Let’s Talk About the 2018 Printz Award

So how about those Youth Media Awards? (I previously talked about my library’s mock printz for this year and shared some predictions in this older post.)

Every year the American Library Association’s (ALA) division called YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) (among others) has committees of dedicated librarians choosing the best of the best books in various categories for things called the Youth Media Awards. In YA literature, the biggest award is the Printz for outstanding overall books. Other awards include the Morris which is for best debut.

Speculation on what will and will not make the Printz cut is a hot topic in library circles and heavily debated since the official criteria leaves a lot up to interpretation. I spend a lot of time trying to guess contenders both for myself and for my job where I chair a committee that chooses shortlist titles for a systemwide Mock Printz.

This year I came up with this short list. The first six titles were on my library’s Mock Printz shortlist and the final four were ones that I hoped would win something.

1. Landscape With Invisible Hand by M. T. Anderson
2. The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed
3. Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
4. The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater
5. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
6. Spinning by Tillie Walden
7. Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore
8. I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo
9. Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers by Deborah Heiligman
10. American Street by Ibi Zoboi

So how did my predictions stack up? Pretty well. While I still with I Believe in a Thing Called Love, Jane Unlimited, and American Street had gotten more attention I’m happy to say my committee’s shortlist was pretty on point. I’m not going to detail all of the awards here (you can find the full roster of winners and honors in ALA’s press release) I will say my committee covered about 80% of the winning titles between booktalks and our Mock Printz program.

Here are the wins for the books I mentioned here:

1. Landscape With Invisible Hand by M. T. Anderson
2. The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed
3. Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds (Printz honor, Newbery honor, Coretta Scott King honor)
4. The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater (Stonewall winner, Nonfiction award finalist)
5. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Printz honor, Coretta Scott King honor, Morris Award winner)
6. Spinning by Tillie Walden
7. Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore (Best Fiction for Young Adults booklist selection)
8. I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo
9. Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers by Deborah Heiligman (Printz honor, nonfiction award winner)
10. American Street by Ibi Zoboi (Best Fiction for Young Adults booklist selection)

Have you read any of these or are they on your radar? Do you follow the youth media awards every year?