The 2025 Pedro and Daniel Intersectionality Book Awards winners and finalists have been announced!
THE PB/GN WINNER IS:
Sister Friend by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow, illustrated by Shahrzad Maydani, published by Abrams Books for Young Readers
Ameena feels invisible until another non-white Muslim child joins her class. Finding the right words to become friends is tricky, but they find those words together.
She is Black American and Muslim. Classmates exclude her because of her visibly different appearance: skin color and hair.
THE MG/YA WINNER IS:
The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko, published by Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams.
In this Afrofantasy, a disabled teen maid magically gifted to break curses by cleaning houses, captures the interest of a greedy schemer and a handsome deity.
Small Sade is impoverished and illiterate from dyslexia. She is ostracized because of her appearance (cane use and vitiligo). She suffers from domestic violence and severe child labor in a West Africa-coded society.
THE PB/GN HONOR BOOKS ARE:
A Kurta to Remember by Gauri Dalvi Pandya, illustrated by Avani Dwivedi, published by Sleeping Bear Press.
A little girl worries about moving far from her Aaji and Ajoba in India, but her Aaji fills the pockets of her handmade kurta with special items to help her remember home.
She is a young girl from the western region of India, who worries about losing the connection to her culture when she emigrates.
Snow Steps by Karen Latchana Kenny, illustrated by Irina Avgustinovich, published by Worthy Kids.
With a new friend and some courage, a young bi-racial girl learns to brave the snowy Minnesota winter after immigrating from tropical Guyana.
She is a bi-racial [Indian, Irish] young girl, and a recent immigrant from Guyana. She struggles to adjust to her new snowy home in Minnesota.
THE MG/YA HONOR BOOKS ARE:
Across So Many Seas by Ruth Behar, published by Nancy Paulsen Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.
Spanning 500 years, Across So Many Seas tells the stories of four Sephardic girls united by their love of music, poetry, and a search for home.
Four girls growing up during turbulent times in Spain, Turkey, Cuba, and the US, each faces additional challenges due to their gender, and mixed Spanish and Jewish heritage.
The Color of Sound by Emily Barth Isler, published by Carolrhoda Books, an imprint of Lerner Publishing Group.
This musical prodigy teen stops playing the violin, upsetting her ambitious mother. Forced to spend the summer at the home of grandparents she barely knows, she encounters a glitch in space-time that changes everything.
The girl is Jewish and neurodivergent. Her synesthesia – the blending of senses (in her case sight and sound) – intertwines with her family’s experiences of intergenerational trauma as descendants of Holocaust survivors.
MORE ABOUT THE PEDRO AND DANIEL INTERSECTIONALITY BOOK AWARDS:
We anticipate a larger number of books for the 2026 PADIBA, so the submission period will be earlier [July 1 – August 31, 2025]. Anyone can submit their book for consideration, but we ask that the publisher send the physical book to the judging committee members as soon as they are available.
Details about The Pedro and Daniel Intersectionality Book Awards can be found at ReadYourWorld.org/awards.
