YALSA Awards and Lists
Posted by teenlibrarylit on February 13, 2008
I always feel a little bit funny when it comes to awards for literature. I waver on whether or not there are too many awards for books for teen and children’s literature. On one hand, I feel that it is important to celebrate great works in any format: audio, print, graphic, or film. If a work is exceptional, it deserves to be set apart from other works that may not be of its caliber. But I also think when there are too many different awards being given, it takes some of the weight of winning an award away. And in the end, I am not saying that people should only seek out award winning books when looking for something to read. I know I don’t.
What was interesting about the six awards listed on the YALSA website was that so many of them seemed to have come into place within the last ten years. And there were two new awards that had not even been awarded to anyone or thing yet: the William C. Morris YA Debut Award (to be awarded in 2009) and the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults (to be awarded in 2010). I had not heard of many of them until going to this site with the exception of Michael L. Printz award. I referenced the Printz award and American Born Chinese in a paper discussing the importance of graphic novels and comics in libraries. I will admit I used to Printz award to give the graphic novel weight to suit my needs. This is a perfect example of why I feel conflicted when it comes to awards and the number of awards being given.
I liked the lists that were offered on the web site. I started to compare some of the lists to each other to see if there were any books that were shared amongst these awards. I was especially interested in the Teen’s Top Ten list. I wanted to see how many of the books that teens had said were the best were on other lists chosen by adults. There were only three that I could find from the 2007 winners that made it onto these other lists: Just Listen by Sarah Dessen and Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfefer were on the Best Books for Young Adults list for the same year and New Moon by Stephanie Meyer was on the Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers (it was the number one book on the Teen’s Top Ten). I’m not sure if three out of ten is good or bad. On one hand, it is great that there is any correlation, but on the other hand, I thought there should have been more books shared between the Quick Picks list and the Top Ten Teen list.
Linda said
I will definitely agree with you that awards can be a business more than an honor. To some degree YALSA is trying to catch up with ALSC on the awards front. I’m not sure that’s a good idea. It might actually dilute the actual value of the most important of the awards.
Now, here’s what I’ve always wondered about the teen top 10 list. Is it a list made by traditional teen library users as opposed to teens who might be less traditional and perhaps have different reading interests? If so, does that matter in any way?