odds are stacked against him. But stepping into his brother’s shoes as a star player means that Tre can’t mess up. Not on the court, not at school, and not with his new friend, gamer Khiana, who he is definitely not falling in love with. After decades of rez teams almost making it, Tre needs to take his team to state. Because if he can live up to Jaxon’s dreams, their story isn’t over yet.
SA Face for Picasso: Coming of Age with Crouzon Syndrome by Byron Graves
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A YA nonfiction story about Ariel and her twin sister’s experience living with Crouzon Syndrome.
Shut Up, This is Serious by Carolina Ixta
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Belén Dolores Itzel del Toro wants the normal stuff: to experience love or maybe have a boyfriend or at least just lose her virginity. But nothing is normal in East Oakland. Her father left her family. She’s at risk of not graduating. And Leti, her super-Catholic, nerdy-ass best friend, is pregnant – by the boyfriend she hasn’t told her parents about because he’s Black and her parents are racist. Things are hella complicated. Weighed down by a depression she can’t seem to shake, Belén helps Leti, hangs out with an older guy, and cuts a lot of class. She soon realizes, though, that distractions are only temporary. Leti is becoming a mother. Classmates are getting ready for college. But what about Belén? What future is there for girls like her?
This is My America by Kim Johnson
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While writing letters to Innocence X, a justice-seeking project, asking them to help her father, an innocent black man on death row, teenaged Tracy takes on another case when her brother is accused of killing his white girlfriend
As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh
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Eighteen-year-old Salama Kassab, a pharmacy student volunteering at the hospital in Homs, is desperate to find passage on a refugee boat for herself and her pregnant best friend, but first she must learn to see the events around her for what they are–not a war, but a revolution.
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
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Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages. When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he’s given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn
Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kristen Miller
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When Lula Dean, trying to rid public libraries of “pornographic” books, starts her own lending library in front of her home, Lindsay, the daughter of Lula’s arch nemesis, sneaks in nightly, secretly filling it with banned books wrapped in “wholesome” dust jackets, changing the lives of those who borrow them in unexpected ways.
Monstrous: A Transracial Adoption Story by Sarah Myer
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Sarah has always struggled to fit in. Born in South Korea and adopted at birth by a white couple, she grows up in a rural community with few Asian neighbors. People whisper in the supermarket. Classmates bully her. She has trouble containing her anger in these moments-but through it all, she has her art. She’s always been a compulsive drawer, and when she discovers anime, her hobby becomes an obsession. Though drawing and cosplay offer her an escape, she still struggles to connect with others. And in high school, the bullies are louder and meaner. Sarah’s bubbling rage is threatening to burst
The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh
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Deadly storms have ravaged Mina’s homeland for generations. Floods sweep away entire villages, while bloody wars are waged over the few remaining resources. Her people believe the Sea God, once their protector, now curses them with death and despair. In an attempt to appease him, each year a beautiful maiden is thrown into the sea to serve as the Sea God’s bride, in the hopes that one day the “true bride” will be chosen and end the suffering. Many believe that Shim Cheong, the most beautiful girl in the village–and the beloved of Mina’s older brother Joon–may be the legendary true bride. But on the night Cheong is to be sacrificed, Joon follows Cheong out to sea, even knowing that to interfere is a death sentence. To save her brother, Mina throws herself into the water in Cheong’s stead. Swept away to the Spirit Realm, a magical city of lesser gods and mythical beasts, Mina seeks out the Sea God, only to find him caught in an enchanted sleep. With the help of a mysterious young man named Shin–as well as a motley crew of demons, gods and spirits–Mina sets out to wake the Sea God and bring an end to the killer storms once and for all. But she doesn’t have much time: A human cannot live long in the land of the spirits. And there are those who would do anything to keep the Sea God from waking…
Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
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When two young rival journalists find love through a magical connection, they must face the depths of hell, in a war among gods, to seal their fate forever
Starter Villain by John Scalzi
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Inheriting your uncle’s supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who’s running the place. Charlie’s life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn’t all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they’re coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital. It’s up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyper-intelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good. In a dog-eat-dog world… be a cat
Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed by Dashka Slater
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When a high school student started a private Instagram account that used racist and sexist memes to make his friends laugh, he thought of it as ‘edgy’ humor. Over time, the edge got sharper. Then a few other kids found out about the account. Pretty soon, everyone knew. Ultimately no one in the small city of Albany, California, was safe from the repercussions of the account’s discovery. Not the girls targeted by the posts. Not the boy who created the account. Not the group of kids that followed it. Not the adults–educators and parents–whose attempts to fix things too often made them worse. In the end, no one was laughing. And everyone was left asking: Where does accountability begin and end for online speech that harms? And what does accountability even mean?
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
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After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors–until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova. Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late
Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White
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Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him–the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon they infected him with. But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction, Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC. The ALC’s leader, Nick, is gorgeous, autistic, and a deadly shot, and he knows Benji’s darkest secret: the cult’s bioweapon is mutating him into a monster deadly enough to wipe humanity from the earth once and for all. Still, Nick offers Benji shelter among his ragtag group of queer teens, as long as Benji can control the monster and use its power to defend the ALC. Eager to belong, Benji accepts Nick’s terms… until he discovers the ALC’s mysterious leader has a hidden agenda, and more than a few secrets of his own
Lunar New Year Love Story by LeUyan Pham and Gene Luen Yang
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Val is ready to give up on love. It’s led to nothing but secrets and heartbreak, and she’s pretty sure she’s cursed–no one in her family, for generations, has ever had any luck with love. But then a chance encounter with a pair of cute lion dancers sparks something in Val. Is it real love? Could this be her chance to break the family curse? Or is she destined to live with a broken heart forever?