| Odyssey Award | |
| Awarded For: | the year's best English-language audiobook for children or young adults |
| Country: | United States |
| Year: | 2008 |
The Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production is an annual award conferred by the American Library Association upon the publisher of "the best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults, available in English in the United States". It is jointly administered by two ALA divisions (Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) and Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)) and sponsored by Booklist magazine. It recognizes production quality in all respects, considering such things as narration, sound quality, background music and sound effects. It is named for Homer's eighth century BCE epic poem Odyssey, which was transmitted orally, to remind us modern people of the ancient roots of storytelling.
The award was inaugurated in 2008.
For many reasons indicated in the 2008 manifesto, "it is essential for ALSC and YALSA to provide the same level of support for this nonprint format that they have historically provided for print materials, by creating an annual award for the best audiobooks in the field."
Source: "Eligibility & Criteria"
In each of the fifteen cycles to 2022, at least one title has been named an Honor Audiobook with five being the greatest number of Honors (2008, 2009, 2018) and one being the fewest (2016). Beginning in the 2022 award-year, two titles may be named Winners, one for Excellence in Audiobook Production for Children, and one for Excellence in Audiobook Production for Young Adults.[1]
| Author | Title | Producer | Narrator | Citation | |
| 2008 | Jazz | Live Oak Media | , Vaneese Thomas | Winner | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bloody Jack | Listen & Live Audio | Honor | |||
| Dooby Dooby Moo | Scholastic / Weston Woods Studios | ||||
| Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows | Listening Library | ||||
| Skulduggery Pleasant | HarperCollins Children's Audio | ||||
| Treasure Island | Listening Library | ||||
| 2009 | Recorded Books | Winner | |||
| Curse of the Blue Tattoo | Listen & Live Audio | Honor | |||
| Elijah of Buxton | Listening Library | ||||
Jim McMullan | I'm Dirty | Scholastic Media / Weston Woods Studios | |||
| Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale | Peachtree Publishers | ||||
| Nation | HarperAudio | ||||
| 2010 | Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken | Live Oak Media | Winner | ||
| In the Belly of the Bloodhound | Listen & Live Audio | Honor | |||
| Peace, Locomotion | Brilliance Audio | ||||
| We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro Baseball | Brilliance Audio | ||||
| 2011 | Listening Library | Winner | |||
| Alchemy and Meggy Swann | Listening Library | Honor | |||
| Brilliance Audio | |||||
| Revolution | Listening Library | ||||
David Levithan | Will Grayson, Will Grayson | Brilliance Audio | |||
| 2012 | Rotters | Listening Library | Winner | ||
| Ghetto Cowboy | Brilliance Audio | Honor | |||
| Okay for Now | Listening Library | ||||
| Scholastic Audio Books | Fiona Hardingham | ||||
| Young Fredle | Listening Library | ||||
| 2013 | Brilliance Audio | Winner | |||
| Artemis Fowl and the Last Guardian | Listening Library | Honor | |||
| Ghost Knight | Listening Library | ||||
| Monstrous Beauty | Macmillan Audio | ||||
| 2014 | Scowler | Listening Library | Winner | ||
| Better Nate Than Ever | Simon & Schuster Audio | Honor | |||
| Creepy Carrots! | Weston Woods Studios | ||||
| Eleanor & Park | Listening Library | and Sunil Malhotra | |||
| Matilda | Penguin Audio | ||||
| 2015 | H.O.R.S.E. A Game of Basketball and Imagination | Live Oak Media | and Christopher Myers | Winner | |
| Five, Six, Seven, Nate! | Audioworks division of Simon & Schuster Audio | Honor | |||
| Listening Library | |||||
| Scholastic Audio | |||||
| 2016 | Listening Library | Winner | |||
| Echo | Scholastic Audio | , David de Vries, MacLeod Andrews, Rebecca Soler | Honor | ||
| 2017 | Anna and the Swallow Man | Listening Library | Winner | ||
| Dream On, Amber | Recorded Books | Honor | |||
| Ghost | Simon & Schuster Audio | ||||
| Nimona | HarperAudio | , Jonathan Davis, Marc Thompson, January LaVoy, Natalie Gold, Peter Bradbury and David Pittu | |||
| 2018 | HarperAudio | Winner | |||
| Listening Library | Honor | ||||
| Listening Library | |||||
| Long Way Down | Simon & Schuster Audio | ||||
| Trombone Shorty | Live Oak Media | ||||
| Hachette Audio | |||||
| 2019 | Sadie | Macmillan Audio | , Fred Berman, Dan Bittner, Gabra Zackman, and more | Winner | |
| Du Iz Tak? | Weston Woods Studios | , Sebastian D’Amico, Burton Fott, Galen Fott, Laura Fott, Sarah Hart, Bella Higginbotham, Evelyn Hipp, and Brian Hull | Honor | ||
| Esquivel! Space-Age Sound Artist | Live Oak Media | ||||
| Scholastic Audio | |||||
| HarperAudio | |||||
| 2020 | Scholastic Audio | , Jeanne Birdsall, Jenna Lamia, Richard Ferrone and more | Winner | ||
| Redwood and Ponytail | Hachette Audio | and Tessa Netting | Honor | ||
| Song for a Whale | Listening Library | with Lynne Kelly | |||
| We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga | Live Oak Media | , Agalisiga (Choogie) Mackey, Ryan Mackey, Traci Sorell, Tonia Weavel | |||
| We're Not from Here | Listening Library | ||||
| 2021 | Kent State | Scholastic Audio | , Lauren Ezzo, Christina DeLaine, Johnny Heller, Roger Wayne, Korey Jackson, and David de Vries | Winner | |
| Clap When You Land | HarperAudio | and Melania-Luisa Marte | Honor | ||
| Fighting Words | Listening Library | ||||
| Hachette Audio | |||||
| and Omar Mohamed | When Stars Are Scattered | Listening Library | , Barkhad Abdi and a full cast | ||
| 2022 | Boogie Boogie, Ya'll | HarperAudio | Winner (Children) | ||
| When You Look Like Us | HarperAudio | Winner (Young Adults) | |||
| Emmanuel’s Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Yeboah (cyclist) | Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah | Listening Library | Honor | ||
| I Talk Like a River | Dreamscape Media | Honor | |||
| Perfectly Parvin | Listening Library | Honor | |||
| 2023 | Stuntboy, In the Meantime | Simon & Schuster Audio | , Nile Bullock and Angel Pean with a full cast | Winner(Children) | |
| Scholastic Audio | Winner(Young Adults) | ||||
| Weston Woods Studios and Scholastic Audio | Honor | ||||
| , adaptation by Garet Scott | Demon in the Wood Graphic Novel | Macmillan Audio | and a full cast | Honor | |
| Inheritance: A Visual Poem | HarperAudio | Honor | |||
| Listening Library | , Jarrett J. Krosoczka, and a full cast | Honor | |||
| 2024 | El Deafo | Listening Library | Full cast | Winner (Children) | |
| Promise Boys | Macmillan Young Listeners | Full cast | Winner (Young Adults) | ||
| Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods | Hachette Audio | Honor | |||
| Mexikid: A Graphic Memoir | Penguin Random House Audio | Full cast | Honor | ||
| Once There Was | Simon & Schuster Audio | Honor | |||
| Sisters of the Lost Marsh | Scholastic Audio | Honor | |||
| Stateless | Hachette Audio | Honor |
Listening Library has won 5 awards and Live Oak Media and Harper have each won 3.
Katherine Kellgren is the narrator of the most Odyssey-honored titles at five Honor Audiobooks, including three written by L. A. Meyer and produced by Listen & Live Audio — the first, second, and fourth Jacky Faber books.
2009
Sherman Alexie, author and narrator of the 2009 Odyssey Award-winning audiobook, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, also won the annual National Book Award for Young People's Literature for the print edition of that book (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, September 2007).[2]
2020
Jarret J. Krosoczka, who wrote, illustrated, and narrated the 2020 Odyssey-winning audiobook Hey, Kiddo, was a National Book Award for Young People's Literature finalist for the print edition.