Using Awards Lists as a RA Tool: National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 List

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.

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Every year one of my favorite lists is the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 list. It's not that I think you have to be young to be a great writer, but I love how writers who have won National Book Awards and even some who have have this honor get to pick the new class each year. More about the honor and its mission here.

I also love this list for its RA Service implications and for what you can learn and use from the backlist. Below I explain why you should like and use this list all year long too.

[Click here to see the 2023 list of 5 Under 35 and which author chose that person.]  
 
First, this list is awesome. It is not just the young authors who are being highlighted, the established authors are also a great resource. You get 10 suggested authors from this 5 person list. 

Which leads to second, the established authors are your conversation starter and readalike stepping stone. So when you see: 

Morgan Talty, Night of the Living Rez
Tin House Books
Selected by Karen Russell, 2009 5 Under 35 Honoree

You can confidently suggest Talty to fans of  Karen Russell. This fits in with one of my "5 Resources You Cannot Live Without" from my 10 Rules of Basic RA page-- Author Recs of Other Authors. Click here for a longer post where I explain why authors recommending other authors is a near perfect readalike option. 

Third, the backlist is amazing. Seriously. Even more amazing than backlists usually are, and many of you know how excited I get about the backlist in general. You can access the winners and the authors who chose them going back to 2006 from the main 5 Under 35 page (scroll the bottom). I scanned many of the lists and WOW, did they identify some amazing authors who are household names now. Karen Russell above is one of those examples. Yes, there are a few who never broke through, but it is amazing how many have. You can easily use the backlist list of winners to help readers identify good under the radar reads, especially for your literary fiction and book club selection readers. You can also make a display of current and past winners.

I know some people will say, Becky these authors are emerging and at my library I can barely afford to get the established authors. But it would be a mistake to ignore these "emerging voices" for many reasons-- 3 of which I gave you here. 

Don't sleep on new voices. They will have wide appeal  on their own AND you can use establish  authors to  book talk them to your readers.