From: Paul W Goldschmidt <goldschp>
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 11:46:42 -0600

I have not had the opportunity to read American Born Chinese, but of the other books that I did read, I thought that An Abundance of Katherines was a fun read, but not terribly substantial (and not as good as Looking for Alaska). The Book Thief was certainly a weightier and more significant work, but didn't really seem like a YA book (more of an adult novel with a youthful protagonist). There's no harm in that, but just an observation.

It may be a bit unfair of me to say so (especially since I didn't read the winner yet), but 2006 seemed like a relatively weak year for teen reads. The new books I enjoyed the most (E. Lockhart's "Fly on the Wall," Sarah Dessen's "Just Listen," and Alice Hoffman's
"Incantation") were probably too commercial to get the ALA's approval and I didn't expect to see them on any lists. But there simply were not a large number of good, well-written novels in 2006 for the YA market. That's not to say that there weren't any, but simply a subjective evaluation of the year.

-- Paul Goldschmidt


At 08:51 AM 2/21/2007, you wrote:
>At the same time, we also want to invite comments on the 2007 Printz
>Award, which we are scheduled to discuss from now through the end of
>February.
>
>The 2007 Printz Award winner was American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
>(First Second, 2006)
>
>There were four Printz Award honor books:
>
>The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Volume 1: The Pox Party by
>M.T. Anderson (Candlewick Press, 2006)
>An Abundance of Katherines by John Green (Dutton, 2006)
>Surrender by Sonya Hartnett (U.S. edition: Candlewick Press, 2006)
>The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (U.S. edition: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006)
Received on Wed 21 Feb 2007 11:46:42 AM CST