See also
- List of ALA awards
- Newbery Medal — the first children's literary award in the world, inaugurated 1922
- Margaret Edwards Award – for outstanding lifetime contributions to young-adult literature
| Michael L. Printz Award | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | the year's "best book written for teens, based entirely on its literary merit" |
| Country | United States |
| Presented by | Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association |
| First awarded | 2000 |
| Website | ala |
The Michael L. Printz Award is an American Library Association literary award that annually recognizes the "best book written for teens, based entirely on its literary merit". It is sponsored by Booklist magazine; administered by the ALA's young-adult division, the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA); and named for the Topeka, Kansas, school librarian Mike Printz, a long-time active member of YALSA. [1] Up to four worthy runners-up may be designated Honor Books and three or four have been named every year.
The Printz Award was founded in 2000 for 1999 young adult publications. [2] The award "was created as a counterpoint to the Newbery" in order to highlight the best and most literary works of excellence written for a young adult audience. [3]
Jonathon Hunt, a Horn Book reviewer, hopes that the Printz Award can create a "canon as revered as that of the Newbery." [4]
Michael L. Printz was a librarian at Topeka West High School in Topeka, Kansas, until he retired in 1994. [5] He was also an active member of YALSA, serving on the Best Books for Young Adults Committee and the Margaret A. Edwards Award Committee. [6] He dedicated his life to ensuring that his students had access to good literature. To that end he encouraged writers to focus on the young adult audience. He created an author-in-residence program at the high school to promote new talent and encourage his students. His most noteworthy find was Chris Crutcher. [2] Printz died at the age of 59 in 1996. [7]
Source: "The Michael L. Printz Award Policies and Procedures" [8]
The selection committee comprises nine YALSA members appointed by the president-elect for a one-year term. They award one winner and honor up to four additional titles. [2] The term 'young adult' refers to readers from ages 12 through 18 for purposes of this award. [9] The Michael L. Printz Award is sponsored by Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association (ALA). [10]
The Printz Medal has been awarded for one work annually without exception. [11] Only A. S. King has received the award twice, one for a single-authored book in 2020 and another as editor and contributor to an anthology in 2024. [12]
As of 2024, only A. S. King has won the Printz twice; [12] she also received an Honor. Marcus Sedgwick and M. T. Anderson have written one Award winner and two Honor Books. David Almond, John Green, Geraldine McCaughrean, and Gene Luen Yang have written one Award winner and one Honor Book. Seven people have two Honor Books but have never won the Award: Margo Lanagan, Terry Pratchett, Markus Zusak, Deborah Heiligman, Mariko Tamaki, Candice Iloh, and Angie Thomas.
Six writers have won both the Printz Award and the annual Carnegie Medal from the British librarians: David Almond, Aidan Chambers, Geraldine McCaughrean, Meg Rosoff, Elizabeth Acevedo, and Jason Reynolds. Only Chambers and Acevedo have won both for the same book; Chambers won the 1999 Carnegie and 2003 Printz for Postcards from No Man's Land , [11] [27] and Acevedo won the 2019 Carnegie and Printz for The Poet X. [28] [18] In its scope, books for children or young adults (published in the UK), the British Carnegie corresponds to the American Newbery and Printz awards.
Aidan Chambers is a British author of children's and young-adult novels. He won both the British Carnegie Medal and the American Printz Award for Postcards from No Man's Land (1999). For his "lasting contribution to children's literature" he won the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002.
Markus Zusak is an Australian writer. He is best known for The Book Thief and The Messenger, two novels that became international bestsellers. He won the Margaret Edwards Award in 2014.
The Pura Belpré Award is a recognition presented to a Latino or Latina author and illustrator whose work best portrays the Latino cultural experience in a work of literature for children or youth. It was established in 1996. It was given every other year since 1996 until 2009 when it was changed to be given annually.
Jennifer Donnelly is an American writer best known for the young adult historical novel A Northern Light.
The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), established in 1957, is a division of the American Library Association. YALSA is a national association of librarians, library workers and advocates whose mission is to expand the capacity of libraries to better serve teens. YALSA administers several awards and sponsors an annual Young Adult Literature Symposium, Teen Read Week, the third week of each October, and Teen Tech Week, the second week of each March. YALSA currently has over 5,200 members. YALSA aims to expand and strengthen library services for teens through advocacy, research, professional development and events.
Postcards from No Man's Land is a young-adult novel by Aidan Chambers, published by Bodley Head in 1999. Two stories are set in Amsterdam during 1994 and 1944. One features 17-year-old visitor Jacob Todd during the 50-year commemoration of the Battle of Arnhem, in which his grandfather fought; the other features 19-year-old Geertrui late in the German occupation of the Netherlands. It was the fifth of six novels in the series Chambers calls "The Dance Sequence", which he inaugurated in 1978 with Breaktime.
The Margaret A. Edwards Award is an American Library Association (ALA) literary award that annually recognizes an author and "a specific body of his or her work, for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature". It is named after Margaret A. Edwards (1902–1988), the longtime director of young adult services at Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore.
The Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal established by the Association for Library Service to Children in 2001 with support from Bound to Stay Bound Books, Inc., is awarded annually to the writer and illustrator of the most distinguished informational book published in English during the preceding year. The award is named in honor of Robert F. Sibert, the long-time President of Bound to Stay Bound Books, Inc. of Jacksonville, Illinois. ALSC administers the award.
Amy Sarig King is an American writer of short fiction and young adult fiction. She is the recipient of the 2022 Margaret Edwards Award for her "significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature". She is also the only two-time recipient of the Michael L. Printz Award for Young Adult Literature for Dig (2019) and as editor and contributor to The Collectors: Stories (2023).
Elizabeth Partridge is an American writer, the author of more than a dozen books from young-adult nonfiction to picture books to photography books. Her books include Marching for Freedom, as well the biographies John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth, This Land Was Made for You and Me: The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie, and Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange.
Laura Ruby is an American author of twelve books, including Bone Gap (2015), winner of the 2016 Michael L. Printz Award and finalist for the 2015 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. She is also a professor at Hamline University.
Julie Berry is an American author of children's and young adults books and winner of several national book awards.
Elizabeth Acevedo is an American poet and author. In September 2022, the Poetry Foundation named her the year's Young People's Poet Laureate.
Long Way Down is a young adult novel in verse by Jason Reynolds, published October 24, 2017, by Atheneum Books. The book was longlisted for the National Book Award and was named a Printz Honor Book, Coretta Scott King Honor Book, and Newbery Medal Honor Book, alongside other awards and positive reviews.
The 2019 Youth Media Awards were held by the American Library Association on January 28, 2019. The awards recognize books written for children and young adults and the authors and illustrators who create them.
The Poet X, published March 6, 2018 by HarperTeen, is a young adult novel by Elizabeth Acevedo. Fifteen-year-old Xiomara, also known as "X" or "Xio," works through the tension and conflict in her family by writing poetry. The book, a New York Times bestseller, was well received and won multiple awards at the 2019 Youth Media Awards.
We Are Not Free is a young adult historical fiction novel by Traci Chee, published September 1, 2020 by HMH Books for Young Readers. TIME included it on their list of the 100 best young adult novels of all time.
Everything Sad Is Untrue: is a young adult/middle grade autobiographical novel by Daniel Nayeri, published August 25, 2020 by Levine Querido. In 2021, the book won the Michael L. Printz Award, Judy Lopez Memorial Award for Children's Literature, and Middle East Book Award for Youth Literature.
Apple (Skin to the Core) is a poetic memoir for young adults, written by Eric Gansworth and published October 6, 2020 by Levine Querido. In this book, Gansworth talks about his life as an Onondaga individual, living amongst Tuscaroras, and the impact of residential schooling. As he covers these topics, he discusses common slurs against Indigenous Americans, including the term "apple," which refers to someone who is "red on the outside, white on the inside," that is, who looks Indigenous but acts white.
Rex Ogle is an American author and editor who has published more than 100 books, including those written under various pseudonyms, such as Trey King, Honest Lee, and Rey Terciero. In addition to writing and editing for DC Comics and Marvel Comics, Ogle has written a number of graphic novels and memoirs, including Free Lunch.
