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Share Your Mock YMA Results!

Published January 18, 2019

The post below is cross posted from the ALSC blog. If you’ve done any mock awards at your library (not just the Printz, though we’re especially excited about that one here at the Hub) please share the results with us!

In just over two weeks, on Monday morning, January 28th, the Youth Media Awards will be announced at #alamw19. Excitedly, we will all hear what wins some of the most prestigious book awards in the world, including the Newbery Award, the Caldecott Award, the Printz Award, the Batchelder Award, and more. As excitement builds, librarians in schools and libraries around the country offer Mock YMA elections to help stimulate and share the reading enthusiasm and excitement. The ALSC Blog collects results from these mock elections and compiles the results on its Mock Elections page.

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Announcing YALSA’s 2019 Selected Lists/A 2020 Update

Published January 17, 2019

Our 2019 Amazing Audiobooks, Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers, Great Graphic Novels for Teens, and Best Fiction for Young Adults lists are now completed! (BFYA will announce their top ten after the teen feedback session at ALA Midwinter in Seattle.) Also, if you’re interested in titles from past lists, please check out our Teen Bookfinder App! Check out the lists now as PDFs below or listed individually on the YALSA site.

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A Morris Award Reflection

Published January 10, 2019

Three years ago, I sat in a locked room and deliberated with my Morris Award Committee colleagues. We laughed and argued over the merits of each of our five finalists before reaching a decision. I was teary-eyed as our winner was announced and the audience cheered. I celebrated at the Morris/Nonfiction Award Ceremony and flew home that night, exhausted.

There is something special about the Morris Award because it is given to a debut novel. I feel a special connection to the five debut authors whose work I spent a lot of time with. Sort of the way I feel about my nieces and nephews — proud, but not because I had any real part in their creation. Like a good Auntie following my siblings’ children, I have followed the career paths of  the five 2016 Morris finalists. Here’s what they have been up to since 2016.

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Books to Beat Boredom on School Snow Days

Published January 3, 2019

It’s mid-December at the time of this writing, and we’ve already had our first snow day. Like usual, while the schools were closed, we at the public library were still open, leading to many a bored teenager, hyper kid, and frazzled parent to brave the weather for some diversion. Often, these seekers of entertainment were not just looking for something to do right then and there, but for ideas for the next snow day, the big one (the real one), where everyone would be stuck inside and forced to make their own fun. Here are some interesting cooking and craft books to recommend to tweens and teens who want to perfect a skill, learn something new, or make something together with their family. Think of this list as a Pinterest alternative.

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#BFYA2019 Nominees Round Up, December 14 Edition

Published December 14, 2018

Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani and Viviana Mazza
Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date: September 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0062696724 

The experiences of the Nigerian schoolgirls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014 are told through the story of one unnamed teen. She lives a quiet life with her family in a villiage and dreams of testing well enough to win the award that will send her to college. Instead, she is among a large number of girls who are kidnapped; her father is killed and her brother is also taken away by Boko Haram. The girls are taken to a camp where they are taught to behave properly and are prepared for lives as wives. Her best friend embraces this new life; other girls resist, sometimes losing their lives as a result. The girl describes her life as wife to a stranger, the challenge of fitting into her new community, and her attempts to escape.

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2019 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award Finalists Announced!

Published December 12, 2018

And here’s the second moment you all have been waiting for! The 2019 Nonfiction Award Finalists!

  • The Beloved World of Sonia Sotomayor written by Sonia Sotomayor
  • Boots on the Ground: America’s War in Vietnam written by Elizabeth Partridge
  • The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler written and illustrated by John Hendrix
  • Hey, Kiddo:  How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction written and illustrated by Jarrett J. Krosoczka
  • The Unwanted: Stories of the Syrian Refugees written and illustrated by Don Brown

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#QP2019 Nominees Round Up, December 11 Edition

Published December 11, 2018

Crush by Svetlana Chmakova
Yen Press
Publication Date: October 31, 2018
ISBN:  9780316363235 

Jorge has a plan worked out for surviving middle school: stay close to his two best friends, Olivia and Garrett, avoid drama, and definitely don’t crush on anyone. Quiet and studious, Jorge prefers to stay on the sidelines, but he will use his size to protect others from bullying. One day, he notices his classmate Jasmine–really notices her. Does it mean he likes her? What if she doesn’t like him back? What should he do? Suddenly Jorge’s world is turned upside down as he has to navigate his own feelings and the revelation that Jasmine already has a boyfriend.

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#BFYA2019 Nominees Round Up, December 10 Edition

Published December 10, 2018

The House of One Thousand Eyes by Michelle Barker
Annick Press
Publication Date: September 11, 2018
ISBN: 978-1773210711

When Lena’s subversive uncle disappears without a trace in Communist East Berlin, she risks everything to find out what happened to him.

Following her confinement in a mental institution due to her breakdown over the tragic death of her parents in a factory accident, Lena is released to live with her stern auntie in East Berlin. Because everyone thinks Lena is simple, she is allowed to work night shifts as a cleaning girl at the State Security Service’s headquarters; she lives a regimented, routine life and looks forward to Sunday afternoons spent with her beloved uncle Erich, a writer with subversive ideas and a loose regard for authority. One night following one of their Sunday outings, Erich disappears. Lena mounts a frantic search for him, one which leads her to dead ends everywhere she looks: his books vanished from the shelves of libraries and bookstores and all records of him purged from official files; it is as if he never existed. Desperate to discover what happened to him, Lena begins a quiet but dangerous investigation, snooping around Stasi offices in the dead of night, despite the watchful eyes of her coworker Jutta, her strict aunt at home, and who knows whom else. What she uncovers shakes up everything she thought she knew, casting new light on her parents’ deaths and making her question everything she had been told about the “Better Germany.”

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