The 2024 Winners of the Kirkus Prize

Last night, the winners of this year’s Kirkus Prizes were announced in a livestreamed ceremony that took place in Manhattan. The Kirkus Prizes have been awarded since 2014 and grant each of their recipients a trophy as well as $50,000 in cash.

This year’s winners were selected out of 1,444 books that were given a Kirkus star for their “elegance and lucidity,” according to Kirkus editor-in-chief Tom Beer. They “illuminate tragedies both personal and historical, helping us to better understand our world and the spirit of human resilience.”

2024 Kirkus Prize Fiction Winner

Judged by: Kirkus reviewer Jeffrey Burke, Loyalty Bookstores co-owner Christine Bollow, Kirkus fiction editor Laurie Muchnick

James by Percival Everett — Judges said the retelling of Adventures of Huckleberry from the perspective of Jim, an enslaved man, was “enthralling” and “a necessary companion to Twain’s masterpiece.”

2024 Kirkus Prize Nonfiction Winner

Judged by: Kirkus editor-in-chief Tom Beer and journalists Hannah Bae and Mary Ann Gwinn

cover of CHALLENGER A TRUE STORY OF HEROISM AND DISASTER ON THE EDGE OF SPACE by Adam Higginbotham

Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham — Judges said this exploration of the 1986 space disaster was “meticulously reported, beautifully written, and devastating in its account of an entirely preventable tragedy.”

2024 Kirkus Young Readers’ Literature Prize Winner

Judged by: professor Michelle H. Martin, Kirkus young readers’ editors Mahnaz Dar and Laura Simeon, and Kirkus reviewer Christopher A. Biss-Brown

Gather by Kenneth M. Cadow — Judges said that this YA novel about a boy struggling in poverty with his mother who suffers from an opioid addiction was told with “Humor, grace, and tenderness.”