From: Kathleen Horning <horning>
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 10:21:42 -0600

Thanks to all of you who have contributed your thoughts about the 2000 CSK Author Award and Honor Books.

One of the CSK Honor Books we haven't talked about at all this past week is "Monster" by Walter Dean Myers, as we knew it would be coming up in the discussion of the Michael L. Printz Award books scheduled from Feb 15(.

Those of you who are long-time members of the CCBC-Net community will no doubt recall that we discussed "Monster" at length last July in our discussion of recent young adult books that were left open to interpretation. This discussion is archived at: http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/ccbc-net/jul1999.text

After that lengthy and insightful discussion, you may feel as though there's nothing left to say about "Monster" but... of course, there is! Perhaps some of you have had the chance to read "Monster" since then or perhaps since last July, you've had an opportunity to share it with teens. Or maybe you've changed your mind about Steve's guilt or innocence.

Patty Campbell has a compelling essay about "Monster" in the November/December issue of "Horn Book" as part of her "The Sand in the Oyster" column. In it, she asserts that "Monster" is a milestone book that has now joined the ranks of "Catcher in the Rye," "The Outsiders," and "The Chocolate War." She observes: "Almost every sentence can be deconstructed for resonance, irony, multiple meanings; everything points to something else." This is particularly apparent in Steve's claim: "I didn't do nothing!"

We are so pleased that "Monster" has won the first Michael L Printz Award, a new award Establsihed by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) of the American Library Association. This award recognizes outstanding writing for teens ages 12. You need only read the Honor Books for this year's award to see how stiff the competition was: "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson; "Hard Love" by Ellen Wittlinger; and "Skellig" by David Almond. Each one is outstanding in its own right and if you haven't had a chance to read them all yet, I strongly encourage you to seek them out.

For the rest of February, we'll be discussing the Printz Award winner and the three honor books. I'm pleased to announce that this week, members of the Printz Award committee will be joining our discussion, including Frances Bradburn, chair, and members Karlan Sick and Jenny Baltes. Others may be joining the discussion as the week progresses.

Because the Printz Award is brand new, please feel free to ask any questions you might have about the award terms in general. If you have access to the World Wide Web, you won't want to miss the excellent new web site devoted to the Printz Award at: http://www.ala.org/yalsa/printz/

Let's begin by returning to "Monster" and by opening the discussion to any general questions you may have about the Michael L. Printz Award.




Kathleen T. Horning (horning at education.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center University of Wisconsin-School of Education 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park St. Madison, WI 53706 608&3930 FAX: 608&2I33
Received on Tue 15 Feb 2000 10:21:42 AM CST