Teens

Award winners

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) offers six literary awards to honor the best books for teens each year.

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

The ten 2010 winners are: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, (William Morrow/HarperCollins); The Bride’s Farewell by Meg Rosoff (Viking Penguin); Everything Matters! by Ron Currie, Jr., (Viking Penguin); The Good Soldiers by David Finkel, (Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux); The Kids Are All Right: A Memoir by Diana Welch et al. (Harmony Books/Randon House); The Magicians by Lev Grossman (Viking Penguin); My Abandonment by Peter Rock (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt); Soulless: An Alexia Tarabotti Novel by Gail Carriger (Orbit/Hachette Book Group); Stitches: A Memoir by David Small (W.W. Norton & Company); and Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson (Harper Perennial/HarperCollins)

  • The Margaret A. Edwards Award, established in 1988, honors an author, as well as a specific body of his or her work, for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature.  The annual award is administered by YALSA and sponsored by School Library Journal magazine. It recognizes an author’s work in helping adolescents become aware of themselves and addressing questions about their role and importance in relationships, society, and in the world.

Jim Murphy is the recipient of the 2010 Margaret A. Edwards Award honoring his significant and lasting contribution to writing for teens for An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 (Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt); Blizzard! The Storm That Changed America (Scholastic Press/Scholastic); The Great Fire (Scholastic Press/Scholastic); The Long Road to Gettysburg (Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt); and A Young Patriot: The American Revolution as Experienced by One Boy (Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

  • The William C. Morris YA Debut Award, since 2009 honors a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens. The award’s namesake is William C. Morris, an influential innovator in the publishing world and an advocate for marketing books for children and young adults. The William C. Morris YA Debut Award celebrates the achievement of a previously unpublished author, or authors, who have made a strong literary debut in writing for young adult readers. The work cited will illuminate the teen experience and enrich the lives of its readers through its excellence, demonstrated by: 1) compelling, high quality writing and/or illustration, 2) the integrity of the work as a whole, 3) its proven or potential appeal to a wide range of teen readers.

The 2010 winner is Flash Burnout by L.K. Madigan (Houghton Mifflin/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

  • Since 2008 the Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production has been jointly given and administered by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) and YALSA, and is sponsored by Booklist.

Live Oak Media, producer of the audiobook, Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken, written by Kate DiCamillo, narrated by Barbara Rosenblat, is the 2010 winner.

  • The Michael L. Printz Award is an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature. It is named for a Topeka, Kansas, school librarian who was a long-time active member of YALSA.  The award is sponsored by Booklist.

Going Bovine, by Libba Bray (Delacorte Press/Random House) is the 2010 winner.

  • The YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction honors the best nonfiction book published for young adults (ages 12-18).

Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith, by Deborah Heiligman (Henry Holt Books/Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group) is the 2010 winner.