Michael L. Printz Award Books

The Michael L. Printz Award is named for Michael L. Printz, a school librarian in Topeka, Kansas, who spent his career finding books that teenagers would actually finish and building an author-in-residence program at his high school. It has been given annually since 2000 by the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association, and is sponsored by Booklist. It goes to the best book written for teens, judged entirely on literary merit; the first went to Walter Dean Myers for Monster.

The committee is explicit that popularity is not the criterion, and it accepts fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and anthologies alike, for readers roughly 12 through 18. Up to four honor books are named alongside the winner. The result is a demanding shelf rather than a comfortable one — formally inventive books, often with difficult subject matter — and it is the right list for a strong high-school reader who has outgrown assigned reading, or for a book club that wants something to argue about.

Information from the American Library Association.