YALSA’s 2012 Teens’ Top Ten Nominations
YALSA (the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of ALA) recently announced the 2012 nominations list for the Teens’ Top Ten. As stated on their web
site, “The Teens’ Top Ten is a ‘teen choice’ list, where teens nominate and choose their favorite books of the previous year! Nominators are members of teen book groups in sixteen school and public libraries around the country.” Teens ages twelve to eighteen are encouraged to read titles from the nomination list this summer and vote online for their favorite in August and September. The winners will be announced during Teen Read Week, Oct. 14 – 20.
There are ideas on the website for promoting the Teens’ Top Ten (TTT), a PDF of a toolkit for it, or you can download the toolkit in Word. To find out more about Teen Read Week, or to register to participate, visit this
site. The theme for 2012 is “It Came from the Library!”
I have been reading a lot of teen titles lately, in preparation for the YART Spring Meeting on April 14. A slightly older title (c2011) made its way onto my list because I thought it was really great.
Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach …Felton Reinstein (15), who is usually called “Squirrel Nut” (as an insult) then later “Rein-stone” (respectfully), recounts his life so far. When he was 5 he found his father, dead in the garage. Last November he began growing hair, height and muscles like crazy. His voice has dropped and now the jocks are talking him into working out over the summer to get ready for fall football. This summer has turned crazy, he is getting huge; his mother has shut herself in the bedroom and now ignores Felton and his younger brother, Andrew. Felton is befuddled by his rapid growth and bodily changes, his mother’s retreat, his best friend gone for the summer, a new girl in town, and the jocks’ interest in him. Told with humor and pathos, we find Felton struggling, with little help, to learn who he has become and find a way to deal with his mother.
(The Nebraska Library Commission receives free copies of children’s and young adult books for review from a number of publishers. After review, the books are distributed free, via the Regional Library Systems, to Nebraska school and public libraries.)
