. Athena's Books: Totally YA Tuesday...YALSA Literary Awards
Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Totally YA Tuesday...YALSA Literary Awards





Here they are...the winners of YALSA's 2010 Literary Awards. But I left out the Alex Awards because today is Totally YA Tuesday and the Alex Awards are about adult books with teen appeal (they are not purely YA)


William C. Morris Award (Best Book for First Time Author)

Winner: Flash Burnout by L.K. Madigan

Fifteen-year-old Blake has a girlfriend and a friend who’s a girl. One of them loves him; the other one needs him. When he snapped a picture of a street person for his photography homework, Blake never dreamed that the woman in the photo was his friend Marissa’s long-lost meth addicted mom. Blake’s participation in the ensuing drama opens up a world of trouble, both for him and for Marissa. He spends the next few months trying to reconcile the conflicting roles of Boyfriend and Friend. His experiences range from the comic (surviving his dad’s birth control talk) to the tragic (a harrowing after-hours visit to the morgue). In a tangle of life and death, love and loyalty, Blake will emerge with a more sharply defined snapshot of himself

Finalists:

Ash by Malinda Lo

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

The Everafter by Amy Huntley

hold still by Nina LaCour


Michael L. Printz Award (Excellence in Young Adult Literature)

Winner: Going Bovine by Libba Bray

Cameron Smith, 16, is slumming through high school, overshadowed by a sister “pre-majoring in perfection,” while working (ineptly) at the Buddha Burger. Then something happens to make him the focus of his family's attention: he contracts mad cow disease. What takes place after he is hospitalized is either that a gorgeous angel persuades him to search for a cure that will also save the world, or that he has a vivid hallucination brought on by the disease. Either way, what readers have is an absurdist comedy in which Cameron, Gonzo (a neurotic dwarf) and Balder (a Norse god cursed to appear as a yard gnome) go on a quixotic road trip during which they learn about string theory, wormholes and true love en route to Disney World. Bray's surreal humor may surprise fans of her historical fantasies about Gemma Doyle, as she trains her satirical eye on modern education, American materialism and religious cults (the smoothie-drinking members of the Church of Everlasting Satisfaction and Snack 'N' Bowl). Offer this to fans of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy seeking more inspired lunacy.

Honor books:

Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

Punkzilla by Adam Rapp

Tales of the Madman Underground: An Historical Romance, 1973 by John Barnes
Both of these have been on my TO READ LIST stored inside my brain for quite some time. I hope to get to them soon. But right now I am wrapped up in The Forest of Hands and Feet by Carrie Ryan and I am enthralled, literally enthralled by it right now.

1 comments:

Alyssa Kirk said...

I enjoyed Beautiful Creatures. Glad to see it on the list. The EverAfter was okay and Jake couldn't get through Monstumologist. Thanks for the list. I'll give some of the others a try.