Carter G. Woodson Book Award
The Carter G. Woodson Book Award is an American literary award created in 1973 by the Racism and Social Justice Committee of the National Council for the Social Studies to promote cultural literacy in children and young adults.
First presented in 1974, the award is named for American historian, author, and journalist Carter G. Woodson. Currently awarded at three levels – elementary, middle, and secondary – middle was added in 2001 after the other two divisions began in 1989.
In addition to announcing winners, the award recognizes honor books, referred to from 1980 to 1996 as those having "outstanding merit". An accompanying seal, with a likeness of Woodson, was introduced in 1999 with gold seals applied to winning book covers and silver seals on honor books.
, Brent Ashabranner is the only author whose books have received the award three times, as well as the only to have winning books two years in a row. Don Tate, who first had a book win the Woodson award in 2016, illustrated a second title that also won that year.
Award recipients
| Year | Author | Title | Subject | |
| 1989 | Walking the Road to Freedom | |||
| 1990 | and Alice Rivers | In Two Worlds: A Yup’ik Eskimo Family | Yupik peoples | |
| 1991 | Shirley Chisolm | |||
| 1992 | The Last Princess: The Story of Princess Ka’iulani of Hawai’i | Kaʻiulani | ||
| 1993 | and Fredrick McKissack | Madam C.J. Walker | ||
| 1994 | Starting Home: The Story of Horace Pippin, Painter | |||
| 1995 | What I Had Was Singing: The Story of Marian Anderson | |||
| 1996 | Songs from the Loom: A Navajo Girl Learns to Weave | Navajo weaving | ||
| 1997 | Ramadan | Ramadan | ||
| 1998 | Leon's Story | |||
| 1999 | Story Painter: The Life of Jacob Lawrence | |||
| 2000 | Through My Eyes | |||
| 2001 | The Sound that Jazz Makes | African-American music | ||
| 2002 | Coming Home: A Story of Josh Gibson, Baseball's Greatest Home Run Hitter | |||
| 2003 | Cesar Chavez: The Struggle for Justice / Cesar Chavez: La lucha por la justicia | |||
| 2004 | Sacagawea | Sacagawea | ||
| 2005 | Jim Thorpe's Bright Path | |||
| 2006 | Let Them Play | Civil rights movement and Little League Baseball | ||
| 2007 | and Kathleen Benson | John Lewis in the Lead: A Story of the Civil Rights Movement | ||
| 2008 | Louis Sockalexis: Native American Baseball Pioneer | |||
| 2009 | Lincoln and Douglass: An American Friendship | and Stephen A. Douglas | ||
| 2010 | Shining Star: The Anna May Wong Story | |||
| 2011 | Sit In: How Four Friends Stood Up By Sitting Down | Greensboro sit-ins | ||
| 2012 | and Q. L. Pearce | Red Bird Sings: The Story of Zitkala-Ša, Native American Author, Musician, and Activist | Zitkala-Ša | |
| 2013 | Fifty Cents and a Dream: Young Booker T. Washington | |||
| 2014 | Hey Charleston!: The True Story of the Jenkins Orphanage Band | Jenkins Orphanage | ||
| 2015 | Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation | |||
| 2016 | Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton | |||
| 2016 | The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch | |||
| 2017 | Mountain Chef: How One Man Lost His Groceries, Changed His Plans, and Helped Cook Up the National Park Service | |||
| 2018 | The Youngest Marcher—The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a Young Civil Rights Activist | |||
| 2019 | The Vast Wonder of the World: Biologist Ernest Everett Just | |||
| 2020 | The Undefeated | African Americans | ||
| 2021 | William Still and His Freedom Stories | |||
| 2022 | and Grace Lin | I Am an American: The Wong Kim Ark Story | United States v. Wong Kim Ark | |
| 2023 | , Sun Yung Shin, Shannon Gibney, and John Coy | Where We Come From | Cultural heritage | |
| 2024 | My Powerful Hair | Long hair, indigenous peoples, and racism | ||
| 2025 | The Rock in My Throat | Linguistic discrimination |