The Schneider Family Book Awards honor an author or illustrator for a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences.

Schneider Family Teen Award

2024

Forever Is Now by  Mariama Lockington

When sixteen-year-old Sadie, a Black bisexual recluse, develops agoraphobia the summer before her junior year, she relies on her best friend, family, and therapist to overcome her fears.

2024

Tilly in Technicolor by  Mazey Eddings

Tilly Twomley white-knuckled her way through high school with flawed executive functioning has left her burnt out and ready to start fresh. Working as an intern for her perfect older sister's start-up requires her to travel around Europe, offering a much-needed change of scenery as she plans for her future. Oliver Clark's autism often makes it hard for him to form relationships, but his love of color theory and design allows him to feel deeply connected to the world around him. He's earned placement into a prestigious design program, and a summer internship to build his resume. But now he's being forced to spend the summer with a girl that couldn't be more his opposite-- and feeling things for her he can't quite name. As their neurodiverse connection grows, they learn that some of the best parts of life can't be planned.

2024

Where You See Yourself by  Claire (Young adult author) Forrest

Effie Galanos' goals for her senior year include navigating her way through her high school which is not really wheelchair-friendly, getting into the perfect college, and getting her crush Wilder to accompany her to the prom--but by spring she is beginning to see herself entirely differently.

2023

The Words We Keep by  Erin Stewart

When sixteen-year-old Lily Larkin's older sister, Alice, begins struggling with her mental health, Lily attempts to keep everything together and perfect, despite her growing anxiety.

2023

Breathe and Count Back From Ten by  Natalia Sylvester

Veronica has had many surgeries to manage her disability. The best form of rehabilitation is swimming, so she spends hours in the pool, not just to strengthen her body. The Florida town is home to Mermaid Cove, a kitschy underwater attraction where professional mermaids perform in giant tanks, and Veronica wants to audition. Her conservative Peruvian parents would never go for it, and they would never let her be with Alex, her cute new neighbor. She decides it's time to seize control of her life, but her plans come crashing down when she learns her parents have been hiding the truth from her--the truth about her own body.

2022

The Words in My Hands by  Asphyxia

Part coming of age, part call to action, this fast-paced #ownvoices novel about a Deaf teenager is a unique and inspiring exploration of what it means to belong. Smart, artistic, and independent, sixteen year old Piper is tired of trying to conform. Her mom wants her to be normal, to pass as hearing, to get a good job. But in a time of food scarcity, environmental collapse, and political corruption, Piper has other things on her mind--like survival. Piper has always been told that she needs to compensate for her Deafness in a world made for those who can hear. But when she meets Marley, a new world opens up--one where Deafness is something to celebrate, and where resilience means taking action, building a community, and believing in something better. This empowering, unforgettable story is told through a visual extravaganza of text, paint, collage, and drawings. Set in an ominously prescient near future, The Words in My Hands is very much a novel for our turbulent times. --Provided by publisher.

2021

This Is My Brain in Love by  I. W. Gregorio

Rising high school juniors Jocelyn Wu and Will Domenici fall in love while trying to save the Wu family restaurant, A-Plus Chinese Garden.

2020

Cursed by  Karol Ruth Silverstein

As if her parents' divorce and sister's departure for college weren't bad enough, fourteen-year-old Ricky Bloom has just been diagnosed with a life-changing chronic illness. Her days consist of cursing everyone out, skipping school--which has become a nightmare--daydreaming about her crush, Julio, and trying to keep her parents from realizing just how bad things are. But she can't keep her ruse up forever.

2019

Anger Is a Gift by  Mark Oshiro

Six years ago, Moss Jefferies' father was murdered by an Oakland police officer. Along with losing a parent, the media's vilification of his father and lack of accountability has left Moss with near crippling panic attacks. Now, in his sophomore year of high school, Moss and his fellow classmates find themselves increasingly treated like criminals in their own school. New rules. Random locker searches. Constant intimidation and Oakland Police Department stationed in their halls. Despite their youth, the students decide to organize and push back against the administration. When tensions hit a fever pitch and tragedy strikes, Moss must face a difficult choice: give in to fear and hate or realize that anger can actually be a gift.

2018

You're Welcome, Universe by  Whitney Gardner

When Julia gets kicked out of the Kingston School for the Deaf for putting up an illegal mural, she is moved to a mainstream school in the suburbs where she starts putting up more art, but she soon finds that someone is showing off their skills by adding to her tags.

2017

When We Collided by Emery Lord

Jonah and his five siblings struggle to keep up their home and the restaurant their dad left behind. But at the start of summer, a second change rolls in: Vivi Alexander, the new girl in town.

2016

The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B by Teresa Toten

Enter 13B, where the support group for young adults with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder meets each week. Here an unlikely band of "superheroes" led by their own "Batman," Adam, works together to confront their personal struggles and discover the inner strength to keep moving forward.

2015

Girls Like Us by Gail Giles

Graduating from their school's special education program, Quincy and Biddy are placed together in their first independent apartment and discover unexpected things they have in common in the face of past challenges and a harrowing trauma.

2014

Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

When young American pilot Rose Justice is captured by Nazis and sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious women's concentration camp, she finds hope in the impossible through the loyalty, bravery, and friendship of her fellow prisoners.

2013

Somebody, Please Tell Me Who I Am by Harry Mazer

Wounded in Iraq while his Army unit is on convoy and treated for many months for traumatic brain injury, the first person Ben remembers from his earlier life is his autistic brother.

2012

The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen

When a school bus accident leaves sixteen-year-old Jessica an amputee, she returns to school with a prosthetic limb and her track team finds a wonderful way to help rekindle her dream of running again.

2011

Five Flavors of Dumb by John Antony

Eighteen-year-old Piper becomes the manager for her classmates' popular rock band, called Dumb, giving her the chance to prove her capabilities to her parents and others, if only she can get the band members to get along.

2010

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork

Marcelo Sandoval, a seventeen-year-old boy on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, faces new challenges, including romance and injustice, when he goes to work for his father in the mailroom of a corporate law firm.

2009

Jerk, California by Jonathan Friesen

After graduating from high school, Sam/Jack begins a cross country quest to learn the truth about his dead father and embraces his inherited Tourette Syndrome. With the help of an old family friend, a quirky car and girlfriend who has troubles of her own, he finds his way to maturity.

2008

Hurt Go Happy by Ginny Rorby

When thirteen-year-old Joey Willis, deaf since the age of six, meets Dr. Charles Mansell and his chimpanzee Sukari, who use sign language, her world blooms with possibilities but that of the chimp begins to narrow.

2007

Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio by Peg Kehret

The author describes her battle against polio and her efforts to overcome its debilitating effects.

2006

Under the Wolf, Under the Dog by Adam Rapp

Sixteen-year-old Steve struggles to make sense of his mother's terminal breast cancer and his brother's suicide.

2005

My Thirteenth Winter : A Memoir by Samantha Abeel

In this beautiful and chilling memoir, twenty-five-year-old Samantha Abeel describes her struggles with a math-related learning disability, and how it forced her to find inner strength and courage. Samantha Abeel couldn't tell time, remember her locker combination, or count out change at a checkout counter -- and she was in seventh grade. For a straight-A student like Samantha, problems like these made no sense. She dreaded school, and began having anxiety attacks. In her thirteenth winter, she found the courage to confront her problems -- and was diagnosed with a learning disability. Slowly, Samantha's life began to change again. She discovered that she was stronger than she'd ever thought possible -- and that sometimes, when things look bleakest, hope is closer than you think.

2004

Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements

When fifteen-year-old Bobby wakes up and finds himself invisible, he and his parents and his new blind friend Alicia try to find out what caused his condition and how to reverse it.