I wanted to find a foreign young adult literary award and maybe discuss the books that had won it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any non-American, non-European awards in the top award lists. Now I’m sure there’s a few out there, but I could not find them. Instead I found list after list of American and Canadian young adult literature awards. That’s not to say that the books that have won these awards are inherently all American stories or even written by American authors, but there’s something to be said about the appreciation of young adult literature if there are no awards being given. Teachers, young adults, and other young adult literature readers often look to the award winner lists to pick their next read. Many people will never read amazing stories because they’ll never see it. If other countries had bigger awards they could create a bigger voice for foreign young adult literature and thus increasing the visibility of adolescents who happen to have struggles that differ from the average American teenager. Awarding young adult literature authors the awards they earn not only helps them with marketing of their book but it can often times give a platform to that author to be able to take a stance on an issue or start a movement if necessary. It’s obvious that literary awards are prestigious, but maybe they should be more inclusive as well.