The Rural Educator - Volume 46 - Number 1 - Article 2 - Winter 2-2025

Oct 15, 2026

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The invited article presents the 2024 Whippoorwill Award as a continuing recognition of quality rural literature for young people, celebrating books published in 2023 and concluding the award’s fifth cycle. It explains how the committee revised the award structure through a longlist, a narrow list of honor books, and a single overall winner, then describes the award’s affiliation with TRAELLE and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages8

Reading Time12 min

AccessFree to download

The 2024 Whippoorwill Award: Gathering Stories of Indigeneity, Connection, and Belonging

Award purpose and significance for rural young readers

Changes to the award structure: longlist, honor books, and winner

Affiliation with TRAELLE and alignment with NCTE conference work

Themes of belonging, identity, and indigeneity in selected titles

The Rural Educator | Volume 46 Number 1 | Article 2 | | --- | --- | | Winter 2-2025
The 2024 Whippoorwill Award: Gathering Stories of Indigeneity, Connection, and Belonging
Erika L. Bass
University of Northern Iowa, [erika.bass@uni.edu](erika.bass@uni.edu)[ ](erika.bass@uni.edu)Michael J. Young
Alan Hoffman
Jacqueline Yahn
Monica Roe
See next page for additional authors
Follow this and additional works at: [https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/ruraleducator](https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/ruraleducator)
Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons, and the Education Commons | | Recommended Citation Bass, E. L., Young, M. J., Hoffman, A., Yahn, J., Roe, M., Brenner, D., & Parton, C. (2025) . The 2024 Whippoorwill Award: Gathering Stories of Indigeneity, Connection, and Belonging. The Rural Educator, 46(1), 4-9 . [https://doi.org/10.55533/2643-9662.1558](https://doi.org/10.55533/2643-9662.1558) This Invited Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Junction. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Rural Educator by an authorized editor of Scholars Junction. For more information, please contact scholcomm@msstate. libanswers.com. The 2024 Whippoorwill Award: Gathering Stories of Indigeneity, Connection, and Belonging Authors Erika L. Bass, Michael J. Young, Alan Hoffman, Jacqueline Yahn, Monica Roe, Devon Brenner, and Chea Parton This invited article is available in The Rural Educator: [https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/ruraleducator/vol46/](https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/ruraleducator/vol46/)[ ](https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/ruraleducator/vol46/)iss1/2 Invited Article The 2024 Whippoorwill Award: Gathering Stories ofIndigeneity, Connection, and Belonging Erika L. Bass, Michael J. Young, Alan Hoffman, Jacqueline Yahn, Monica Roe, Devon Brenner, and Chea Parton Celebrating books published in 2023, now finishing its fifth award cycle, the Whippoorwill Award continues to recognize quality rural literature for young people. Each year, the award committee selects books that portray and honor the complex experiences of rural culture and communities. The award serves to help highlight the diversity of rurality so rural readers, teachers, librarians, and community members can find books that connect with their experiences of rurality. In this award cycle, the committee shifted the structure of the award to align with other popular awards. This shift included: (a) the selection of alonglist; (b) the selection of a narrow list of honor books; and (c) the selection of one winner as the recipient of the Whippoorwill Book Award. In July 2024, the committee selected the Whippoorwill longlist of books that fit the criteria of the award and were in serious consideration for the award. From the longlist, the committee selected 10 books to recognize for the award. Rather than highlighting all 10 as the winner of the award, the committee selected the overall winner, designated that book as the recipient of the Whippoorwill Award, and the remaining nine books were named Whippoorwill Honor Books. In making this shift, we wanted to showcase the most powerful rural story in terms of writing, connection to young people, and connections to rurality, but also to celebrate the diversity in genre and representation of rural people and experiences, celebrate rurality, and tackle important social issues and challenges in rural places. In 2023, The Rural Assembly for Rural English Language and Literacy Education (TRAELLE, pronounced “trail”) was established as an official assembly of the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) . (If you are interested in joining TRAELLE, please visit [https://traellencte](https://traellencte). [wordpress.com/](wordpress.com/)). As of the 2024 award year, the Whippoorwill Award is affiliated with TRAELLE. This partnership reflects increasing recognition of the award and rural perspectives at the NCTE co

FAQs

What is the Whippoorwill Award and what does it recognize?

The Whippoorwill Award recognizes quality rural literature for young people, highlighting complex experiences of rural culture and communities.

How did the committee change the award structure in this cycle?

The committee shifted the structure to include an alonglist, a narrow list of honor books, and one overall winner receiving the Whippoorwill Book Award.

Which organizations is the Whippoorwill Award affiliated with in 2024?

As of the 2024 award year, the Whippoorwill Award is affiliated with TRAELLE, an official assembly of the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE).

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Miles