While reading an article in Publishers Weekly about Francesca Lia Block, the author of Weetzie Bat, I learned of an intriguing award that’s been given out by the Children’s Literature Association since 1985. (And the fact that I’m only learning about it now goes to show just how far out of the loop I am as far as YA is concerned.)

Weetzie Bat recently won that organization’s Phoenix Award, which is given to a book published exactly 20 years previously. But there’s an additional proviso, and that’s what makes the award so interesting to me. The winner must be the best book which did not already win any major award in the year of its original release. So the winner isn’t necessarily what the group considers the best book of any given year, but rather the best book never to have already walked away with a trophy.

While I’ve heard of awards designed to bring older, forgotten works back into the public consciousness, such as the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, and awards designed to designate the best work a specific number of years in the past, such as the retro-Hugos, I’d never heard of an award that looked back to pick the best, while at the same time limiting the choice only to the best that hadn’t already won a prize.

As far as literary awards are concerned, I thought I knew it all, and so this hole in my knowledge forces me to ask—are there any other awards out there with such interesting mandates about which I should have already known?

I don’t want to live in ignorance a moment longer than is necessary, so help me out here!