Young Adult Library Services

Volume 8, Issue 3, Spring 2010

From the Editor

Sarah Flowers

Welcome to our Spring Awards issue. As I write this, a lot of you are shoveling snow, but I am in California, where


my daffodils are blooming and my cherry tree has its first blossoms, so it really does seem like spring!

In Boston at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in January, YALSA announced the results of months of hard work by its committees. Inthis issue of YALS, we are celebrating these eagerly awaited literary awards and book and media lists.

For the first time, YALS is including reproducible copies of all of the lists; I hope you find these useful. In addition, this issue contains some fascinating articles about those various awards and lists. Michael Cart, YALSA past president and chair of the task force that established the Printz committee guidelines, shares some thoughts on the first decade of Printz winners. Pam Spencer Holley, YALSA past president and former chair of Best Books for Young Adults, takes a look at the long history of Best Books forYoung Adults and explores some of the ways the committee and its charge have changed over the years. Angela Carstensen, first chair of YALSA’s newest award committee, the Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults committee, shares some insights about what it was like to work with a brand new award and about what a great year it was for nonfiction. Nichole King, chair of Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults, tells how that committee made her a “listener for life,” and Beth Saxton and Karen Brooks-Reese discuss Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults and how you can help in creating those lists.

Also in the issue, you can learn about some of the other activities that are going on in YALSA. Angela Craig tells us about the Diversity Task Force, and Kristin Heathcock gets us warmed up for November’s YA Literature Symposium. This year’s theme is Beyond Good Intentions: Diversity, Literature, and Teens and you will not want to miss the opportunity to spend a few days in sunny Albuquerque, so be sure to check
www.ala.org/yalitsymposium and sign up.

Registration for the symposium will be open by the time you receive this issue. You never know: you might have an opportunity to hobnob with some of next year’s YALSA award winners!

Correction: YALS mistakenly identified ALA Editions as an advertiser in its last issue. The advertiser was ALA Graphics.