Tochi Onyebuchi’s novel Riot Baby (Tordotcom) is a winner of the American Library Association’s Alex Awards.

The Alex Awards are given annually since 1998 to “ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18. They are sponsored by the Margaret Alexander Edwards Trust and Booklist. Ten books are selected annually because such a list allows, among other reasons, “a greater variety of titles” and “a more balanced list — fiction and nonfiction, as well as various genres.”

The award winners were announced at the 2021 American Library Association Youth Media Awards held on January 25. Other winners of this year’s Alex Awards are Rebecca Roanhorse’s Black Sun (Saga Press/Gallery Books); TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea (Tor Books); Colin O’Brady’s The Impossible First: From Fire to Ice — Crossing Antartica Alone (Scribner); Derf Backerf’s Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio (Abrams Comicarts); Gretchen Anthony’s The Kids Are Gonna Ask (Park Row Books); Stephen Graham Jones’s The Only Good Indians (Saga Press/Gallery Books); emily m. danforth’s Plain Bad Heroines (William Morrow); Allie Brosh’s Solutions and Other Problems (Gallery Books); and Quan Barry’s We Ride Upon Sticks (Pantheon Books).

Temi Oh’s Do You Dream of Terra-Two? was a recipient of this award in 2020.

Riot Baby’s publisher, Tordotcom, shared Tochi Onyebuchi’s reaction on Twitter:

Riot Baby was also the winner of the 2020 New England Book Award for Fiction, and was recently selected by the Boston.com Book Club as their first read of 2021.

For a full list of other ALA Youth Media Awards winners, go here.

Congratulations, Tochi Onyebuchi!