The Best YA Horror and SFF Books, Brandon Sanderson’s Latest Adaptation, and More YA Book News
⚓ Books 📅 2026-07-02 👤 surdeus 👁️ 2It’s been a minute since the last roundup of YA book news, and a lot has happened in the young adult literary world so far this season. Whether you’re looking to catch up on the latest in adaptation news, discover new and beloved titles honored by literary awards, or want to read interesting essays from new and long-time YA authors, you’re going to find all of that and more here.
What a great way to spend the last few hours of a short week–and while not everyone across the globe had a day off this week, you can at least take a little break from your busy life to enjoy updates from your bookish favorites.
YA Awards News
- Here are the winners and honorees for this year’s Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards. The number of YA books honored this year is quite low, but I also think it kind of reflects the range of titles available last year between middle grade offerings and those for YA readers.
- Read your way into the finalists and the winner of this year’s Locus Award in young adult literature.
- Dive into the finalists for this year’s Ignyte Awards in the young adult category. Public voting for the winners is open through mid-August.
- For horror lovers or the horror curious, here are the YA Bram Stoker Award winners and finalists.
- The Secret Astronomers by Jessica Walker was the YA category winner of the Barnes & Noble Children’s & YA Book Awards. I loved this book, and I only wish I’d read it last year (rather than my first read of 2026) to include on my best of 2025 list.
- The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators has added a new award category for translated children’s literature. It’ll be nice to see more translated lit get spotlighted!
- The Forest of Reading Awards, which invite Canadian students across the country to help decide the best books of the year, have been announced.
YA Adaptation News
- Warner Brothers has acquired the rights to adapt Tahereh Mafi’s “Shatter Me” series. I did have to check the publication date on this story several times, and yes, this is as of 2026.
- Here’s the trailer for Heartstopper Forever, the movie wrapping up the adaptation of the beloved queer series.
- We Were Liars is filming its second season in Nova Scotia. Here’s what to know about the teen Sinclair sisters.
- Brandon Sanderson’s Skyward is getting the adaptation treatment.
- My Life With The Walter Boys is getting a fourth season.
- Forever… is working on its second season, which will bring new cast members and be set four years in the future. I haven’t gotten to watch season one yet, but I’ve heard nothing but great things.
- Hailey Kiyoko talks about bringing her song “Girls Like Girls” to the page and now, onto the big screen.
YA Potpourri
- Legendary writer for young readers Jane Yolen died at the age of 87. She wrote over 400 (!!!) books in her lifetime, which is incredible.
- Here are all of the YA science fiction and fantasy titles that hit shelves in June, which means you can pick them all up now.
- In mid-June, the youth discovered that Tyra Banks wrote a YA novel called Modelland, which has spawned some fun reading. Recall this was supposed to be a trilogy and she devoted at least one full episode of America’s Next Top Model to creating a trailer for the series that never came to be. Among the highlights of the 2026 resurgence in the book, this piece on the song related to the book and this piece about how bad the book really is.
- I love deep dive pieces like this look at how YA Jewish authors are expanding Jewish storytelling, which came from a panel discussion at New York Comic Con.
- Trang Thanh Tran has a new novel coming out in February, and you can read an excerpt from The Summoning of Tess Pham right here.
- Rosiee Thor talks about centering aromantic voices in YA literature.
- Ever wonder how YA superstars Tiffany D. Jackson, Dhonielle Clayton, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon have written three books together? They break it down!
- In the land of surprising announcements, E.L. James is writing a YA novel. You can pick up Land of Ghosts in October.
- For fans of the Fence comics, good news: you’ll be able to pick up deluxe volumes soon, starting with Fence Book One this fall.
- Jennifer Dugar talks about the need–or not–for a happily ever after in a YA romance and how she approached it in her most recent novel.
- Remember at the end of last year, I wrote a piece about how the YA category was having a coming-of-age crisis, and as part of it, I talked about two YA series that were repackaged as adult series? There’s now a third YA series getting the adult series makeover, and it’s Victoria Aveyard’s “Realm Breaker” trilogy.
- Here’s a big ole roundup of new YA books about awareness, activism, and empathy.
- Meg Cabot’s The Princess Diaries turns 25, and it’s being given the graphic novel treatment.
- YA author Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé has a guest post over on Kathleen Schmidt’s Substack and it’s really good. It’s a look at how the publishing industry commodifies its young authors–and it immediately made me think of the fixation the industry had on Kody Keplinger and others in the 2010s and their youth.
- Every year, Read With Jenna pulls together recommended summer reads for young people. Here’s this summer’s list, including a handful of YA picks.
And the big news around these parts? We’ve debated and developed our list of some of The Best YA Books of the Century So Far. Next week, we’ll also be sharing the best YA books of the year so far–already, there’s another title I’d add to my picks if I had read it before our deadline, so I’m excited to talk about that one, too.
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