Every year, Illinois students vote on the Readers' Choice Awards for the books they loved the most. WNIJ education reporter Peter Medlin spoke with English teacher and award chair Nichole Folkman about the books that won in 2025.
WNIJ’s Peter Medlin (PM): Kindergarten through 3rd grade is the Monarch Award, and this year the winner was “There's a Ghost in this House” by Oliver Jeffers. This is not, I’d imagine, your typical haunted house story. This is spooky, but also fun and interactive, right?
Nichole Folkman (NK): Yes! For kids, it's really fun because it's the kind of book where they're in on the joke, but the main character is not, and they absolutely adore that. It also has this beautiful thing going on with the art where there it's like vellum pages that turn. So, you at first can't see the ghost, just like the main character can't, and then you turn the page, and we see the ghost. They love being able to guess and imagine where the ghost is going to show up on the page. I even read that with my high school students on Halloween this year, and they enjoyed it as well. We had a lot of fun.
(PM): And it’s very cool, with that, where you get to control the pacing. You control the jump scares to a degree.
(NK): Absolutely, and they're very cute ghosts.
(PM): The Bluestem Award is chosen by students in 3rd through 5th grade. What won the Bluestem this year?
(NK): “Odder” by Katherine Applegate and Charles Santoso. Katherine Applegate is the author, and Charles Santoso does the beautiful pencil sketches throughout the book. This is a novel-in-verse, which the students absolutely love. It's soft and gentle and beautiful, and still teaches them about the environment and how scientists learn how to best help animals.
(PM): Also, we do have the Rebecca Caudill Award. Can you tell us a little bit about the Rebecca Caudill?
(NK): Yeah, it’s 4th through 8th grade. The winner of the Rebecca Caudill this past year was “The Inheritance Games” by Jennifer Lynn Barnes.
(PM): “The Inheritance Games” is also the first in a series of YA novels. This is something that, maybe I'm not reading as many YA novels as I did when I was a YA.
(NK): You're missing out; they’re amazing!
(PM): I really am! But I thought it was fascinating because my perception was, especially the last 15-20 years, a lot of those big YA series were very post-apocalyptic, very "Hunger Games" and "Maze Runner," but this is not that.
(NK): “No, this is much more of a realistic fantasy dream world. So, Avery Grambs is the random inheritor of billions of dollars from some guy she's never met and never even really heard of, and she, in inheriting the money, has disinherited all of the kids and grandkids. It’s like this wish fulfillment of "what kid wouldn't want to have more money than I can literally even spend?" but there is a catch. She has to live in the house with all the disinherited family for one year in order to get the money. There are puzzles and games and intrigue and drama, and it is one of my personal favorite series.
(PM): We'll finish off with the Lincoln Award, which is the teen readers award. This one I was fascinated by, which was “I'm Glad My Mom Died” by Jennette McCurdy, which I remember was a huge deal when it came out a few years ago. Jennette McCurdy, of course, was a huge star on Nickelodeon when I was a kid. This is her memoir about her relationship with her abusive mother. It's got a very obviously provocative title and book cover if you've seen that. But, I mean, what do you make about this one winning the award this year?
(NK): It's been really interesting to me. Last year on that list and the new 2026 list both have a decent amount of adult crossover titles. So, “I'm Glad My Mom Died” is written and marketed for adults, but it has wonderful teen crossover appeal and is perfectly appropriate for teens as well. They have really enjoyed it. They didn't grow up as Nickelodeon kids, at least in the right time period for this, but they are drawn in by that cover, by that title. Then you start to tell them a little bit about the story, and they're like, "oh my gosh," and they read it, and they can't put it down. Once I saw the list and started reading the books. I wasn't surprised that that won in the end.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
