Tag: Youth Media Awards

#ALAMW19 Recap: 2019 YALSA Book & Media Award Winners

The Youth Media Awards took place this past Monday at ALA’s 2019 Midwinter Meeting. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the winners and honor books of YALSA’s Alex, Edwards, Morris, Nonfiction, Odyssey, and Printz Awards, as well as the other ALA book and media awards. The winners are:

Continue reading #ALAMW19 Recap: 2019 YALSA Book & Media Award Winners

ALA Midwinter 2015: Where’s the Red Carpet? An Inside Look at the Youth Media Awards

20150202_074414_HDRIn the early hours of a Monday in late January or early February, a phone rings. Someone picks up, and then a complete stranger informs them they have just won a prestigious literary award and soon a gold medal sticker will adorn all future copies of their book. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be on the receiving end of that call, but while we don’t get to experience this aspect of the Youth Media Awards unless we are on one of the committees- or one of the winners- the sense of amazement can still be experienced if you attend the ceremony. The whole room is electric with excitement, and chatter, and anticipation. The only thing missing is the red carpet!

pic_shot_1422887484950If I am at ALA Midwinter, and these last few years I have been lucky enough to be, I always go to the Youth Media Awards. The atmosphere inside the YMAs is definitely enthusiastic. Some people wouldn’t think a room full of librarians would get that loud, or that a book/author could be cheered like a rockstar, but when winners are announced at the Youth Media Awards there are shrieks and cheers from all over the room, and it’s usually a big room. This year there were plenty of seats, but in years past it has been standing room only or even overflowing into other rooms with video feeds. This is a big deal, y’all. Continue reading ALA Midwinter 2015: Where’s the Red Carpet? An Inside Look at the Youth Media Awards

ALA Midwinter 2014: Youth Media Awards

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The Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia had its hands full on Monday, January 28, as a room full of excited librarians, publishers, authors, and other industry professionals breathlessly awaited the start of the annual Youth Media Awards. In fact, by the time I arrived (bleary-eyed and bushy tailed) at the convention center, it was 7:55 AM and there was no official room left for audience members. Instead, I found a seat in a “spillover” room where the awards were being broadcasted live on a screen. By 8:30 AM, the spillover room was entirely full.

My friend who called the YMAs “the librarian Oscars” was pretty spot-on, after all.

It’s hard to describe how incredible it was to witness people applaud, groan, cheer, whisper, and even shed tears over children’s and young adult literature. It’s even harder to describe how it felt to sit next to perfect strangers at 8 AM on a Monday morning knowing that they were just as passionate as you about youth media. Suffice it to say that I have never seen a room full of introverts whoop and holler so loudly before. For those who aren’t “in the know,” I would describe the purpose of the YMAs, in part, as providing “those fancy silver and gold stickers you see on the covers of books.”

But it’s more than fancy stickers, of course.

Continue reading ALA Midwinter 2014: Youth Media Awards

2014 Youth Media Award Winners Announced!

shutterstock_102813506 [Converted]This morning, the winners and honor books for ALA’s Youth Media Awards were announced to an elated crowd in Philadelphia during ALA’s Midwinter Meeting.

Here is the list of YA titles recognized this morning (children’s books have been omitted from this list because The Hub focuses on YA lit, but be sure to find the full list of winners on ALA’s website):

Alex Award for adult books with teen appeal

  • Brewster,  written by Mark Slouka  and published by W.W. Norton & Company
  • The Death of Bees,written by Lisa O’Donnell and published by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
  • Golden Boy: A Novel, written by Abigail Tarttlein and published by ATRIA Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
  • Help for the Haunted, written by John Searles and published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
  • Lexicon: A Novel, written by Max Barry and published by The Penguin Group, Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
  • Lives of Tao, written by Wesley Chu and published by Angry Robot, a member of the Osprey Group
  • Mother, Mother: A Novel, written by Koren Zailckas and published by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
  • Relish, written by Lucy Knisley and published by First Second, an imprint of Roaring Brook Press, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Holds Limited Partnership
  • The Sea of Tranquility: A Novel, written by Katja Millay and published by ATRIA Paperback, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
  • The Universe Versus Alex Woods, written by Gavin Extence and published by Redhook Books, an imprint of Orbit, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in young adult literature

  • Markus Zusak

Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature

  • Winner: Midwinter Blood,  written by Marcus Sedgwick and published by Roaring Brook Press, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group
  • Honor: Eleanor & Park, written by Rainbow Rowell and published by St. Martin’s Griffin (Macmillan)
  • Honor: Kingdom of Little Wounds, written by Susann Cokal and published by Candlewick Press
  • Honor: Maggot Moon, written by Sally Gardner, illustrated by Julian Crouch, and published by Candlewick Press
  • Honor: Navigating Early, written by Clare Vanderpool and published by Delacorte Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, Penguin Random House Company

Odyssey Award for outstanding audiobooks for young adults

  • Winner: Scowler, produced by Listening Library, an imprint of the Random House Audio Publishing Group; written by Daniel Kraus and narrated by Kirby Heyborne
  • Honor: Better Nate Than Ever, produced by Simon & Schuster Audio; written and narrated by Tim Federle
  • Honor: Eleanor & Park, produced by Listening Library; written by Rainbow Rowell and narrated by Rebecca Lowman and Sunil Malhotra

Schneider Family Book Award for an artistic expression of the disability experience

  • Teen winner: Rose Under Fire, written by Elizabeth Wein and published by Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group

Stonewall Book Award for outstanding LGBTQ titles

  • Winner: Beautiful Music for Ugly Children, written by Kirstin Cronn-Mills and published by Flux, an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.
  • Winner: Fat Angie, written by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo and published by Candlewick Press
  • Honor: Better Nate Than Ever, written by Tim Federle and published Simon & Schuster Book for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
  • Honor: Branded by the Pink Triangle, written by Ken Setterington and published by Second Story Press
  • Honor: Two Boys Kissing, written by David Levithan and published by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

William C. Morris Award for outstanding debut novels

  • Winner: Charm & Strange written by Stephanie Kuehn, published by St. Martin’s Griffin, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press, a division of Macmillan.
  • Finalist: Sex & Violence written by Carrie Mesrobian, published by Carolrhoda LAB, an imprint of Lerner Publishing Group.
  • Finalist: Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets written by Evan Roskos, published by Houghton Mifflin, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
  • Finalist: Belle Epoque written by Elizabeth Ross, published by Delacorte Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books.  
  • Finalist: In the Shadow of Blackbirds written by Cat Winters, published by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS.

YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults

  • Winner: The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World’s Most Notorious Nazi written by Neal Bascomb, published by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc.
  • Finalist: Go: A Kidd’s Guide to Graphic Design written by Chip Kidd, published by Workman Publishing Company.
  • Finalist: Imprisoned: The Betrayal of Japanese Americans During World War II written by Martin W. Sandler, published by Walker Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.
  • Finalist: Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles, America’s First Black Paratroopers written by Tanya Lee Stone, published by Candlewick Press.
  • Finalist: The President Has Been Shot! The Assassination of John F. Kennedy written by James L. Swanson, published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc.

Gearing up for the YMAs

Are you ready? The ALA Youth Media Awards will be presented in Philadelphia at the ALA Midwinter Meeting on Monday, January 27, starting at 8 am Eastern! With this exciting event just around the corner, the Hub bloggers thought it would be fun to share how we celebrate these prestigious awards.shutterstock_102813506 [Converted]

Mia Cabana: This year I am getting ready for the YMAs by helping some friends (Lori Ess and Betsy Bird) make graphs and charts for the live YMA pre-show they will be hosting through School Library Journal.

Cara Land: The past few years I’ve been at the ALA Midwinter Meeting, so I try to always attend the awards ceremony in person. There’s something really exciting about actually being there when you can be. In the past I’ve tried to livetweet the event, but my fingers aren’t nimble enough to catch all the honorees and I get way too distracted amidst the cheering!

Becky O’Neil: Last year was the first time I did two new things: watched the livestream and watched Twitter. It was so fun! I had a couple co-workers with me, and we were geeking out over both. It was fun to watch some of the tweets actually get ahead of the livestream, and send out our own excited tweets, feeling like we were part of the fun, even from a library workroom in Ohio. :)

Continue reading Gearing up for the YMAs

The Monday Poll: YALSA Awards Anticipation

yalsa logoGood morning, Hub readers!

Last week, we wanted to know what you think is the most intriguing YA story about being the Witness Protection Program.  Don’t Look Behind You by Lois Duncan came in first with 38% of the vote, and The Rules for Disappearing by Ashley Elston was a close second with 33%.

We also got some great suggestions in the comments on last week’s poll! Jessica reminded me about Robert Cormier’s classic, I Am The Cheese, and Jenn suggested Roland Smith’s Zach’s Lie and Jack’s Run. You can see detailed results for all of our previous polls in the Polls Archive. Thanks very much to all of you who voted and commented!

This week, we’re getting excited about the announcement of ALA’s Youth Media Awards, which happens next week in Philadelphia at the ALA Midwinter Meeting. Last year on The Hub, we asked which YALSA award you’re most looking forward to. This year, we’re putting a twist on the question– we want to know which YALSA award you feel most confident about predicting the winners. Sometimes everyone’s buzzing about a particular book and you just know it’s going to win that one award– and sometimes the winners come out of left field as a delightful surprise. Which YALSA award do you think you have a handle on this year?

Vote in the poll below, and feel free to leave your predictions in the comments– and keep in mind that we here at The Hub don’t have any insider info, so we’re just as excited as you are to find out the winners next week!

[poll id=”132″]

 

Hang Out at the Popular Table, or My List-style Love of BFYA

yalsa logoListen, I love a good award.  Oscars?  I’m there.  Grammy’s?  For sure.  Video Music Awards?  Just point me to Kanye (yes, I’m defaulting to Kanye because I will scream if we have to rehash Miley again.  You understand, right?).  But I love book awards more than any other award.  I can’t read all the books in the world (no matter how high I set my Goodreads reading goal), so awards help lead me to the greatest hits.  But you know what I love even more than an award?  A list.  And I’m not alone!  McSweeney’s, Buzzfeed, and Thought Catalog have shown us how America loves them a good list (preferably with animated GIFs).

So, I dream of “best of” lists.   Lists of awesome books that are all uniquely rad but all completely worthy of my precious reading time.  Presented with little fanfare except a Twitter-length description and the unspoken but earnest promise of a good book you won’t regret reading.  I look forward to ALA’s Youth Media Awards, but not for the Newbery or the Printz (okay, maybe a little bit for the Newbery and the Printz).  I’m most looking forward to the Best Fiction for Young Adults list.

So to pay homage to my love of lists and the upcoming 2014 BFYA list (which will name the best books of 2013), here is a list of things I love about the Best Fiction for Young Adults list (and animated GIFs because I know you love them).

  1. Best Fiction takes nominations from YALSA members (like you!), has a committee read them all, and weed out the best books of the year, leaving you with books that will make you fall in love.  The guesswork is gone.
  2. Although we all love to describe and book talk a book as “award-winning,” the Printz award is not going to be an accessible read for every reader.  I have much more luck connecting teens with a great read by using the BFYA list as a jumping off point for recommendations. What teen doesn’t take a book when you go all Emma Stone on them?
  3. “But, Christiana,” you say, “I don’t need a BIG list of things.  I need, like, ten.  Just the best of the best.”  BFYA has thought of that too!  The top 10 of the year are denoted with a star.  If you’re looking for a starting point of the year’s best in YA, second star to the right and straight on till morning.
  4. Last year’s BFYA chair Ted Schelvan was quoted as saying, “our final list is comprised of books a library can be proud to add to their Young Adult collection.”  Which reminds me of the other great part of BFYA: the bang for your buck part (that’s the scientific term).  We’re all trying to do more with less all the time and that includes what we spend money on.  Wouldn’t it be better if we could know we were buying all-stars instead of bench warmers?
  5. Best means books teens AND adults who love good teen lit will love.  Think of it as something of a reverse Alex award.

So– greatest hits.  Not a problem.  I know where you’ll be January 27, but I encourage you not to run away after the Printz and Newbery winners are announced.  BFYA is where all the popular kids (and books) hang out.

-Christiana Congelio, currently reading Better Off Friends by Elizabeth Eulberg (and loving it!)