The Towner Award

The Towner Award is the Washington state award for nonfiction picture books written for 2nd-6th grade students. In the spring, all Washington State students in public and independent schools, from second through sixth grades, are invited to vote for their favorite book if they have listened to or read a minimum of two titles. Student votes can be submitted by school and public librarians only. In addition, we will recognize an Educators' Choice. This is your chance to share with other educators which book you found most useful in the classroom.

The 2025 Towner Award Winner is...

2026 Towner Award Nominees

2026 Towner Award Nominees Press Release

Image of the 2026 Towner Award nominees

The Washington State Student Award for Informational Text

The Towner Award is named after Bill Towner, longtime Seattle librarian and mentor to dozens of librarians. Bill was an outstanding teacher-librarian who worked with thousands of students from all backgrounds and taught all of them his love of literature. Bill showed us how caring teachers and librarians can make a difference.

This award is intended to complement other awards determined by student vote in the state of Washington; the Sasquatch, Washington’s Children Choice Picture Book and OTTER Book Awards. It is sponsored by the Washington Library Association School Library Division and intended for books enjoyed by students in grades Two through Six.

For the purposes of this award, Informational Text is defined as that which serves chiefly to convey factual information to the reader and may contain biography, narrative and other forms.

Each year a slate of ten books will be selected by a group of librarians from Washington state. This group will include public and school librarians, and members will be selected so as to provide representation for different parts of the state.