American Born Chinese Wins Printz Award
This year, the Michael Printz award winner is a graphic novel, American Born Chinese. I would like to mention that I had the amazing foresight to purchase this for Pigott Library before it won anything, leading me to believe that I am very clever. Oh, yes.
The Michael Printz award is given by the American Library Association for excellent teen books, may they be fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or anthologies (or graphic novels, as in this case). Basically, the Printz award is like the Newbery for teen books.
Still, some people are unhappy about having a graphic novel win anything, because they don't believe that graphic novels can be as meaningful, intelligent, three-dimensional, and worthwhile as novels. They're wrong, of course, but that doesn't stop them from complaining. Of course, some of them may be unhappy because of nitpicky rules, such as the Printz award only being for young adult "fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and anthologies" and not also "graphic novels." Of course, I'm purely speculating based on what only one person has said to me about some complaints she overheard, and not on anything I've heard myself, so if that makes me a gossip, so be it. Other people are ecstatic about it, and I am one of them.
The Printz honor books are also great choices:
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, v. 1, the Pox Party, by MT Anderson
An Abudance of Katherines, by John Green
Surrender, by Sonya Hartnett
The Book Thief, by Marcus Zusak
Of those, we have the first two in the library, and they're on my "to read" list.