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Printz Winners & Criteria
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From: Peter Butts <pbutts>
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 19:26:35 -0500
This is Peter Butts, chair of the 2001 committee just stepping down from a wonderful ride, and I thought it might be an appropriate time to briefly cover eligibility and some of the committee's procedures.
Although modeled in many ways after the ALSC awards, the Printz is also unique in many ways. Unlike the Newbery, U.S. editions of foreign originals are eligible....hence the two David Almond books, and Louise Rennison's _Angus, Thongs, and Full?Frontal Snogging_. Works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, etc. are all eligible, although all of the winners and honor books have been fiction, so far. Another criteria that has caused some confusion is that the book must stand on its own, thus eliminating such noteworthy sequels as the Newbery winner, _A Year Down Yonder_, Pullman's _Amber Spyglass_, and the latest Harry Potter title. As for target audience, the procedures state "To be eligible, a title must have been designated by its publisher as being either a young adult book or one published for the age range that YALSA defines as "young adult;" i.e., 12 through 18. Adult books are not eligible." Given the capriciousness of publishers' designations this continues to be a point of contention (Perhaps _Skellig_ with an 8 designation was the most controversial).
The complete procedures can be found at http://www.ala.org/yalsa/printz/printzinfo.html . YALSA members can also nominate titles for consideration online.
After discussions at annual, almost continuous electronic discussions, and two days of discussions at Midwinter, the committee conducts secret ballots for the winner and then for honor books. Each member casts a ballot for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice. The votes are tallied with a score of 3 points for each first place vote, 2 points for each 2nd place, vote, and 1 point for each 3rd place vote. For the award winner, a book must receive 1st place votes from 5 of 9 voting members and receive 5 points more than the next book.
Voting starts all over again along the same lines for the Honor books. In this way there was no conscious attempt to have a balance or divesity of titles honored. Naturally there was discussion along these lines, but procedurally, books were voted on for literary merit only. (If we had been engaging in some kind of literary "affirmative action," we certainly had some notable non-ficton titles we could have included ;-)
-Peter
- ************************** Peter Butts * "One man gathers what * East Middle School * another man spills." * Holland, MI 49423 ************************** pbutts at edcen.ehhs.cmich.edu www.holland.k12.mi.us/ems/ mel.org/education/
Received on Sun 18 Feb 2001 06:26:35 PM CST
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 19:26:35 -0500
This is Peter Butts, chair of the 2001 committee just stepping down from a wonderful ride, and I thought it might be an appropriate time to briefly cover eligibility and some of the committee's procedures.
Although modeled in many ways after the ALSC awards, the Printz is also unique in many ways. Unlike the Newbery, U.S. editions of foreign originals are eligible....hence the two David Almond books, and Louise Rennison's _Angus, Thongs, and Full?Frontal Snogging_. Works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, etc. are all eligible, although all of the winners and honor books have been fiction, so far. Another criteria that has caused some confusion is that the book must stand on its own, thus eliminating such noteworthy sequels as the Newbery winner, _A Year Down Yonder_, Pullman's _Amber Spyglass_, and the latest Harry Potter title. As for target audience, the procedures state "To be eligible, a title must have been designated by its publisher as being either a young adult book or one published for the age range that YALSA defines as "young adult;" i.e., 12 through 18. Adult books are not eligible." Given the capriciousness of publishers' designations this continues to be a point of contention (Perhaps _Skellig_ with an 8 designation was the most controversial).
The complete procedures can be found at http://www.ala.org/yalsa/printz/printzinfo.html . YALSA members can also nominate titles for consideration online.
After discussions at annual, almost continuous electronic discussions, and two days of discussions at Midwinter, the committee conducts secret ballots for the winner and then for honor books. Each member casts a ballot for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice. The votes are tallied with a score of 3 points for each first place vote, 2 points for each 2nd place, vote, and 1 point for each 3rd place vote. For the award winner, a book must receive 1st place votes from 5 of 9 voting members and receive 5 points more than the next book.
Voting starts all over again along the same lines for the Honor books. In this way there was no conscious attempt to have a balance or divesity of titles honored. Naturally there was discussion along these lines, but procedurally, books were voted on for literary merit only. (If we had been engaging in some kind of literary "affirmative action," we certainly had some notable non-ficton titles we could have included ;-)
-Peter
- ************************** Peter Butts * "One man gathers what * East Middle School * another man spills." * Holland, MI 49423 ************************** pbutts at edcen.ehhs.cmich.edu www.holland.k12.mi.us/ems/ mel.org/education/
Received on Sun 18 Feb 2001 06:26:35 PM CST
