Mock Printz Winners

Teen librarians from across Maricopa County gathered on Monday to discuss the best teen books published in 2012 and select a winner for our Mock Printz Award.   The Printz is the highest honor bestowed on a piece of teen liteature by the American Library Assosciation each year.  In our "mock" discussion, we try to predict what that winner might be. 

Our top choice for this year?  Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein.  This novel  takes place in the thick of the fighting of World War II in Europe, and it tells the story two best friends: a female British airplane pilot named Maddie and a Scottish telegraph operator whose name you don't even know at first; the novel begins with her being held prisoner by the Gestapo.  She's suffered torture and fully expects to be executed.  As she spills secrets to her Nazi interrogators, she also tells the story of her remarkable friendship with Maddie.

Code Name Verity carries an incredible emotional impact.  Beautifully written, this is a tale of war at its worst (torture, death, concentration camps), and its best (the determination of the French Resistance and others to fight the Nazis; the enduring love between friends; the bonds that war forges when two people might never have even met otherwise.)   Highly, highly recommended.

We also selected one Mock Honor Printz winner and that was The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Some of the other teen librarians have already blogged about that title here--rave reviews and well-deserved.  The Fault in Our Stars will make you laugh out loud and cry, and you're not likely to forget the two main chartacters for a long, long time.

This year's official winner will be announced January 28th.  For a list of all past Printz winners,  go to http://www.ala.org/awardsgrants/michael-l-printz-award.  

Mock Printz

Tomorrow is one of my favorite librarian events of the year--the Mock Printz discussions, this year taking place at the Appaloosa Library in Scottsdale. There teen librarians will gather to discuss several books nominated as the best teen literarture of the year. After discussion we vote on the titles and try to select the one we think might win the actual Printz. This year, in my humble opinion, I think we read some great titles. I still don't have a really strong frontrunner and actually have no idea how I'm going to vote tomorrow, but the titles we'll be considering are:

Angry Young Man by Chris Lynch

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Blink and Caution by Tim Wynne-Jones

Chime by Fanny Billingsley

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor (loooved it--maybe this one?)

Family by Mikal Ostow

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Shine by Lauren Myracle

Tighter by Adele Griffin

Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley

I've already reviewed a few of these. The one that sticks in my mind at present is Where Things Come Back. As I read this tale of two brothers--one of whom goes missing, leaving the other in distress--I kept thinking how much it reminded me of John Green. Very similar humor, very similar character types, the kind to whom you get very attached.

Sometimes we get close to the real winner in our Mocks; sometimes we totally dismissed the winning title and/or honor titles. Some years a nonfiction book gets in there and we've never, in my memory, nominated or discussed one. This year there were two strong fantasy contenders--Daughter of Smoke and Bone (already noted my love for that) and Chime, leaving me wishing that YALSA would create a separate award just for outstanding teen fantasy fiction.

Try any of these books and you won't be disappointed. (Although I cannot speak personally for Blink and Caution as, shamefully, it was the one title I did not manage to finish in time.) They're all quite different from one another. Between Shades of Gray will break your heart. It will also make you understand the true horror of the saying, "Be careful or they'll ship you off to Siberia." Chime is a quirkily written fantasy whose writing style first irked me then won me over. Family is a novel in verse about the horror of falling under the spell of a bloodthirsty cult leader. Shine is the mystery of who nearly killed a gay teen in the rural South. See? Very different. But all winners in one way or another.

Boy Toy

I've been reading lots of teen books in preparation for the upcoming Mock Printz discussion. This is an event in which local teen librarians gather to discuss a slate of nominated books and try to pick which title we believe deserves the Michael L. Printz award (the highest American honor for YA literature.) My latest read was Boy Toy by Barry Lyga, and quite simply, it blew me away.

The book starts with Josh, now a senior in high school, recounting the things he learned when he was twelve. Among history lessons and the Pythagorean Theorem, is: "How to please a woman." And pleasing a "woman" is exactly what our narrator means. In junior high, Josh's life derailed when he started an affair with his young and pretty history teacher, twelve years his senior. Josh, who is very bright and mature for his age, blames himself for "seducing" Mrs. Sherman. For several months, the two kept their relationship secret until Josh unwittingly revealed his experience at a female classmate's birthday party when he joined his friend, Rachel, in a closet for a "seven minutes in heaven" game that went wildly out of control. Accused of attacking Rachel, Josh lets it slip that he'd learned his maneuvers from his teacher. It is a slip he can't forgive himself for. Everything comes out into the open. Eve Sherman is arrested. Josh has to testify at her trial. And Eve, of course, ends up going to prison. Flash forward five years: Josh, the senior, has grown up a little but the shame of his public past, the disintegration of his friendship with Rachel, and his unshakable sense that everyone knows his secrets and everyone talks about him, have marred his life. Josh can't wait to graduate and get out of his town. He's never come to terms with his guilt--or faced the truth about just which person was responsible for his and Eve's downfalls. When Josh learns that Eve Sherman is being released from prison his world turns upside down again. Baseball, math, and his best friend are the only things keeping him tethered, until Rachel re-enters his life, and he's forced to confront his past for real.

One of the things that works so well in this book is the way Lyga paints Josh's seduction. While Josh blames himself--he thinks he must be a "perv" for going after his teacher--the reader understands, almost immediately, that Josh is the one who has been abused. But Josh doesn't get this. His first sexual experience comes far too early, from someone Josh reveres and finds attractive. Since Josh wanted the relationship, he doesn't realize that he has been molested. Josh's slow growth towards understanding his past is told in a sophisticated and well-structured novel that weaves between present and past. It is frank about sex. There's sex here--lots of it. A Booklist review accuses the sex scenes of bordering on soft-core porn. I disagree. The scenes are vivid, but necessary to plot, realistic but not gratuitous. This book is clearly written for an older teen, one who can see what Lyga is telling us---Josh may have been abused but if he doesn't know it and blames himself, how does he progress past the shame? Lyga makes it crystal clear just how confusing--and wrong--the "relationship" with Eve was, although it takes Josh a long time to reach a similar conclusion. To make his character complete, Lyga had to be honest when describing the sexual portions of the novel. The graphic nature of these scenes helps the reader to understand Josh's conflicting emotions. He believes he loves Mrs. Sherman. Mrs. Sherman tells him she loves him. How does a young boy deal with all of this? For instance, how does a person come to realize he has been abused when his abuse was something he enjoyed? If Lyga had pulled his punches and toned down the description of the seduction, the book wouldn't have been nearly as successful. The sex scenes are uncomfortable for the reader, as I suspect they were meant to be. After all, there is a fair amount of ick factor in reading them---the reader is well aware that what is going on is wrong, while Josh doesn't know. The more obsessed Eve grows with Josh, the more dangerous the affair becomes until, of course, it all explodes.

This book isn't all about abuse, and that's what makes it a sophisticated read and not a melodramatic problem novel. Yes, it's about an abusive sexual relationship, but it is also about friendship, and a family falling apart, the struggle to decide one's future, academics versus athletics, going to prom, choosing a college, getting a girlfriend . . . all of it tied together and seen through Josh's eyes as he grows as a person. (In one way he has worlds of experience other kids his age don't have, but as a a result of it, he is stunted emotionally.) I'm impressed that Lyga managed so many subplots that all came together. These varied plots worked, making for an incredibly satisfying read. (And here again I disagree with the Booklist reviewer who suggests that Lyga took on too much, to the novel's detriment. No,no! I say. This is what makes the novel rich and layered instead of a one-dimensional whine fest). This is a novel that makes a reader think, based around a situation (seduction of a student by a teacher) that is an unfortunately timely one these days.

I'd already read Barry Lyga's first novel, The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl which I liked but didn't love. I'd recommend it, but it wouldn't be the first title that came to my mind when suggesting books. Boy Toy, I loved (although I must say the title disappoints. Really, Boy Toy? You couldn't come up with anything better, Mr. Lyga?) It's probably best for an older reader, but it definitely delivers its punch. Now, I can't wait to see what the author publishes next.

Eisner Nominees -- Part One!

So Karen thinks she's the Queen of Blogging, huh? However, if you look at the posts by the numbers, you will notice that Kristin has the most posts, which would make her the Blog Queen. I have the second highest number, which makes me Blog Princess -- just as much fun as Blog Queen, but with fewer royal duties and more sparkly things.

Anyway, this summer, I've been trying to read all of the Eisner Nominees for 2007. The Eisner is kind of like a comics Oscar -- the best known and most prestigious award you can win for making a comic, graphic novel, or comic related publication. You can check out the nominees here. If there's a bunch of stuff on here you've never heard of, don't feel bad -- for the last couple years the Eisner Committee has been choosing more and more indy comics, which might not show up on your radar.

Before we go any further, there are two things you should know; first off, the Eisner Committee is made of adults, who are picking books for other adults, so there is stuff on this list that is not appropriate for younger teens, secondly, a most of these books I had to inter-library loan, so you won't find them on the shelves at GPL.

Staring with Best Graphic Album - New category, it's really hard for me to pick a favorite.


I love Tony Millionaire's Sock Monkey books, so I was excited to see Billy Hazelnuts up for Best New Graphic Album. Billy Hazelnuts is a very strange book about a boy made out of trash by mice and his fantastic adventures in an Oz-type world. This book reminded me of a Tim Burton movie, with strange machines and incredible happenings. The art in this book is gorgeous, and almost looks like a woodcut from the middle ages.


The Ticking, by Renee French, is another beautiful -- but really, really strange -- book. The main character, Edison, is born with hideous facial deformities. He rejects the plastic surgery his father wants, and instead fills his lonely life with art. This book pulls of the neat trick of managing to be really sweet and really disgusting at the same time. I don't know that I liked it, but it did stay with me for a long time.

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel is a sad and beautiful book, about how the author found her life at the same time her dad decided to end his. This is one of those "by adults, for adults" books, as it deals frankly with both Alison's lesbianism and her father's closeted homosexuality. I liked this book for how honest it is, and for Bechdel's clear , uncomplicated drawings

Kristin has already talked about American Born Chinese, so I won't say much about it here, except that if you haven't read it, you really should. When it first came out, I didn't really pay much attention to it, because it's not the type of comic I usually like. Then, when it got nominated for the National Book Award, I looked at it again, and was totally blown away.

The other books in this category -- Scrublands, Ninja and I Love Led Zeppelin -- were nothing special (in my not so humble opinion), and I wouldn't recommend any of them. If you held me down and forced me to pick a favorite, I would probably say Fun Home, just because Bechdel doesn't hold anything back; you can tell she's really trying to understand her dad and their relationship through her comics. I also really like how clean and simple Bechdel's art is. As somebody who can't draw a competent stick figure, I appreciate artists who make it look easy. Number 2 is probably American Born Chinese, 3 is Billy Hazelnuts.

Since I still want to get through the other graphic album categories, this probably won't be my last post about this year's nominees. You can look for some of these books in the adult section at GPL in the near future.