Mock Printz Report

On Saturday I attended the Mock Printz Award workshop at my library. I was the only person out of the 40 or so in attendance who was neither a teen or a librarian, but I tried to blend in. You know, by not shouting out "LOL!" every time somebody said something funny, and stuff like that.

Our task was to narrow eleven notable 2008 YA books down to one award winner and an honor book or two. After receiving instructions, we sequestered ourselves in groups of 6-7 for two hours of discussion. Our group had five adults and two bright and thoughtful teen girls. We had less than ten minutes to discuss each book and you wouldn't believe how much ground we covered in that time. We agreed on a lot, disagreed on a lot, and at the end of two hours we each cast our votes.

Then we reconvened in the large group, reported on our top three books, and then launched into a rather raucous discussion about the various contenders. There were very strong feelings on either side for MadApple and My Most Excellent Year, in particular. Where librarians got stereotyped as mild-mannered, I will never understand.

Librarian A: MadApple is a beautiful account of the descent into madness.
Librarian B: What's madness is that she didn't have an editor!
Teen A: Notice how all the people who loved this book are adults?
Teen B: I know, right?
Teen C: Can we talk about Little Brother now?

After the discussion we each got to vote on our top three again. I changed my #3 vote, but kept the first two the same.

The book that won was not everyone's favorite book by any stretch, but it had the distinction that nobody hated it. Even people who didn't love it acknowledged that it had an important and unique theme, a strong voice and setting, and characters that drew the reader in. Even those who loved it acknowledged that it wasn't perfect (unlike a couple of other books, which some had fallen for so hard that they seemed blind to their imperfections).

Our winner?

Yep, it's one of the two that I didn't get around to reviewing: Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow. This was my personal #3 in the final vote. I didn't expect to like this book and I did, mostly because the protagonist was a great narrator. Some people thought the large amounts of technical information were tucked in nicely, others thought there was too much explanation. Everyone who spoke felt that Doctorow made an imaginary situation very believable and made a strong statement about the very real anti-terrorism measures that have been happening in the U.S. since 9/11.

Here are the rest of the books, in order of the points they received.
2. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks This was my #2. This one sparked interesting discussions about feminism: what it is and isn't, and whether it's a useful concept to the up-and-coming generation. Most of the teens loved this, but those who didn't, felt that Frankie was hard to relate to and that there was too much emphasis on being accepted by the boys. One boy said, "I saw this as a feminist book, and our generation isn't about feminism, we're about equality."
3. My Most Excellent Year. Listening to people rave about this actually made me feel a little queasy. The teens said the characters (who I described in my review as "sit-com characters") were exactly like people they know at school; people loved the pop culture references and the fact that it was a happy book. Those of us who didn't love it agreed that we're looking forward to his next book. Just please don't make me ever read this one again.
4. Paper Towns. This was my #1. Nearly everyone loved this book and I'm surprised it didn't get more points. Some people said it was over-hyped because they and their friends had adored Green's other books so much. Others felt that his protagonists are too similar and he needs to branch out more (others vehemently disagreed).
5. Skim This graphic novel was popular among many, especially for its art work.
6. Black Box. This was my personal #3 in the initial vote. The main criticism others had was that the main character wasn't given enough emphasis. The focus was on her sister and then her boyfriend. I loved this book but found that when it came to discussing it, I couldn't remember precisely why, which in itself is telling, I think.
7. MadApple. The teens, who were intelligent and not at all frothy (one of the girls in our group said she prefers authors like Sinclair Lewis to YA books), were of one mind on this: not a teen book. The people who loved it were mostly over 50.
8. The Adoration of Jenna Fox. Some liked it, some didn't. Everyone hated the ending.
9. Last Exit to Normal. Most people liked this one a lot, but had criticisms of it. One of the male teens said it read like a Lifetime movie.
10. Missing Girl. I couldn't read this one, I put it down after page 50. The combination of creepiness with too many protagonists was more than I was willing to stomach, and I'd just put MadApple down at the time and needed to read something I could enjoy. Most people found it more palatable than I did.
11. Sunrise Over Fallujah. Everyone agreed this was good, and an important book--like historical fiction but contemporary. I think it was the lack of depth of the minor characters that kept it from rising to the top of people's lists.

This whole experience was great fun, and also there were cookies and fruit. My favorite part was talking to the teens about the books that were written for them. I hope I get to invite myself again next year!

TSS: Books I finished (Mini book reviews)

This week and last I plowed through books faster than I'll ever be able to write them up, so here's the run down in a series of mini reviews:

Time of My Life by Allison Winn Scotch. The story of a woman who goes back in time, to a period of her life when she was with the boyfriend who preceded the man she married and had a child with. An intriguing idea and a pleasant enough read, but there were questions in my mind that weren't addressed. I felt the protagonist was a little too quick to accept her odd situation, to reject her husband in favor of the boyfriend, to do what she thought would make life better for herself and others without struggling quite enough with the issue of impacting the future.


Escape from Special, by Miss Lasko-Gross. I read this after reading Marie's review in The Boston Bibliophile. It's a graphic novel (more like a series of anecdotes) about the childhood and adolescence of a girl who doesn't fit in academically or socially. I had a hard time following this one. It covers ten years or so and I often felt unsure about how old she was supposed to be, which was distracting. I would have liked more of a story thread tying each of the segments together. I finished it and set it aside, ready for my next book.



The Gargoyle, by Andrew Davidson. Rebecca at The Book Lady's Blog said this was one of the top five books she's read over the past few years. Me, I liked it fine. What I liked best was the way Davidson gets the reader rooting for a fairly despicable character. What I liked least was the interweaving of chapters from a different point of view, with stories from the past. It all came together in an interesting way in the end, and I know that others loved the very digressions I was impatient with. I stuck with them because I could see the light at the end of the tunnel and wanted to see the protagonist make it through. I'm glad I did.


Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson. I read this for my Mock Printz Awards project. Jenna Fox wakes from a coma, having lost most of her memory, and begins to solve the mystery of who she is and why she has no friends and why things are kind of weird with her parents and grandma. Jenna's narrative voice is very stiff, which is in keeping with her situation but made her a little hard to relate to. There were some things which were supposed to be surprises, I think, but which I saw coming several chapters ahead of time. And the ending just annoyed me. Somebody does something completely out of character in order for Pearson to have the clever wrap-up ending she wanted. I thought this book was just okay, but Becky's Book Reviews loved it.


Madapple, by Christina Meldrum, was another one for the Mock Printz Awards. I say "was," because I put it down on page 282 (out of 404). Maw Books Blog liked this one a lot and it was funny to read her review because she praises the cover, which I hate. It's so desolate, and that's how the whole book (282 pages of it, that is) is. The protagonist is almost completely isolated as the book begins and before she gets the opportunity to branch out, the author comes in with chapters from a trial in the future which tell us that, no, that'll all go wrong, too. I found the whole situation depressing, and I didn't understand the protagonist well enough to want to see her through it. It's a well-written book, but no book can be for every reader and this one just wasn't for me.

Coming up this week, a review of a book I liked! Maybe even more than one!

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If you've reviewed any of the above books I'd be glad to link to your review. Just give me a heads up in the comments.