It’s time for another Mock Printz!
The Mock Printz, for those who do not recall, is the annual workshop I attend where we read 9-10 young adult books, discuss them and choose the best book written for teens, based entirely on its literary merit. Above are the books we read this year. I read all but the Tightrope Walkers.
Here we are getting our usual history of the Printz award.
One of the fun parts about the workshop is that some groups get to go to the conference rooms upstairs. I love it when I’m in one of those groups. And I was this year! We had the gorgeous view.
My discussion group consisted of two actual teenagers, three librarians and myself. We had many spirited discussions, then voted in our small group.
After our small group discussion, we reassembled and reported out. You can see my group, Violetta, made a lot of the same choices as other groups did.
After the small groups reported out, we had a large group discussion. Cases were made for (and against) books. We voted one last time in our large groups.
And our winner was Steve Sheinkin’s Most Dangerous, followed by a tie for second. Bone Gap and Challenger Deep shared the honors.
The winners were announced two days later at the American Library Association’s Midwinter Conference. How did our voting stack up to the winners of the real 2016 Printz Award?
The 2016 winner:
Bone Gap,
by Laura Ruby
(You might remember that as our large-group, tied-for-second winner.)
2016 Honor Books:
The Ghosts of Heaven,
by Marcus Sedgwick,
and
Out of Darkness,
by Ashley Hope Perez.
(You might remember these books from the Hollywood Mock Printz post.)