Top Book Awards Announcement - Jan. 23, 2006

Many of you've probably heard of the Newbery Award (an award given to the best children's book every year) or the Caldecott Award (which honors the best picture book). Unfortunately, a lot of people don't know that there are several awards for teen books, too.

On January 23, 2006 at the ALA Midwinter Conference (a big conference where librarians from all over the world get together to talk about libraries, services to offer, books and other media, etc.) the winners of all of the award will be announced. For the first time ever, the announcement will be webcast! To view the announcement, go to www.ala.org and follow the links -- the press conference will start at 7:30am (I know, it's early).

Here are the awards for Young Adult Literature that will be awarded:

The Michael L. Printz Award: For excellence in literature written for young adults

The Alex Awards: For the best adult books that appeal to a teen audience (this one's my favorite)

The Margaret A. Edwards Award: For lifetime achievement in writing for young adults.

Want to get in the mood for the announcement, and get an idea of the quality of books that win the awards? Go to YALSA's award website for lists of previous award winners.

And just because I'm curious: anyone reading this have thoughts on what books or authors might win awards this year?

I think one of the coolest things about these book awards is the secrecy that surrounds them. No one except for the committee members even knows what books are nominated, except for the book that wins and any honor books that are selected. Seriously! Even after the award is announced, the people that choose the award can't tell anyone what other books they were thinking about. It makes me think of old episodes of Get Smart, when Smart and his boss would go under the glass dome (I can't remember what it's called) and no one else could hear what they were saying. Of course, if I'm remembering correctly they couldn't hear what each other were saying, either, which is not the case for the members of award selection committees.

KB