All about the 2014 Alex Awards

A little over a month ago the 2014 Alex Awards were announced at the Youth Media Awards at the ALA Midwinter Conference in Philadelphia. I've talked about it before, but I had the honor to serve one more year on the Alex Award Committee. 

The award is named in honor of the late Margaret Alexander Edwards, fondly called “Alex” by her closest friends, a pioneer in providing library services to young adults. At Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Edwards used adult books extensively with teens to broaden their experience and enrich their understanding of themselves and their world.

The 2014 Alex Awards has a book for every teen reader. From dysfunctional families to alien-inhabited brains to a savory graphic memoir, this diverse list will not disappoint. The Alex Awards were created to recognize that many teens enjoy and often prefer books written for adults, and to assist librarians in recommending adult books that appeal to teens. A full list of official nominations are available online.

• “Brewster” by Mark Slouka: Feeling stifled and powerless, high school friends Ray Cappicciano and Jon Mosher yearn for change and plan for freedom from their blue-collar town and dysfunctional homes, even while knowing they can never truly escape.

• “The Death of Bees” by Lisa O’Donnell: With their parents dead and buried in the backyard, Scottish teens Marnie and Nelly are finally free from a childhood wracked with abuse. If only the neighbor’s dog would quit digging in the garden.

• “Golden boy: a novel” by Abigail Tarttelin: Max, an intersex teen, is confused about who he is and who he is meant to be. After one shattering night, he is faced with a choice that no boy should ever have to make.

• “Help for the Haunted” by John Searles: Sylvie has been dealing with taunting classmates, her erratic older sister and the unsolved murder of her ghost-hunting parents. But perhaps more problematic are the cursed remnants of her parents’ work still lingering in the basement.

• “Lexicon: a novel” by Max Barry: In this fast-paced, cutthroat story, words are weapons and poets are the ones who wield the swords. Teen prodigy Emily may be the finest poet ever until she makes the catastrophic mistake of falling in love.

• “Lives of Tao” by Wesley Chu: Couch potato Roen Tan becomes host to the alien Tao who has lived millennia inside some of the most famous people in history. With Tao on board, Roen enters a war to save mankind.

• “Mother, mother: a novel” by Koren Zailckas: Why did Rose run away? Did Violet really stab her little brother? Is her alcoholic father really having an affair? In this chilling novel about family dysfunction, does mother really know best?

• “Relish” by Lucy Knisley: This poignant graphic novel is a wonderful journey of cartoonist Lucy Knisley’s transition from childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood, framed by the food that shaped her worldview. Through colorful vignettes she tackles complex issues with humor and unique family recipes.

•  “The Sea of Tranquility: a novel” by Katja Millay: Nastya has barely survived a brutal attack. Josh has lost his entire family. The two isolated teens are drawn together as they deal with their emotional and physical damage.

• “The Universe Versus Alex Woods” by Gavin Extence: It all begins when Alex is hit in the head by a meteorite and it all ends when he is arrested trying to re-enter England with several grams of marijuana, lots of cash, and the ashes of Mr. Peterson.

Which of these have you read? Do you have a favorite? What do you think of the list?

All about the 2013 Alex Awards

 This past Monday at the Youth Media Awards, the 2013 Alex Awards were announced. The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to teens, ages 12 through 18. The winning titles are selected from books published the previous year.

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. The Alex Awards are named after Edwards, who was called “Alex” by her friends.

I've been on the Alex Awards for two years and selecting the winners is always a great joy. It also means I read 250+ adult books a year. This year's list is as eclectic as ever. “From madcap adventures to portraits of compelling characters and beautifully illustrated nonfiction titles, this year's list has a book for every teen reader,” said Rachel McDonald, chair of the 2013 Alex Awards Committee.

“Caring is Creepy" by David Zimmerman: While trying to survive a long boring summer in rural Georgia, Lynn befriends a lonely soldier online.  When they meet face to face, tables are turned as Lynn tries to exert power in her out-of-control life.  Dangerous, amusing, role-bending, and definitely creepy!

 

“Girlchild,”by Tupelo Hassman: With only a worn copy of the Girl Scout Handbook for reference, resourceful and tenacious Rory Hendrix must navigate the depressing landscape of a 1970s trailer park where she suffers abuse at the hands of a neighbor and neglect from her mother.

 

“Juvenile in Justice" by Richard Ross: Richard Ross' riveting photographs give voices to incarcerated youth in juvenile detention centers across America.

 

“Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore” by Robin Sloan: Clay Johnson loses his web-designer job and begins working the night shift in a bookstore with only a few customers.  This marvelous mashup blends mystery, adventure, and romance into a literary and technological tale.
 

“My Friend Dahmer” by Derf Backderf: Written by a former classmate of Jeffery Dahmer, this graphic novel illustrates the teenage years of a future serial killer.

 

“One Shot at Forever” by Chris Ballard: This remarkable story follows the Macon Ironmen, a team of misfits with a hippie coach, through a recordsetting baseball season.

 

“Pure”by Juliana Baggott: In a world destroyed by nuclear detonations, only a privileged few have remained pure. Two teens from different sides of the Dome unite to search for answers to troubling questions about their origins.

 

“The Round House” by Louise Erdrich: An attack on 13-year-old Joe's mother near their North Dakota Ojibwe reservation home leads him and his friends on a quest to solve the crime.  This coming-of-age story highlights friendship, family, tradition, and the uneasy relationship between the tribal and white communities.

“Tell the Wolves I'm Home” by Carol Rifka Brunt: June thought she knew everything about her beloved uncle, Finn. After his death from a mysterious new illness called AIDS, his grieving boyfriend delivers Finn's favorite teapot to June's door, and she realizes nothing is what she thought it was: not her family, not her uncle, not even herself.

 

“Where'd You Go, Bernadette?” by Maria Semple: Through a series of emails, letters, and FBI files, Bee follows the trail of her missing mother to the ends of the earth in this quirky, laugh-out-loud tale.

Have you read any of these? What was your favorite? Do you agree with the list?

Adult books with teen appeal

I've read two adult books recently that have some major teen appeal and couldn't wait to share them!

Ready Player One by Ernest Clive: What would you get if you combined the 198o's with the Matrix? You'd wind up with this soon-to-be cult favorite. Ready Player One takes place in the not-so-distant future (the year 2044)--the world has turned into a very bleak place, but luckily there is OASIS, a virtual reality world that is a vast online utopia. People can plug into OASIS to play, go to school, earn money, and even meet other people (or at least they can meet their avatars), and for protagonist Wade Watts it certainly beats passing the time in his grim, poverty-stricken real life. Along with millions of other world-wide citizens, Wade dreams of finding three keys left behind by James Halliday, the now-deceased creator of OASIS and the richest man to have ever lived. The keys are rumored to be hidden inside OASIS, and whoever finds them will inherit Halliday’s fortune. But Halliday has not made it easy. And there are real dangers in this virtual world. This high-energy book has it all: action, puzzles, nerdy romance, and 80's nostalgia.

The Night Circus: The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco fall in love—a magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands. True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Check them out today!

Kathleen's Favorite Science-Fiction Book

Our Teen Tech Month guest blogger today is Kathleen, our Teen Librarian at the Mukilteo Library. She reads a billion books and has an awesome teen advisory board.

My favorite science fiction book: Time and Again by Jack Finney combines great science fiction with a great mystery. Simon Morley is part of a government experiment with time travel and is sent to 1880s New York. When he falls in love, he resorts to extreme measures to make sure he can stay in the past.

This book has it all!

Are You the Smartest Reader You Know?

Author Garret Freymann-Weyr (After the moment, Stay with me, My heartbeat, The kings are already here) put together this list for NPR:

Three Books For The Smartest Teens You Know
The publishing world likes to say that young adult literature is in a golden age, full of great writing, and most important, growing sales in an otherwise dismal market. But the genre is not without flaws: Many young adult novels don't set the bar very high in their language, character complexity or emotional nuance, which is why I — a young adult author — like to encourage young readers to venture into the adult shelf. Here are three non-young adult novels featuring young protagonists that anyone — young or old — will read with both joy and fervor.