Winners & Shortlists

View the current All Iowa Reads winners and shortlists as well as winners and shortlists from the past five years.

Back to top

2025 Winners & Shortlists

All Iowa Reads: 
DISTANT SONS by Tim Johnston

Adult Runners Up

  • Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America by Beth Hoffman
  • Everything I learned, I learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir by Curtis Chin
  • A Fever in the heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan
  • I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger
  • Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

Teen All Iowa Reads: 
REZ BALL by Byron Graves

Teen Runners Up

  • Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed by Daska Slater
  • Forever Is Now by Mariama J. Lockington
  • Huda F. Are You? by Huda Fahmy
  • The Silence That Binds Us written by Joanna Ho
  • Where You See Yourself by Claire Forrest

Kids All Iowa Reads: 
JAWBREAKER by Christina Wyman

Kids Runners Up

  • Barely Floating by Liliam Rivera
  • Dust by Dusti Bowling
  • Good Different by Meg Eden Kuyatt
  • The Labors of Hercules Beal by Gary D. Schmidt
  • We Still Belong by Christine Day
  • What Happened To Rachel Riley? by Claire Swinarski
Back to top

Previous Years Winners and Shortlists

Click on a year below to expand the section and see that year's All Iowa Reads selected title(s) as well as the runners up. 

For winners beyond the previous five years, contact Helen.Dagley@iowa.gov (adult program) or Janee.Jackson-Doering@iowa.gov (teen and kids programs).

Back to top