YALSA announces Best Books for Young Adults

Contact: Larra Clark


312-280-5043


lclark@ala.org

ALA News Release


For Immediate Release


January 2001

YALSA announces Best Books for Young Adults

Seventy-six books were chosen as
Best Books for Young Adults by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). The list of titles, which includes fiction, nonfiction, poetry and biography recommended for young adults ages 12-18, can be found
online. The list with annotations can be found on the same Web site under the "members only" section. The Best Books for Young Adults also will be available in the 2001
ALA's Guide to Best Reading.

The Top Ten Young Adult Books include: "Forgotten Fire," by Adam Bagdasarian; "Hope Was Here," by Joan Bauer; "Girl with a Pearl Earring," by Tracy Chevalier; "Geeks: How two boys rode the Internet out of Idaho," by Jon Katz; "Silent to the Bone," by E.L. Konigsburg; "Beet Fields," by Gary Paulsen; "Esperanza Rising," by Pam Munoz Ryan; "Stargir," by Jerry Spinelli; "Homeless Bird" by Gloria Whelan; and "Memories of Summer," by Ruth White.

Five titles received unanimous votes from the 15-member committee: "Girl With a Pearl Earring," a novel set in the household of the Dutch painter Vermeer; "145th Street: Short Stories," a collection set on a single block in "Harlem," by Walter Dean Myers; "The Beet Fields," an autobiographical coming-of-age novel; "Homeless Bird," a novel about a teen-age widow in India struggling to make a life for herself; and "Miracle's Boys," by Jacqueline Woodson, which explores how three brothers cope with the death of their mother.

Members of the Best Books for Young Adults Committee include: Alice F. Stern, chair, The Winsor School, Boston, Mass.; Margaret Butzler, Bethel Park Public Library, Bethel Park, Pa.; Valerie Diamond, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, Md.; Katherine Fitch, Rachel Carson Middle School, Herndon, Va.; Susan Geye, Crowley Ninth Grade Campus, Crowley, Texas; Donna Gilliland, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn.; Nancy Maltby Henkel, Maple Valley Library, King County Library System, Maple Valley, Wash; Jan Hoberecht, Newton High School, Newton, Kan.; Andrea Howe, Albuquerque Academy, Albuquerque, N.M.; Susan Hunter, Riverside Middle School, Springfield, Vt.; Donna McMillen, Algona-Pacific Library, Pacific, Wash.; Diane Monnier, Bethesda Regional, Montgomery County, Md.; Rosemary Moran, Tulsa City-County Library, Tulsa, Okla.; Andrew Parson, Packer Collegiate Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Sandra Schultheis, Evansville-Vanderburgh County Library, Evansville, Ind.; Stephanie Zvirin, consultant, Booklist, ALA, Chicago, Ill.; Douglas Uhlmann, administrative assistant, William Penn Charter School, Philadelphia, Pa.