My library has closed to the public for a time to promote social distancing and help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Currently staff will still be reporting for work in order to answer phones and email and fill holds via our drive-up window. Since I’m staying home as much as possible in my off-work time, I figured I might as well bring back some of my award winner posts – although I’m also hoping to spend some significant time reading and listening to books as well as catching up on some TV with my hubby. Obviously starred reviews and book awards will not be the topics at the top of many people’s minds right now and I encourage you all to do what you can to social distance yourselves and be safe and focus on whatever you need to and what helps, but I need to keep my mind occupied for my own mental health and for now this works for me.
Since this is my first Printz post looking at 2021 contenders, let’s take a brief look at the criteria:
The Michael L. Printz Award annually honors the best book written for teens, based entirely on its literary merit, each year. – YALSA Website
Two additional eligibility notes:
- Must be published between January 1 and December 31 by a United States publishing house. Works previously published in other countries are eligible the year they are published in the U.S.
- Must have been designated by the publisher as a young adult book or within YALSA’s stated audience range of 12-18 years.
You can find the full policies and procedures here.
Each year’s honors and winners chip away at the concept of 3 starred reviews being the limit of what to look at, so while the main lists will still be covering titles with three starred reviews or more, I’m going to try highlighting other titles at the bottom of the lists occasionally as well.
26 books published in 2020 have three starred reviews or more as of the end of January 2020 reviews. 12 of those are picture books, poetry collections or novels with an audience that doesn’t fit the Printz age range so aren’t mentioned here at all. 3 are young adult novels, 3 are young adult comics; 2 are young adult non-fiction; 5 are younger novel outliers and 1 is an other outlier.
Contenders are organized by format: Novels, Comics, Non-Fiction. There’s two outliers lists – one for younger novels and one for anything else (essay collections, short stories, younger comics, etc.). I’m still not including titles that end at age 12 for their review ranges (i.e ages 8-12 or Grades 3-6) unless I’ve heard Printz buzz about them. Continue reading 2021 Printz Possibilities through January Stars →
