YALSA's announces their Printz award for 2014!!!

YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association if you're not into that whole brevity thing) awards one and only one book with it's most coveted honor (and pretty much the biggest deal ibn YA fiction PERIOD), the Printz Award.  Named in honor of Michael L. Printz, a long time member of YALSA who has passed away, the Printz is given to the book that exemplifies the best of what young adult literature can do.  This year's winner is...

Midwinter Blood by Marcus Sedgwick YP FIC SEDGWICK
Seven linked vignettes unfold on a Scandinavian island inhabited--throughout various time periods--by Vikings, vampires, ghosts, and a curiously powerful plant. Stories of the future, the past, fate, and tragedy wrap in and out of each other in an ever widening tapestry.  A strange, beautiful, and intricate novel of quiet power that will stay with you far after the last page. You can find Midwinter Blood in our catalog here. Watch out for my review coming soon!


 
The also excellent, very prestigious, and just-an-honor-to-be-nominated honor books are:

2014 Honor Books

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell YP FIC ROWELL
Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits--smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.  Find it in our catalog here. Read my positively gushing review here.


Kingdom of Little Wounds by Susann Cokal YP FIC COKAL
The wedding festivities of Scandinavian Princess Sophia are thrown into turmoil by an illness plaguing the royal family and a courtier's plot that places a seamstress and a royal nursemaid at the center of an epic power struggle. Find it in our catalog here.
 
Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner, illustrated by Julian Crouch J FIC GARDNER
Following a stray football to the other side of a wall where there is a secret, Standish Treadwell discovers astonishing truths about a moon landing that the overseeing Motherland, a ruthless regime, is determined to hide. Find it in our catalog here.

Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool YP FIC VANDERPOOLOdyssey-like adventure of two boys' incredible quest on the Appalachian Trail where they deal with pirates, buried secrets, and extraordinary encounters. Find it in our catalog here.

And the Best Book for Young Adults (according to the America Library Association) is...

Drum roll please.  The American Library Association has announced their 2013 awards.  This year their prestigious and much valued and super-duper keen Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults goes to….

THIS IS SO TENSE!!!!

In Darkness by Nick Lake (Call Number YP FIC LAKE).  This is the dark (sorry bad pun) and compelling first hand story of a young teen from the slums of Haiti (hopelessly?) trapped under rubble following a massive earth shattering quake. I (very favorably) reviewed it here.  I am quite happy with their selection this year and truly hope it leads more people to read this stellar novel.

Below are the four Honor Books that didn’t quite make the top prize, but do not scoff! These four books definitely are honored, because they are among the top five of all YA novels for all of last year.  Pretty impressive. Check one or all of the m out today!

 
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz YP FIC SAENZ

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein YP FIC WEIN

Dodger by Terry Pratchett YP FIC PRACHETT

The White Bicycle by Beverley Brenna YP FIC BRENNA

Done reading these?  ALREADY!? Okay, well head on over to the ALA and check out their other award winners! 

The White Darkness: a novel, by Geraldine McCaughrean

Symone, Sym for short, is a thirteen year old girl from England, who has such a hard time at school with her peers that she has created a fantasy life. It started when she watched an old television series called “The Last Place on Earth” that dramatizes Robert Scott’s ill-fated 1912 expedition to the South Pole. She already knew about Antarctica because her Uncle Victor had loaded her with books on the subject since she was small. Something about the series mesmerizes her, and especially the actor playing Titus Oates, one of Scott's party. He has become her constant companion, her soul mate, who encourages her when she’s afraid, keeps her going when all looks dark.

And she needs someone like that after Sym and her crazy uncle go down into Antarctica, first on a deluxe adventure tour that turns into a more personal and much more dangerous quest than she or you could ever imagine. Although the book is very engaging and you can’t help but be enthralled by each crazy plot development, I could not believe in her “mind” person/friend. I just don’t buy an available “alternate universe”, at least not one that materializes so conveniently exactly when you need it. But the book is worth reading, despite this quibble.