The Michael L. Printz Award Award for literary excellence in young adult literature by the American Library Association

The Michael L. Printz award first issued in 2000 is named in honor of a Topeka, Kansas high school librarian who had been a long time advocate for young adult literature, and library teen services. Monster by Walter Dean Myers was the first book to receive the award.

How is Michael L. Printz chosen? A committee of nine members from the American Library Association choose the winner and up to four honors from books that were published within the previous year.

The award may be fiction Looking For Alaska By John Green Winner 2006

A Wreath For Emmit Till by Marylin Nelson 2006 Honor It can be poetry

It can be a Graphic Novel American Born Chinese By Gene Luen Tan Winner 2007

Printz awards can also be an anthology, or a selection of short stories. All books have to be designated by publishers as “young adult” or for the ages ranging between 12-18. Black Juice By Margo Lanagan 2006 Honor

Books can be from other countries, as long as they were published within the past year in the United States The White Darkness By Geraldine McCaughrean 2008 Winner Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging; Confessions of Georgia Nicholsen By Louise Rennison 2001 Honor

Other Criteria The ALA says that they do hope to choose books that will have a wide audience, but “POPULARITY is not a criterion.” Also, “CONTROVERSY is not something to avoid.” Books should be talked about. Tender Morsels By Margo Lanagan 2009 Honor

Now….Would you like to meet some of the most recent winners? Why not?… Let’s look at the the 2010 honors and winner… We have realistic fiction, We have historical fiction, A few modern fantasy, And some non-fiction.

What do you get when you cross a steadfast Christian with the father of evolutionist theory?

Charles and Emma; The Darwin’s Leap of Faith By Deborah Heilgman Before marrying, Charles Darwin sat down and made a list of reason of why he should or should not get married. Spoiler alert…marriage won, and Charles Darwin decided to ask his cousin Emma Wedgwood to be his wife. Ten children and an Origin of Species later the marriage stayed strong. Even though they were on the opposite sides about the role of God in creation, Charles and Emma shows that the relationship was one of love and respect, and the marriage to the intelligent, steadfast, and deeply religious Emma was one of the most important relationships in Charles’ life and career.

Time to go AWOL

Punkzilla By Adam Rapp A look at what life on the streets is like for 14-year-old Jamie who has run away from military school, an oppressive father, and a life where he feels he just can’t meet expectations. AWOL and off his meds, Jamie a.k.a. “Punkzilla,” has ended up in Portland, Oregon living hand to mouth by stealing ipods and creatively scheming. Now he is leaving the rainy streets and Roxy Diner behind him as he tries to make it to Memphis to be with his older brother Peter who is dying of cancer in his last days. Told through a series of unsent letters to his brother, Jamie tells the events his recent past and present future as he travels on the road meeting the good, the bad, and the ambivalent, and gradually peels away at finding for himself his own sense of integrity.

“Only a madman believes what every child knows to be true: there are monsters that lie in wait under our beds.”

The Monstrumologist By Rick Yancey “Snap to, Will Henry!” is the common catch phrase you hear from monstrumologist Dr. Pellinore Warthrop to his recently orphaned 12-year-old assistant. Will did not know the horrors that awaited him when the manically driven doctor took him in after his parents’ untimely death. We are taken back to New England in the late 1800s following the civil war as Will learns that a main drive of Dr. Warthrop comes from searching for the anthropopogi, the headless, cannibalistic, human-like creatures with saber-like teeth that have started to lay waste to their town of New Jerusalem, and both Will Henry and the doctor have to face certain legacies that their fathers have left behind for them.

1973 Six Days One mission “Operation Be F’n Normal”

Tales of the MADMAN Underground By John Barnes With talking rabbits, all-you-can-eat leftover McDonald hamburgers, and his own hellish version of Millions of Cats, all Karl Shoemaker wants is one normal year. Having been grouped with a cast of misfits for the past eight years that are pushed underground into school group therapy for the injustices that life has put on them, Karl wants to escape the “Madmen,” and have his last year of high school be different. Plans get turned upside down when Marti comes to town, and is inducted into the Madmen group all while Karl’s alcoholic, conspiracy-theorist mother continues to steal his holed-away money from his five after-school jobs. Karl has to find his place above, and below as he searches for the meanings of love, waffles, capitalism, Scooby-Doo and graves in the rain.

How Now Mad Cow? In where we meet punk rock angels, viking yard gnomes, something worse that H1N1, and save the world from udder destruction by anvil throwing coyotes. Beep…beep…

Going Bovine By Libba Bray 2010 Winner Cameron has been known to smoke a little pot now and then. That is how he met Gonzo, the Mexican-American, hypochondriac, sci-fi loving dwarf in the pot smoker’s bathroom. But when Cameron starts to have terrifying visions, and some uncontrolled behavior it is easy to assume that he has been hitting the weed a little to hard. Come to find out, what actually is afflicting Cam is Creutzfeldt-Jacob, also known as "mad cow" disease. When hospitalized with Gonzo as his roommate, and prompted by the fishnet-and-combat boot-wearing angel Dulcie, Gonzo and Cameron escape the hospital in search of their own cure, and hopes of saving the planet from impending doom. Running into everything from happiness-cults to trapped Viking gods, Cameron and Gonzo travel across the American South in hopes of controlling their own fate. Whether this book is realistic fiction, or modern fantasy, you decide, author Libba Bray has taken the concept of each, and smashed it on the ground in a mess of a million little snow globe pieces.

sources The American Library Association, YALSA division http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/booklistsawards/printzaward/Printz.cfm Printz Powerpoint, created by Danielle Jones, February 23, 2010.