The CBC is still accepting submissions for the 2026 CBC Favorites Awards NOW until May 28, 2025.

Each year, the lists of the CBC Favorites winners are a go-to resource for teachers, librarians, booksellers, and parents as they buy your new books for their classrooms, collections, shelves, and reading hours. 

This summer and early fall, you’ll ship books published in 2025 to select rural, suburban, and urban schools and libraries nationwide—locations that have been vetted and chosen by the CBC. 

You’ll be sending 20 copies in total of each submitted book, in other words, one book to each location reading in the book’s specific grade range. Thousands of students, teachers, and librarians at 80 total locations will read and rate the books.

Your contact for the CBC Favorites Awards will be Sommer Wissner. Please email all submissions or questions about the program to sommer.wissner@cbcbooks.org.

What are the FAVORITES Awards?

The CBC Favorites Awards is a nationwide reading and voting program where thousands of young people, teachers, and librarians will read and rate your new 2025 books this summer into early winter. In April 2026, we will announce the highest-rated titles in each of these categories:

• Children’s Favorites: K-2nd Grade and 3rd-5th Grade 
• Middle-Grade Favorites: 6th-8th Grade
• Young Adult Favorites: 9th-12th Grade
• Teacher Favorites: all four grade levels
• Librarian Favorites: all four grade levels

The CBC chooses 80 locations nationwide, with 20 in each grade group (K-2nd Grade, 3rd-5th Grade, 6th-8th Grade, or 9th-12th Grade). All 80 Favorites school or library locations will similarly be tasked with the Teacher and Librarian Favorites for the grade range that they are assigned to.

Which titles can be submitted?

Titles published in 2025 are eligible for submission and must be physical copies. Books published in November – December 2024 are also eligible, if they have not been submitted before.

A complete overview of the Book Content Guidelines can be found here.

What about the Teacher Favorites and Librarian Favorites?

Any book you submit will also be read for Teacher Favorites and Librarian Favorites for that grade group. There will not be a separate submission tab.

How many titles can be submitted?

As many as you feel are appropriate, but please note that you’ll be shipping about 20 physical copies per title submitted, one each to the locations reading in that grade group, and that might add to a significant expense.

When will you be asked to ship books to the locations?

Shipping instructions will be provided to you in July after submissions close. Once you receive the shipping instructions, we recommend shipping books as soon as they are ready, not in large shipments, in order to increase reading and voting time.

Download and fill out the 2026 Title Spreadsheet, then email it to Sommer. You will be sent a confirmation email after we receive your submission email with the spreadsheet.

The spreadsheet contains five different tabs: one tab for contact info and one for each grade level: K-2nd Grade, 3rd-5th Grade, 6th-8th Grade (Middle-Grade), and 9th-12th Grade (Young Adult).

NOTE: Be sure to enter your title information in the correct grade group tab. Determining the correct grade group is vital, as the students, teachers, and librarians at the select locations are reading at a designated grade level.

Please email Sommer your spreadsheet submission by Wednesday, May 28, 2025.

Fee:

CBC Regular Members: No fee

CBC Associate Members: $75 $60 per title (1 free with 3 submissions)

Non-Member Publishers: $300 $250 per title

An invoice and payment instructions will be emailed to you after you submit your titles. 

NOTE: Publishers who have not paid their 2025 CBC membership dues will be invoiced $250 per title. Please contact Carl Lennertz if you’d like to become a member or verify your current membership status, or if your dues have not been paid yet, to receive an invoice.

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