Meg Rosoff wins 2005 Printz Award
Contact: Larra Clark/Macey Morales
619-525-6228/6229
For Immediate Release
January 17, 2005
Meg Rosoff wins 2005 Printz Award
BOSTON – Meg Rosoff has won the 2005 Michael L. Printz Award for her uncompromising work, “how i live now,” published by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books. Set during a shocking occupation by terrorist forces, Rosoff’s novel is narrated by 15-year-old Daisy, a wry and alienated young woman who finds true love, mystical connections and a sense of home with her cousins in England.
The announcement was made during the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting in Boston, January 14 to 19. The annual award for excellence in young adult literature is administered by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of ALA, and sponsored by Booklist magazine. The award, first given in 2000, is named for the late Michael L. Printz, a Topeka, Kan., school librarian known for discovering and promoting quality books for young adults.
“Through Daisy’s evolving voice, readers see a teen who moves beyond self-absorption to become a resourceful survivor, understanding the need to care for others,” said Committee Chair Betty Carter. “Meg Rosoff achieves balance in a story both darkly symbolic and bitingly funny.”
Rosoff was born in Boston, graduated from Harvard and now makes London her home. “how I live now” is her first novel.
Three Printz Honor Books also were named: “Airborn” by Kenneth Oppel, published by EOS, an imprint of HarperCollins; “Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy” by Gary D. Schmidt, published by Clarion Books, a Houghton Mifflin Company imprint; and “Chanda’s Secrets” by Allan Stratton, published by Annick Press.
Members of the Printz Award Committee are: Chair Betty Carter, Coppell, Texas.; Diana Tixier Herald, Center for Adolescent Reading, Glade Park, Colo.; Holly Koelling, King County Library System, Bothell, Wash.; Bonnie Kunzel, New Jersey State Library, Trenton, N.J.; Kate McClelland, Perrot Library, Old Greenwich, Conn.; Donna McMillen, King County Library System, Renton, Wash.; Ed Spicer, Allegan Public Schools, Allegan, Mich.; Diane Tuccillo, City of Mesa Library, Ariz.; Edna Weeks, Hawaii State Library, Honolulu; and Ilene Cooper, Booklist, Chicago.
More information about the Printz Award can be found online at
http://www.ala.org/yalsa/printz. For information on other ALA literary awards, please visit
www.ala.org/2005awards.
