YALSA names Teen Read Week™ Mini Grants winners

CHICAGO — The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), announced the winners of its 10 Teen Read Week Mini Grants. The grants give each winning library $450 cash and $50 worth of official Teen Read Week products from ALA Graphics to offer inventive activities, resources and services to celebrate Teen Read Week, Oct. 17-23.

The 2010 Teen Read Week mini grants are funded by Team Teen Read Week. Thanks to Carolrhoda Lab, Random House, Scholastic, Sleeping Bear Press and Tor-Forge Books for their support of the Teen Read Week Mini Grants.

The ten winners are:

• Michelle Barnett, Providence K-8 School, Huntsville, Ala.
• Shannon Crawford Barniskis, Horicon (Wisc.) Public Library
• Susan Bohn, Hononegah High School, Rockton, Ill.
• Natalie Houston, Orange County Library System, Orlando, Fla.
• Audrey Kantner, Lancaster (Pa.) Public Library
• Maryrose Little, David Brearley Middle/High School, Kenilworth, N.J.
• Ann-Marie Marchant, Provo (Utah) City Library
• Patricia Milheiser, Madison Middle School, Appleton, Wisc.
• Margaret Rohrbach, Atlantic Technical Center, Coral Springs, Fla.
• April Wallace, Irondale Public Library, Irondale, Ala.

“YALSA values the work its members do and the effort they put into quality teen programming to help encourage teens to spend more of their free time reading. By sponsoring these mini grants, YALSA can provide librarians with more tools to share the love of literature in fun and creative ways,” said Kim Patton, YALSA president. “YALSA is grateful for the help of Carolrhoda Lab, Random House, Scholastic, Sleeping Bear Press and Tor-Forge, without which we would not be able to support our members in their Teen Read Week efforts.”

Teen Read Week, sponsored by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), is an annual literacy initiative celebrated in libraries and bookstores that provides parents, caregivers and teens with resources to encourage recreational reading habits. The “Books with Beat @ your library^®theme encourages teens to listen to audiobooks and read poetry, books about music and more, just for the fun of it.

For more than a decade, Teen Read Week has encouraged teens to visit their public and school library and select their own materials to “Read For The Fun Of It.” Research shows that teens that read for fun–not just for school assignments–score significantly higher on reading tests and achieve more success academically, while teens who don’t read for fun lose their reading skills.

About YALSA

For more than 50 years, YALSA has been the world leader in selecting books, videos and audio books for teens. For more information about YALSA or for lists of recommended reading, viewing and listening, go to www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists, or contact the YALSA office by phone, (800) 545-2433, ext. 4390, or e-mail, yalsa@ala.org.