2020 Jefferson Cup Award Winners and Honors Announced

Mario and the Hole in the Sky: How a Chemist Saved Our Planet and Viral: the Fight against AIDS in America win the 2020 Jefferson Cup Award.

 

The Jefferson Cup Committee is pleased to announce their selections for the 2020 winning and honor titles. The 2020 Jefferson Cup Award winner for Young Readers is Mario and the Hole in the Sky: How a Chemist Saved Our Planet by Elizabeth Rusch, Illustrated by Teresa Martinez. The 2020 Jefferson Cup Award winner for Young Adult Readers is Viral: the Fight Against AIDS in America by Ann Bausum.

Mario and the Hole in the Sky: How a Chemist Saved Our Planet (Charlesbridge) explains how Mexican American Mario Molina helped solve the ozone crisis of the 1980s. After receiving a microscope for his 8th birthday, a whole new world appeared to Mario: Chemistry! After moving to California for research, he discovered that CFCs, used in millions of refrigerators and spray cans, were tearing a hole in the earth's protective ozone layer. Mario used his research to inform US Congress of what was happening. Today Mario is a Nobel laureate and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Rusch’s text and Martinez’s illustrations bring this important narrative to the surface, encouraging children to observe and ask questions of the world around them. 

Viral: the Fight against AIDS in America by Ann Bausum (Viking Books for Young Readers) presents the history of the AIDS crisis through the lens of the victims and activists who demanded action and literally fought for their lives. Bausum writes about everything from the disease's origins and how it spread to the activism it inspired and how the world confronts HIV and AIDS today. 

Honor Titles

Poison in the Colony: Jamestown 1622 by Elisa Carbone (Penguin Random House) was chosen as an honor book for young readers.

Fighting for the Forest: How FDR's Civilian Conservation Corps Helped Save America by P. O'Connell Pearson (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers) and Born to Fly: The First Women's Air Race Across America by Steve Sheinkin (Roaring Brook Press) were chosen as honor books for young adult readers.

Series Worth of Note

Discovering History's Heroes (Aladdin) was chosen as a series worthy of note for young readers and The Making of America (Abrams) was chosen as a series worthy of note for young adult readers.