Florida Teen Reads (FTR) is a student-choice reading award program. Student’s across the state of Florida vote for their favorite book to win teen-favorite of Florida. This program is put in place to encourage teens to read more.

“I love being chair of the FTR committee because I think it’s so important to help teenagers find the best new Young Adult books. FTR highlights books that are diverse, realistic, and representative of many genres” said Mrs. Smith. 

Across Florida there are 15 media specialists on the FTR committee, including Key West High School Media Center Specialist Sarah Smith, who reads books from May to November to develop a long list of approximately 250 titles. They then meet again after that to cut their long list of 250 to 75 titles. The committee then meets one last time in April to discuss, vote, and select the final 15 titles. Out of this list, students then vote for their favorite book during the voting window in March/early April. In order to vote you must have read 5 out of the 15 books.

The Florida Teen Reads 2021 winner and the new 15 nominees will be announced in April of 2021.

The 2020 FTR winner was A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer. It is a fiction young adult book. Along with winning Florida Teen Reads awards, this book has also won Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee for Young Adult Fantasy and Science Fiction in 2019.

“I hope every student will find at least one of the nominees interesting and enjoyable” said Mrs. Smith.