Lincoln Award: Illinois Teen Readers' Choice: 2026

"Charity Curtis, who plays the 'final girl' in a terror game she's playing at Camp Mirror Lake, finds her role turning all too real when a killer starts picking off her co-workers one by one"

"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"

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 band together to track down the real killer before they are arrested.

Sixteen-year-old Ivy's road trip across the country to get an abortion becomes a transformative journey of vulnerability, strength, and above all, choice.

"Since moving to the Blackfeet Reservation with her parents, Mara Racette has felt like an outsider, taunted by her tight-knit classmates for growing up far away. So when a local girl includes Mara in a traditional Blackfeet giveaway to honor her missing sister, Mara thinks she'll finally make some friends. 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: New girl Mara, who hated Samantha for being particularly cruel. Grief-stricken Loren Arnoux, who was Samantha's best friend until Loren's sister's disappearance drove a wedge between them. Class clown Brody Clark, whose unreciprocated crush on Samantha is an open secret. And tough guy Eli First Kill, who has his own 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"

"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 be constantly gut-punched with memories of his big brother, Jaxon, who died in an accident. When Jaxon's former teammates on the varsity team offer to take Tre under their wing, 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"

"At only eight months old, identical twin sisters Ariel and Zan were diagnosed with Crouzon syndrome--a rare condition where the bones in the head fuse prematurely. They were the first twins known to survive it. Growing up, Ariel and her sister endured numerous appearance-altering procedures. Surgeons would break the bones in their heads and faces to make room for their growing organs. While the physical aspect of their condition was painful, it was nothing compared to the emotional toll of navigating life with a facial disfigurement. Ariel explores beauty and identity in her young-adult memoir about resilience, sisterhood, and the strength it takes to put your life, and yourself, back together time and time again"

"Belen 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"

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.

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.

Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He's tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world. Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light.

When Lula Dean 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.

Bullied by her classmates, Sarah, a Korean American girl growing up in a rural community with few Asian neighbors, channels her rage into her art and cosplay until it threatens to explode.

"In this retelling of the Korean legend The tale of Shim Cheong, sixteen-year-old Mina is swept away to the Spirit Realm, where, assisted by a motley crew of demons, gods, and lesser spirits, she sets out to awaken the sleeping Sea God and save her homeland and family from deadly storms"

"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"

"When [Charlie's] long-lost uncle dies, leaving him his supervillain business [and] rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital come after him, Charlie finds going bad looking pretty good with unionized dolphins, hyper intelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side"

Tells the story of how an Albany High School handled a racist social media incident that caused lasting and devastating consequences.

"A . . . debut novel about a widow's unlikely friendship with a giant Pacific octopus reluctantly residing at the local aquarium--and the truths she finally uncovers about her son's disappearance 30 years ago"

"Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him . . . 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. 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 . . . Still, Nick offers Benji shelter among his ragtag group of queer teens . . . 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"

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?