December 11

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Nominate Your 2023 Favorites for the 13th Annual Nerdies! by Donalyn Miller

Posted by on December 11, 2023 in 2023 Nerdies | 5 Comments

In November, Goodreads, the well-known social media site for readers, opened voting for its annual Goodreads Choice Awards. Many members noticed some disappointing changes. Children’s and middle grade, poetry, and graphic novels were removed from the voting categories. In other words, Dan Santat’s lauded graphic memoir, A First Time for Everything, won the National Book Award last month, but it won’t win a Goodreads nod this year! Not enough interest, according to Goodreads. 

Goodreads changed their award categories in response to data collected from members’ shelving habits—claiming that graphic novels and other removed categories are not popular enough. This is not the first change that excludes some readers and their preferences. Goodreads got rid of the nomination process for their awards last year. Readers no longer select the short list of nominees. Given the changes, Goodreads Choice Awards is no longer a “people’s choice” award. It is a “people’s algorithm” award. 

This month, the Nerdy Book Club celebrates our thirteenth anniversary. We began this blog in large part because of our students and their tastes in books. As classroom teachers, Colby Sharp, Katherine Sokolowski, and I observed that many of the books our students loved to read didn’t win “Best of” awards or appear on recommendation lists. There were many books that passed from reader to reader. No starred review needed. Heartfelt testimonials often entice readers more than anything else. 

As I have long insisted, the best person to give a book recommendation to a seventh grader, is another seventh grader, after all. 

Nerdy Book Club endures as a space where all books and all readers are celebrated. We launched this blog as a place to host an online community-based book award. The community that has grown from this blog has expanded far beyond that original goal. There have been lots of Nerdy Book Club events and initiatives over the years, but our annual people’s choice award continues. Every December, we celebrate the blog’s anniversary and gather to select our readers’ favorite books of the year. 

It’s time for the Nerdies, the annual Nerdy Book Club Awards. 

The Nerdies are nominated by the public, including young people and their caregiving adults. I think the Nerdies represent the books that teachers, librarians, and families—who are seeking expansive reading experiences—want for their children. The Nerdies include a current mix of genres, formats, voices, and styles; books with literary merit AND kid appeal; the books that engage kids with reading and the world around them. Over the years, we have expanded the Nerdies to include more titles and categories. More books for more readers! 

Here is how the Nerdies work:

The 2023 Nerdy Nomination Ballot is open until Monday, December 18th at midnight Eastern Time. You have a few days to gather your nominations and submit them. Nominate up to 5 books in each of the following categories:

Picture Books: Fiction

Picture Books: Nonfiction

Early Readers/ Chapter Books

Graphic Novels

Poetry and Novels in Verse

MG/YA Nonfiction

Middle Grade Fiction

Young Adult Fiction

All nominees must have been published in 2023 and written for children or young adults. 

When nominating books, consider Nerdy Book Club’s Book Lists and Recommendation Policy, which requires inclusiveness and equitable representation in all recommendation lists featured on this blog. Consider books featuring a wide range of voices, perspectives, and lived experiences when making your nominations.

After tallying the ballots, we will announce the 2023 Nerdies list in daily category posts beginning December 26th and ending with our two-day Young Adult Fiction posts on January 2nd and 3rd. 

Join us in honoring the 2023 books that your children, students, and you loved to read this year. No matter which titles wind up on our final list, you will discover some great books to read and share. Thank you for participating and for being nerdy with us for another year! 

Donalyn Miller is a Texas educator and the author or co-author of numerous books, articles, and essays about engaging young people with reading and ensuring meaningful book access. Her most recent books are The Joy of Reading (2022) co-written with Teri Lesesne and The Commonsense Guide to Your Classroom Library (2022) co-written with Colby Sharp. Donalyn lives in downtown San Antonio with her spouse and their overflowing bookshelves. You can find Donalyn online on Twitter (she refuses to call it X) and Instagram.

Lindsay H. Metcalf