YALSA's Alex Awards
About the Alex Awards
The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18. The winning titles are selected from the previous year's publishing. The Alex Awards were first given annually beginning in 1998 and became an official ALA award in 2002.
The award is sponsored by the Margaret A. Edwards Trust. Edwards pioneered young adult library services and worked for many years at the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore. Her work is described in her book Fair Garden and the Swarm of Beasts, and over the years she has served as an inspiration to many librarians who serve young adults. The Alex Awards are named after Edwards, who was called “Alex” by her friends.
2012 Winners
- Big Girl Small, by Rachel DeWoskin, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (ISBN 9780374112578 )
- In Zanesville, by Jo Ann Beard, published by Little, Brown & Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. (ISBN: 9780316084475)
- The Lover’s Dictionary, by David Levithan, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (ISBN: 9780374193683)
- The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens, by Brooke Hauser, published by Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. (ISBN: 9781439163283)
- The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern, published by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. (ISBN: 9780385534635)
- Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline, published by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. (ISBN: 9780307887436)
- Robopocalypse: A Novel, by Daniel H. Wilson, published by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. (ISBN: 978038553850)
- Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward, published by Bloomsbury USA (ISBN: 9781608195220)
- The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: A Novel in Pictures, by Caroline Preston, published by Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers (ISBN: 9780061966903)
- The Talk-Funny Girl, by Roland Merullo, published by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. (ISBN: 9780307452924)
“The 2012 Alex Awards will take readers from rural New Hampshire to the robot apocalypse to Katrina-ravaged Mississippi to a magical circus. The Alex Award winners are as diverse and eclectic as the teens who will read them,” said Karen Keys, chair of the 2012 Alex Awards Committee.”
Read the full list of 2012 nominations.
2012 Committee
Chair Karen Keys, Queens Library, Long Island City, N.Y.; Amy Cheney, Alameda County Juvenile Hall Library, San Leandro, Calif.; Meghan Cirrito, Queens (N.Y.) Library; Danielle Dreger-Babbitt, Sno-Isle Regional Library Mill Creek (Wash.) Library; Crystal Faris, Kansas City (Mo.) Public Library; Ann Perrigo, Allegan (Mich.) District Library; Tina Pounds, Edison High School Alexandria, Va.; Scott Rader, Hays (Kan.) Public Library; Ellen R. Wathen, Walnut Hills High School, Cincinnati; and Ian Chipman, Booklist Magazine, Chicago.
