2012 Alex Award Winners

The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18. The winning titles are selected from the previous year's publishing. The Alex Awards were first given annually beginning in 1998 and became an official ALA award in 2002.

The award is sponsored by the Margaret A. Edwards Trust. Edwards pioneered young adult library services and worked for many years at the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore. Her work is described in her book Fair Garden and the Swarm of Beasts, and over the years she has served as an inspiration to many librarians who serve young adults. The Alex Awards are named after Edwards, who was called “Alex” by her friends.

Over the last year I've had the pleasure of serving on the Alex Awards Committee, where we choose the best adult books with teen appeal. Over the year I've hinted at some of the books I've loved.  Recently at the Youth Media Awards we announced the ten best adult books that we think teens will enjoy. The list contains some obvious favorites and some dark horses. “The 2012 Alex Awards will take readers from rural New Hampshire to the robot apocalypse to Katrina-ravaged Mississippi to a magical circus. The Alex Award winners are as diverse and eclectic as the teens who will read them,” said Karen Keys, chair of the 2012 Alex Awards Committee.”

• Big Girl Small by Rachel DeWoskin
• In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard
• The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan
• The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens by Brooke Hauser
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
• Robopocalypse: A Novel by Daniel H. Wilson
• Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
• The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: A Novel in Pictures by Caroline Preston
• The Talk-Funny Girl by Roland Merullo

These ten books were selected from close to 50 nominations, and I'll confess narrowing the choices down was very hard. There were about 20 books I wanted in my top ten!  The committee created a vetted list of about twenty titles that we thought teens might also like. You can find the list here. 

As a side note, anyone can nominate a title. If you stumble across an adult book that you think has teen appeal, you should nominate it! Don't be shy!

Have you read any of the Alex Award winners? Which was your favorite?