How to use this Page

The American Library Association has announced that Last Stop on Market Street author Matt de la Peña is the winner of the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Throughout his career, de la Peña has written 6 young adult novels, 2 middle grade novels, and 2 picture books.

Last Stop on Market Street features illustrations created by Christian Robinson. Robinson earned a Caldecott Honor for this picture book.

We’ve linked to free samples of the Newbery Medal-winning title and the Newbery Honor books below. In addition to the newest winner of the Newbery Medal, the organization has also revealed that Finding Winnie illustrator Sophie Blackall has won the Randolph Caldecott Medal, Bone Gap author Laura Ruby has won the Michael L. Printz Award, Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda author Becky Albertalli has won the William C. Morris Award, and Boy Meets Boy author David Levithan has won the Margaret A. Edwards Award. Follow this link to access free samples from last year’s pool of Youth Media Award winners.

Free Samples of the ALA Youth Media Award Recognized Books

Newbery Medal Winner

Last Stop on Market Street written by Matt de la Peña and illustrated by Christian Robinson

Newbery Honor Winners

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Roller Girl written and illustrated by Victoria Jamieson

Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Take a look at Publishers Weekly (PW) editors' choices of 2015 best books to discover outstanding new titles. The lists include picture books, middle-grade, and young adult books.

The picture books range from well-known authors such as Drew Daywalt (The Day The Crayons Came Home) and Dave Eggers (This Bridge Will Not Be Gray) and Mordicai Gerstein (The Night World) to debut authors such as Guojing (The Only Child), who writes about growing up under China's one-child policy.

Middle-grade books include bestselling author Jodi Lynn Anderson (My Diary from the Edge of the World) and the amazing Brian Selznick (The Marvels).

Young adult titles range from a nonfiction title by M. T. Anderson (Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad) to Chicago-area writer Laura Ruby's new novel (Bone Gap). 

For more information visit PW or click on any of the above links.

As I’m sure you all noticed, yesterday the National Book Award announced its shortlist for the Young People’s category.  A couple surprises there.  M.T. Anderson’s removal will come as a nasty shock to anyone who has read his book and the elimination of Shabazz/Magoon effectively turns the remaining writers into a pretty white fivesome.

The five titles make for an interesting cross-section of YA literature, of course.  With the exception of The Thing About Jellyfish they are all for the 12-18 year old set.  There’s nonfiction, realistic fiction, graphic novel fantasy, and  . . . The Bone Gap by Laura Ruby.  Neither fish nor fowl, the book doesn’t slot well into any one single category.  What to make of it?  Why not hear from the author herself?

It was with great pleasure that I sat down with Laura Ruby to talk about her book.  Unlike many of my other Fuse #8 TV interviews, Ms. Ruby delves deep into the writer’s process.  She discusses not just the book’s roots but how the human brain can organize a novel without you being aware of what it’s doing.  By the end of this talk you won’t just be curious about her National Book Award nominee.  You’ll be moving heaven and earth to get yourself a copy.

Oh. And I get to do a crazy interpretation of The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.  That’s fun!

Some of the other Fuse #8 TV episodes are archived here.

Finally, thanks to Harper Collins for being my sponsor and helping to put this together.

We’re soon to touch down in one of our absolute favorite literary states for the Texas Library Association Conference in Austin! If there’s anything better than talking books, hanging out with authors and librarians, and enjoying sunshine and Shiners, then we don’t want to know about it.

If you’ll be in the Lone Star State, too, please swing by our booth, #1341, for galleys, giveaways, and face time with the HarperCollins Children’s Books School & Library team. We can’t wait to chat and put books in your hands.

But if you’re reading this thinking, “sure, you guys are nice, but we’re here to meet the AUTHORS, silly!” check out our top-notch signing schedule, here:

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15TH:
11:00am–12:00pm, Joy Preble, Aisle 7, Finding Paris
11:00am–12:00pm, Melissa Marr, Aisle 8, Made For You
12:00–1:00pm, Kiera Cass, Aisle 8, The Selection Series
1:00–2:00pm, Thanhha Lai, Aisle 8, Listen, Slowly
2:00–3:00pm, Dan Gutman, Aisle 8, Genius Files #5: License to Thrill
4:00–5:00pm, Lauren Oliver, Aisle 8, Vanishing Girls

THURSDAY, APRIL 16TH:
10:00–11:00am, Sherry Thomas, Aisle 3, The Elemental Trilogy
11:30am–12:30pm, Neal & Brendan Shusterman, Aisle 1, Challenger Deep
2:00–3:00pm, Gordon Korman, Aisle 1, Masterminds
2:00–3:00pm, Julie Murphy, Aisle 2, Dumplin’ galleys
3:00–4:00pm, Becky Albertalli, Aisle 1, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

You don’t want to miss our coupon in the aisle by aisle guide, either! It points you to our booth for a free copy of BONE GAP, by Laura Ruby (*while supplies last), and a chance to enter to win a piece of framed original art by Jef Czekaj, from his upcoming picture book, AUSTIN, LOST IN AMERICA.

We can’t wait to see y’all!

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

I had stocked my library with edgy titles. Where once the shelves were mostly full of “classic” YA titles and somewhat aged adult mystery novels, now they’re full of books about queer teens, unexpected pregnancy, parents with drug habits, and graphic novels. (Books with pictures! The horror!)

They’re all appropriately reviewed, of course, and many of them are award winners, some several times over–but when it comes to content, they don’t pull any punches.

So it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that I recently got my first book complaint.

As librarians, we tend to talk a lot about intellectual freedom and defending our teens’ right to read whatever they want. But when push comes to shove, how do we really respond to book challenges in the heat of the moment?

As my pulse raced and I struggled to maintain eye contact and speak clearly (stammering is a personal struggle for me when I’m on the spot), I felt immensely grateful that I’d attended Sex in YA Lit: From Blume to Block and Beyond at last year’s Annual Conference in Chicago.

For those of you who weren’t able to attend, the panel–made up of librarian (and author!) Lynn Biederman, sex therapist Marty Klein, and YA author Laura Ruby–discussed the history of sex in young adult books, but also offered up some practical suggestions for handling book complaints, since so many challenges involving YA titles have to do with sexual content. The most valuable piece of advice they offered:

1. Sometimes the parent or community member just needs to feel like someone is listening. Indeed, many face-to-face complaints will never turn into a formal challenge if you let the complainant get it all out of their system. It’s crucial not to interrupt or talk over anyone, no matter how much you might disagree with their opinion.

To this advice, I would add some of my own, gleaned from my recent complaint–an experience that turned out overall to be a positive one:

2. Don’t fake agreement. This one can be tough. Many of us were taught that active listening means body language like nodding. While it’s true that nodding and occasionally saying “Sure” or “Mm-hmm” indicate that you’re listening, they can also suggest you agree. You can acknowledge a complainant’s point of view without agreeing with it.

3. Let your policies back you up. If you don’t have a collection development policy, write one now. It’s vital that your policies support you, and it’s equally important that your co-workers and supervisors or directors are familiar with those policies so that they can back you up. Make sure these documents are available to the public, but be familiar enough with them that you could discuss them face to face as well.

4. Know your materials. We all have to rely on reviews and recommendations to some degree. While I’d like to believe there are librarians who have read every book in their YA collections, for most of us that’s not a realistic goal. (I know I’ve certainly been guilty of not reading as much of my collection as I’d like.) But the more books you’ve read, the more you can meaningfully discuss if they’re ever challenged. For those titles that you haven’t read yet, make sure you know at least the basic plot points.

5. Acknowledge that not every book is right for e