Saturday, January 26, 2008

Printz: The Name, the Award, Previous Winners

The full name of the award: "The Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature"

Why? "The Michael L. Printz Award is an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature. It is named for a Topeka, Kansas school librarian who was a long-time active member of the Young Adult Library Services Association. The award is sponsored by Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association." More information about Mike Printz is at the YALSA site.

This Year's Winners.

Previous Winners: Complete list at YALSA.

Liz's Comments: I won't always do comments, but here, let me just point out it's well worth it to look at the past winners and honor books. It's quite a mix of books. It's also fascinating to think just how young this award is.

Also, when speaking of YA books, I need to plug the DVD Extra, "How to Deal With YA Literature," that appears in the DVD of How to Deal. Dude, it talks about Sue Barton! Seriously, it is a nice and quick look at the evolution of YA literature, decade by decade. A lot of great teens and authors and YA lit people discuss YA books. It is a "must view," if not "must own."

Source: The YALSA website.

3 comments:

Little Willow said...

That sounds like an awesome extra.

SafeLibraries® said...

I wrote an article about the 2006 Printz winner called, "Porn Pushers - The ALA and Looking For Alaska - One Example of How the ALA Pushes Porn On Children." My article includes relevant comments from major sources like Naomi Wolf and Pam Spencer Holly, then President of YALSA, admitting certain books (including those Naomi Wolf said parents would find shocking and indicate a real downward spike in books for children) are substandard but who cares, adults read Harlequin novels, don't they? Then Pam Spencer Holley and the ALA went on to create an official ALA list of substandard books for those children who could not get enough shocking material.

Hope you'll read my article with an open mind.

Anonymous said...

Sue Barton! I adore those books. A couple of years ago, my mom went on an ebay quest to find the rest of the series (we only had the first one) and I quickly "borrowed" them. They would still be in my apartment if she hadn't specifically requested them. Alas...