Archive | 1/15/2010

Printz Predictions

Jan15

The Michael L. Printz Award is an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature. The Printz, along with its more famous counterparts the Newbery and the Caldecott, will be announced on Monday, January17th at the ALA Midwinter Conference.

Last year’s Printz award went to the book Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta. I tried to read it both before and after the award was announced, and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. My thoughts at the time.

The honor books last year were:
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II, The Kingdom on the Waves by M.T. Anderson. Definitely deserving and astonishing.
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart. I liked this one, too.
Nation by Terry Pratchett. I’ve never read any Terry Pratchett, not sure I’d like it.
Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan. I’m sort of afraid to read this re-telling of the fairy tale Snow White and Rose Red because I get the idea that she turns the story into something nasty. But I don’t really know.

So, I didn’t enjoy or finish the Newbery winner last year nor the Printz winner either, so why am I predicting the winners this year? I don’t know; it’s an irresistible game, I suppose.

The book I hope, predict and expect will win the Printz: Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork. Semicolon review here. If there is any justice . . .

The books I think might win instead:
Going Bovine by Libba Bray. (Blech)
The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams. OK, Semicolon review here.
Fire by Kristin Cashore. Pretty darn good, but not as good as Marcelo.
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. If it wins it will be because Ms. Anderson has such a great body of work. I don’t think WIntergirls is her best. Semicolon review here.
North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley. Semicolon review here.

And no one I’ve seen has mentioned it as a contender, but my second choice for the Printz award would be Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins. (Semicolon review here.) In fact, that book is so profoundly respectful of the choices people make and the cultures that shape them; it would make a wonderful award-winning book. So it probably won’t win.

Yes, I’m hedging my bets by giving you a whole list of possibilities. It’s the only I might possibly get one correct prediction and thereby earn bragging rights.

Semicolon’s Top 12 Young Adult Books Published in 2009

Poetry Friday: Christ in the Universe by Alice Meynell

Jan15

I found this lovely poem via Elliot at Claw of the Conciliator:

WITH this ambiguous earth
His dealings have been told us. These abide:
The signal to a maid, the human birth,
The lesson, and the young Man crucified.

But not a star of all
The innumerable host of stars has heard
How He administered this terrestrial ball.
Our race have kept their Lord’s entrusted Word.

Of His earth-visiting feet
None knows the secret, cherished, perilous,
The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet,
Heart-shattering secret of His way with us.

No planet knows that this
Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave,
Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss,
Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave.

Nor, in our little day,
May His devices with the heavens be guessed,
His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way
Or His bestowals there be manifest.

But in the eternities,
Doubtless we shall compare together, hear
A million alien Gospels, in what guise
He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.

O, be prepared, my soul!
To read the inconceivable, to scan
The myriad forms of God those stars unroll
When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.

He is, indeed, much Bigger than our minds have yet conceived, and at the same time He “became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

Great Kid Books is the blog host for Poetry Friday this week.