{"id":36502,"date":"2019-07-09T23:51:57","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T03:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=36502"},"modified":"2023-07-28T22:40:12","modified_gmt":"2023-07-29T02:40:12","slug":"conference-corner-printz-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=36502","title":{"rendered":"Conference Corner: Printz Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

The final event I attended at ALA Annual Conference 2019 in DC was the presentation of the Michael Printz Awards. These are the top young adult books of the year. The only one I read in my Newbery reading was the winner, Poet X<\/em>. I hope to fix that situation soon!<\/p>\n

For the Printz Awards, even the Honor winners give speeches. First up was Elana K. Arnold, who wrote the book Damsel<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Her book was an exploration of embodied female rage.<\/p>\n

It’s an original fairy tale. The prince must rescue a damsel and kill a dragon.<\/p>\n

Damsel<\/em> is a book about how patriarchy hurts everyone.<\/p>\n

All of her books end with a girl stepping alone, head high, into her future.<\/p>\n

It’s a book about boundaries.<\/p>\n

As children, we operate inside borders. The teen years are when we notice the walls. Do we keep them or tear them down?<\/p>\n

Examining real world problems through a fantasy lens.<\/p>\n

She’s pushing down walls along with other writers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Next up was Deb Caletti, Honor winner for A Heart in a Body in the World<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This book is about a marathoner who runs across the country after a horrible crime against her.<\/p>\n

The author just made the same journey by plane, Seattle to DC.<\/p>\n

She didn’t know all the places, but she knew her character’s heart.<\/p>\n

She was a kid who needed books. They told her, “I see you. I understand you. Keep going.”<\/p>\n

Then she repeated her childhood and chose a sometimes scary partner.<\/p>\n

After some time, she went from voiceless to having a voice.<\/p>\n

Then she read in the news about a kid who committed violence against his “dream girl” who broke up with him.<\/p>\n

She wanted to tell what she knows about the story, about the slow progression of guilt and fear.<\/p>\n

Misogyny sneaks in, barges in, rages in.<\/p>\n

It’s confusing — we’re told we’re responsible.<\/p>\n

Are we powerful? We can make men do awful stuff! Or are we powerless?<\/p>\n

She’s heartbroken that the book is called timely. It’s been timely for way, way too long.<\/p>\n

She still believes in the power of one voice and in the voice of her readers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then came Mary McCoy, who won Honor for I, Claudia<\/em>.<\/p>\n

She works at Los Angeles Public Library. It’s a book about politics and power.<\/p>\n

This is about a girl who leaves her quiet life and grabs power.<\/p>\n

Nixon’s people ratfucked their opponents. But fifteen years earlier, they’d done the same thing as students at USC. Corrupt politicians practice.<\/p>\n

When she first wrote the book, she thought it was a tragedy that Claudia went into politics.<\/p>\n

After 2016, she’s not sure anyone has the luxury of staying out of politics.<\/p>\n

She would vote for Claudia — because she’s there to make a difference.<\/p>\n

As people who work in libraries, we give a lot of fucks.<\/p>\n

We know something about being a force for good in the universe.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And the final speaker was Elizabeth Acevedo, who won the Michael L. Printz Award for Poet X<\/em>.<\/p>\n

She’s talking about inscriptions.<\/p>\n

When she was in high school, a teacher put Heaven<\/em>, by Angela Johnson, into her hands. It was the first time she read about a teen father in a book. She had questions, and her teacher told her to write to Angela Johnson.<\/p>\n

She didn’t answer, but then a book about that teen father was published — The First Part Last<\/em>. It was inscribed to Elizabeth Acevedo and the students at her school. It was the first time she saw her name in print. That book won the Printz Award.<\/p>\n

Later, as a teacher, she just tried to get the kids to love reading.<\/p>\n

A kid asked her, “Where are the books about us?” She pulled authors who write about people of color. They read those and kept asking, “What’s next?”<\/p>\n

That’s why she wrote Poet X<\/em>.<\/p>\n

She wasn’t going to make accommodations.<\/p>\n

That’s why the inscription — to that student. This girl gets to see her name in print.<\/p>\n

She’s thankful the family she married into supported her going to grad school in creative writing.<\/p>\n

Her book ends: “Isn’t that what a poem is? A lantern glowing in the dark.”<\/p>\n

She hopes young people will allow themselves to be opened up.<\/p>\n

Her role as a writer is to empower other people to write.<\/p>\n

We’re here and deserve to be here.<\/p>\n

We are still here and we can still heal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The final event I attended at ALA Annual Conference 2019 in DC was the presentation of the Michael Printz Awards. These are the top young adult books of the year. The only one I read in my Newbery reading was the winner, Poet X. I hope to fix that situation soon! For the Printz Awards, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,207,419],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-award-winners","category-conference-corner","category-conf-corner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36502"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36508,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36502\/revisions\/36508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}