ALA announces youth media award titles today!

ALA announces youth media award winners, Feb. 2, 2015
(PRNEWSWIRE Report about the announcements)

(Only YA or books of interest for young adult readers are listed. Bolded books are available at GKHS.)

I.                   Printz Award (Best YA books of the year)

Award:

·         I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Honor:

·         This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki

·         Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

·         Carnival at Bray by Jessie Ann Foley

·         And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard

II.                 Morris Award (Best YA by a debut author)

Award:

·         Gabi, a Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero

Finalists:

·         Carnival at Bray by Jessie Ann Foley

·         The Story of Owen by E.K. Johnston

·         The Scar Boys by

·         The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

III.              YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults

Award:

·         Popular: Vintage Wisdom by Maya Van Wagenen

Finalists:

·         Laughing at My Nightmare by Shane Burcaw

·         The Family Romanov by Candace Fleming

·         Ida M. Tarbell: the Woman Who Challenged Big Business and Won! by Emily Arnold McCully

·         The Port Chicago 50 by Steven Shienkin

IV.              Newbery Medal (Excellence in literature for children)

Award:

·         The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

Honor:

·         Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

·         El Deafo by Cece Bell (Middle grades book)

V.                Coretta Scott King Award (African American Author/Illustrator)

Award:

·         Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Honor:

·         The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

·         How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon

·         How I Discovered Poetry by Marilyn Nelson

VI.              Schneider Family Book Award (Artistic expression of living with a disability.)

Teen level Award:

·         Girls Like Us by Gail Giles

VII.           Sibert Informational Book Award (Distinguished information book for children)

Award:

·         The Right Word by Jen Bryant (a children’s book)

Honor:

·         Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

·         The Family Romanov by Candace Fleming

VIII.         Stonewall Award (Distinguished writing about the LGBT experience)

Award:

·         This Day in Time by Gayle Pitman (a children’s book)

Honor:

·         Beyond Magenta by Susan Conklin

·         I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

IX.              Edwards Award (Distinguished author of YA or children’s literature)

Award given to Sharon Draper

X.                 Of the other award categories, no books were awarded this year that would be categorized as YA: Pura Belpre (Latino authors), Odyssey Awards (Audiobooks), and The Batchelder Award (Translated into English this year.)

XI.              Alex Awards (Ten best adult books that have crossover appeal for teens)

·         All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

·         Bellwether Rhapsody by Kate Racculia

·         Bingo's Run by James A. Levine

·         Confessions  by Kanae Minato

·         Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

·         Lock In by John Scalzi

·         The Martian by Andy Weir

·         The Terrorist's Son: A Story of Choice by Zak Ebrahim

·         Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Koryta

·         Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle

My thoughts: 

As you can imagine I am over-the moon about I'll Give You the Sun winning the Printz Award. I honestly think it was the best book of the year and I called it!  

I am also happy to see The Crossover winning the Newbery. It's target audience is lower than high school but it is still a marvelous book, so well paced.

I'm shocked that The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender didn't win the Morris Award but glad to see that Gabi, A Girl in Pieces got the love instead. Speaking of Gabi, why didn't it get the Pura Belpre award or honor for books by Latino authors?

And finally...

The Printz committee took a bold step and did award Grasshopper Jungle a Printz Honor. If you have been reading my blog you know how conflicted I've been about this book but finally decided, just last night, it is one of my favorite YA books of the year, so I am very happy and surprised by this declaration.

2015 Printz: my predictions and favorites

Three librarians over at School Library Journal (SLJ) write a blog called Someday My Printz Will Come. This morning they posted a list of their five favorite YA books of the year and then they each made a prediction of the five titles they think will actually win tomorrow.

My favorite YA books of the year changes just about everyday. But since I am out of time I'll land somewhere and hope some of my favorites end up on the actual list tomorrow. They are listed in alphabetical order by title.

The Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith---My opinion has been back and forth on this book but I really, really like it with all its funkiness, even though it is quite controversial.

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson --- no other book this year has touched my heart the way this one did. The voices of the two narrators and the way the story was told by them from different time periods was genius.


The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton---a beautifully worked tale full of magical realism and enough symbolism to make an English teacher salivate.

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll---This books does what it sets out to do:
scare the living daylights out of the reader with seven interconnected written and illustrated by Ms. Carroll. The illustrations are wild, colorful, and creepy.

A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatramen---the book, written in verse, beautifully describes the Hindu religion while the setting in India is vividly brought to life. I know few are talking about this book, but I love it.


Now I doubt that all of these books will get picked by the Printz committee and I honestly won't be sad if they don't, with the possible exception of I'll Give you the Sun. I suspect that they will pick some book(s) I haven't even heard of before. It happens every year.

My predictions of the books the committee will actually select:

Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire --- This book is too irresistible to leave off the list. I think this and I've only read 50 pages of it so far.




I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson---I don't think they will be able to resist the interconnected stories, the two narrators, and the brilliant writing.








This One Summer by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki---a graphic novel that accurately handles a coming-of-age moment. Is it time for anothe graphic novel to win the award or and honor? I think so.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart---There is just something about this book that has kept it on the top of all lists all year.

When I Discovered Poetry by Marilyn Nelson---a memoir written in exquisite poetry, more specifically 50 unrhymed sonnets about Nelson's life from age four to fourteen. Interestingly, the complexity of the poems and the depth of understanding matures as the narrator ages.






I like all of these books and won't be disturbed if any of them are selected.

Now we wait until tomorrow morning. just a few hours and we will know.

Sunday Salon: Super Bowl Sunday 2015

Carly and I baked cookies to serve during the Super Bowl

Weather: Foggy, rainy and grey.

Super Bowl Sunday is today and the Seattle Seahawks play the New England Patriots. After two weeks of build-ups and non stop football talk we will finally have the game. Everyone around here is Seahawks crazy, so much so our church has changed the time of the worship service to an earlier slot.

Mock Printz Workshop: was Thursday after school. Forty students participated in reading the YA books on our list as potential Printz award books, thirty of them attended the workshop. It was a fun, opinionated bunch who got sillier and louder as the afternoon got later. The book they identified as their favorite, Through the Woods by Emily Carroll, was also the book that most of the students had read. We had way too many books on the list this year which meant that many of the books weren't read that widely. Click on the link for my post about the Mock Printz event and to see photos of the kids.

Fan Food: Even at the fellowship hour at church we served Seahawks fan food. Blue and green everything!

Feed My Starving Children Mobile Pack event yesterday: 17 Honor Society students, and their friends, joined me to help pack up meals for the Feed My Starving Children organization. All together we packed up enough of the meal pouches to feed over 420 children a meal a day for a year, our session alone packed enough for 113 of those kids.  If you have a minute take a look at the video of the good work this organization does.

Prayers for: a colleague's daughter who is experiencing serious mental health issues. Prayers for her parents, too, who are carrying a heavy burden right now.

Books read this week:

• Love is the Drug by Alaya Dawn Johnson. Some bloggers believe this is one of the best YA books of the year. We'll find out tomorrow when the winners are announced.
• How I Discovered Poetry by Marilyn Nelson. Also a potential winner this book is made up of 50+ poems in unrhymed sonnets about the author's formative years. I want to reread it and linger over the poems this time.

Currently reading:

• Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire. I am bummed I didn't get to this book earlier. It is simply wonderful, a real potential winner. It is my audiobook selection right now. Both of my daughters have already listened to it and keep asking me about my progress. On disc 2 of 11.
• Laughing at My Nightmare by Shane Burcaw. A memoir by a man who is living with a very debilitating genetic disease. He has a good sense of humor about his lot in life. 

ALA Youth Media Awards: The Printz Award, Newbery, Caldecott, YALSA Nonfiction Awards, Morris book, etc, are announced tomorrow at the end of the ALA mid-winter meeting.  Stay tuned. Every year I host a reading challenge to read one book in each of the categories. Stay tuned for that, also.

Game time in two hours. Time to get some work done around the house and quick dog walk in the rain. Go Hawks!

Every day is a second chance.

Poetry in YA Lit a rare treat

This year six YA titles being considered for the coveted Printz Award are either completely written in verse or have wonderful samples of original poetry within their pages. Add a poem to a page and I practically swoon, so you can imagine how hard it is for me to pick a favorite with six from which to choose. All six of these books have especially good poetry, too.

A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatramen
Storyline: A teen dancer in India has an accident and loses a leg. She figures out how to dance again when she takes to focus off herself and focuses on Dance itself. A beautiful story of triumph, culture, and religion. Written completely in verse.
Poetry sample:
She is the edge of a spinning circle.
She is the stillness at its center.
She is light as a petal rising in a spiraling breeze.
She is a petal dissolving into flower-dust.
Disappearing.

On the stage,
there is no dancer.
there us only dance.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
Storyline: a memoir of Woodson's formative years during the 1960s with the Civil Rights movement in full swing. Written completely in verse.
Poetry Sample:

I am born as the South explodes,

Too many people too many years

enslaved, then emancipated

but not free, the people

who look like me

keep fighting

and marching

and getting killed

so that today---

Feb. 12, 1963

and every day from this moment on,

brown children like me can grow up

free. Can grow up

learning and voting and walking and riding

wherever we want.

Crossover by Kwame Alexander
Storyline: twin boys on their middle school basketball team end up at odds because of a girl. It is a story of basketball, friends, and family. Written in verse, many are concrete poems.
Poetry sample:

Not even close, JB.

What’s the matter?

The hoop too high for you? I snicker

But it is not funny to him,

especially when I take off from center court

My hair like wings,

each lock lifting me higher and HIGHER

Like a 747 ZOOM ZOOM!

The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy by Kate Hattemer

Storyline: Selwyn Academy is now home to a reality TV show and the students are vying for positions on the cast. A group of students want their school back and attempt to sabotage things by publishing a long poem in the style of the Ezra Pound poem they were studying in their English class. The book is written in prose with the long poem called the Contracontos broken into stanzas as chapter headings.

Poetry sample:

O Selwynfolk! In days of old,

Ideals were high and art was bold.

In that primeval solitude,

We sketched and sang, our crafts pursued,

But now, we watch TV. We’re screwed!

Gabi, a Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero
Storyline: A Latina teenager faces many challenges during her senior year including changes at home with her family and parents, friendship issues and challenges, grief issues over several deaths. Gabi finds solace and strength in recording her thoughts in poems and sharing these poems with others. Written in prose interspersed by samples of Gabi's poems.
Poetry sample:
An occurrence
occupies a space
between thoughts
lies prostrate professing something
strange gurgle underground
in a wasteland
of waiting
twiddling thumbs
twiddle dee twiddle dee
and tapping fingers
tappity tappity tappity
waiting for his collapse
callous?
maybe.

But you don't know my dad.

How I Discovered Poetry by Marilyn Nelson
Storyline: About Marilyn's own childhood from ages four to fourteen in America during the 1950s. The poems touch on racism, The Red Scare, the atom bomb, and the feminist movement. All poems in the unrhymed sonnet style
Poetry sample:

How I Discovered Poetry

It was like soul-kissing, the way the words

filled my mouth as Mrs. Purdy read from her desk.

All the other kids zoned an hour ahead to 3:15,

but Mrs. Purdy and I wandered lonely as clouds borne

by a breeze off Mount Parnassus. She must have seen

the darkest eyes in the room brim: The next day

she gave me a poem she’d chosen especially for me

to read to the all except for me white class.

She smiled when she told me to read it, smiled harder,

said oh yes I could. She smiled harder and harder

until I stood and opened my mouth to banjo playing

darkies, pickaninnies, disses and dats. When I finished

my classmates stared at the floor. We walked silent

to the buses, awed by the power of words.

All of the books are remarkable and the poetry divine. I recommend them all to you.

BSD 2015 Mock Printz Workshops results

GKHS Mock Printz team members showing off their favorite books

We had a shockingly long list of Mock Printz books for our readers to plow through this year: 23. Undaunted our readers gladly and voraciously made their way through the list. This week all three high schools in the Bethel School District held their Mock Printz Workshops giving the students an opportunity to at last discuss the books with other readers and to make a case for their favorites.

Grasshopper Jungle became an instant favorite.

The results varied from school to school but it was generally acknowledged that everyone enjoyed the experience and it didn't really matter if we did a good job picking the real Printz winner, it was reading good books that mattered most of all.

There was a lot of energy and enthusiasm in the group. It is fun to be around students who love books.

I just got home from the workshop at my school. In fact, I am soaking my feet in epsom salts as I type away on this blog. It was a long but rewarding experience since it is so fun to be around students who genuinely enjoy reading.

Some how Ender's Game made it into a photo. Sly little book. What a sneaker.

Our final came after two hours of discussion and debates, some intense others humorous, all thoughtful.

Award book:

 Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

Students loved this graphic novel of seven interconnected, horror stories. they talked about how the graphics were  able to tell the story with very few words.

Honor books:

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Students felt the author did a great job leading the reader through the mystery. Most of them were shocked by the ending. The stories within the story were also appreciated.

The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson

This book wasn't officially on our Mock Printz list but so many students liked it and talked about it,  others requested it. This book had the most passionate advocates at the workshop.

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

Students had a hard time articulating why they loved this book but it was apparent they recognized exquisite writing. The magical realism and symbolism were also discussion points.

Making friends because of a common love of books.

Honorable Mention:
I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
This book wasn't added to our reading list until the last minute so fewer students had a chance to read it. This book had some very passionate advocates, however.

The Story of Owen by E.K.Johnston
All readers of this book enjoyed it but no strong advocate spoke passionately for it to be our winner. Because it is a first book in a series also served as a point of contention.

Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith
Few kids read this but those that did had strong opinions on the book. Our discussion on this book bordered on hilarious. As you see, Grasshopper Jungle became an instant hit and made it into almost all the photos.

All I said was grab your favorite and the mugging began!

Results from the other high schools;

Bethel High School:

Award: Say What You Will by McGovern

Honor books: Half Bad by Green; We Were Liars by Lockhart

Spanaway Lake High School:

Award: Say What You Will by McGovern

Honor books: Through the Woods by Emily Carroll; Otherbound by Duyvis ; Half Bad by Green; 100 Sideways Miles by Smith.

My students weren't really interested in discussing Say What You Will or Half Bad. It is interesting how one or two strong fans can sway a whole group to vote for their favorites. (I wonder if that is what happened with the actual committee when they selected Punkzilla a few years back, Ha!)

Our award title choice: Through the Woods.

This book might not be THE winner, but we had more fun discussing it than any of the other books.

All the photos were taken at the GKHS event. Permission was granted to publish photos of students.