YALSA Excellence Award Winners

The Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults, administered by YALSA, is for the best nonfiction book published for young adults (ages 12-18) during a November 1 – October 31 publishing year.

2014 Winner

Bascomb, N. (2013). The Nazi hunters: How a team of spies and survivors captured the words’s most notorious Nazi. New York, NY: Arthur A. Levine Books.

The SS official who organized and ran the Holocaust is sought and captured by an elite team of spies.  Adolf Eichmann, the head of operations for the Nazis’ Final Solution, vanished from the world’s view at the end of World War II.  Fifteen years later, an international team led by the Israelis keep him under surveillance and then capture him at a bus stop in Argentina, where he has been living under an alias with his wife and sons.  He is smuggled into Israel to stand trial for the murder of millions of Jews.  The story is meticulously researched and information is enhanced with photographs, extensive bibliography and source notes.


Follow-up:  Unleashing Readers (http://www.unleashingreaders.com/?p=1261) provides teaching tools and discussion questions.

If you liked this book read these other nonfiction works:

Persico, J. E. (1994). Nuremberg: infamy on trial. New York: Viking.

Walters, G. (2009). Hunting evil: the Nazi War criminals who escaped and the quest to bring them to justice. New York: Broadway Books.

Wiesel, E., & Wiesel, M. (2006). Night. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

2011 Winner

Angel, A. (2010). Janis Joplin: Rise up singing. New York, NY: Abrams Books.

Janis Joplin’s story, her successes, her failings, her joys, and her sorrows are depicted with plain speech, interviews, and photographs.  During her extraordinary, but short lived music career, she became a rock-and-roll legend with her blues-inflected voice and an electric stage presence.  Joplin’s life was often out of control, yet she was hardworking and disciplined about her art.  She died tragically from a drug overdose at age twenty-seven.

Follow-up:

Here is a brief book trailer with photos from the book.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8xFRmU1CoQ

The following is from a live performance in 1969.



Live in Germany (1968)

Printz Award Winners

The Michael L. Printz Award is an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature.

2014 Honor

Rowell, R. (2013). Eleanor & Park. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.

Two 16-year-olds meet on a school bus, not by choice, but by shortage of seats and their low social statuses.  He is small and half-Korean, but has grown up among the other students.  She is new, overweight, red-haired, and dresses strangely.  Even though they are at first repelled by each other, they are destined to fall in love.  Through Eleanor and Park’s alternating voices, readers get a glimpse of first love, as well as the contrast between Eleanor’s abusive life of poverty and Park’s imperfect but loving family life.

Follow-up:

Reading Group Questions to use with this book.

http://us.macmillan.com/static/eleanorandpark/pdfs/Eleanor%20&%20Park%20Reading%20Group%20Questions.pdf

2010 Winner

Bray, L. (2009). Going bovine. New York, NY: Delacorte Press.

Cameron Smith only wants to get through high school with a minimum of effort.  He suffers from constant comparisons to his perky, preppy twin sister.  He successfully slides under the radar; that is, until he begins to have bouts of uncontrollable behavior and terrifying visions that are revealed to be caused by Creutzfeldt-Jakob’s (mad cow disease), not by drugs as his parents had suspected.    Cameron finds himself with a terminal diagnosis and the realization that he might be about to die without ever having lived.  He sets off on a road trip to find a cure, guided only by cryptic clues from a mysterious punk rock angel and a death-obsessed dwarf. They are joined by an indestructible talking yard gnome in what is a truly bizarre spring break trip.   The reader must guess what is real and what is hallucinatory. 


Follow-up:
Here is a book trailer created by an ELA teacher to use as a teaser before reading the book.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=segA4JzQnKs



Visit the official Website of Libba Bray to find a reading guide with discussion questions:
http://libbabray.com/resources/going-bovine-reading-guide

2010 Honor

Heiligman, D. (2009). Charles and Emma. Harrisonburg, VA: R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company.

Through letters, diaries, notebooks, and pictures, Heiligman documents the story of Charles Darwin and his cousin, wife, and love of his life, Emma Wedgewood Darwin.  Emma is very religious, and her faith gives Charles a lot to think about as he works on his theory of evolution. The story illuminates the couple’s love, respect, and friendship.  Readers are allowed to understand Darwin’s ideas and how Emma’s responses temper them.  Darwin’s love for Emma is an important factor in his development of a major scientific theory.  The well researched novel is part history, part biography, and part love story.
Note:  This book was also the 2010 winner of the YALSA Exxcellence in Nonfiction.

Follow-up:  PreReading Activity and Discussion Questions: http://media.us.macmillan.com/teachersguides/9780805087215TG.pdf

2006 Winner

Green, J. (2005). Looking for Alaska. New York, NY: Penguin Group.

Sixteen-year-old Miles “Pudge” Halter dreams of starting fresh at Culver Creek boarding school.  He becomes friends and falls in love with Alaska Young, a gorgeous, funny, self-destructive, messed-up girl.  She pulls Miles into her reckless world as he looks for the “Great Perhaps.”  Alaska and Miles’ roommate, Chip, teach him to drink, smoke, and plan elaborate pranks.  After a fatal car crash, Miles is left looking for answers about life and death.

Follow-up: 

Lesson Plans and Teaching Resources may be found here: http://www.webenglishteacher.com/looking-for-alaska-lesson-plans.html.  You can click on the links for each lesson plan.  Below is only a partial screenshot.

Looking for Alaska by John Green
Lesson plans and teaching resources

Looking for Alaska
Summary, prereading vocabulary, discussion questions and activities based on the 2 divisions of the novel, extension activities. 12 pages, Adobe Reader required

Looking for Alaska
A series of lesson plans posted to a preservice teacher blog:

• Lesson Plan 1
  In this pre-reading activity, students explore media portrayal of teens. They select one aspect of that portrayal and make a video that responds to it.
• Lesson Plan 2
  Students discuss the novel's organization and begin to write an argumentative essay.
• Lesson Plan 3
  Students discuss their reading and write an essay predicting the event the novel is leading up to.
• Lesson Plan 4
  Students share videos from Lesson 1. They compare and contrast stereotypes of teens from TV shows.
• Lesson Plan 5
  Students establish blogs.
• Lesson Plan 6
  Students make text-to-world connections by discussing the characters in the novel and by discussing issues as a class with a school counselor.
• Lesson Plan 7
  Students consider negative stereotypes of teens.
• Lesson Plan 8
  Students consider the impact of negative stereotypes on teens.
• Lesson Plan 9
  Students review for the final test.
• Lesson Plan 10
  Final test.

- See more at: http://www.webenglishteacher.com/looking-for-alaska-lesson-plans.html#sthash.YeG5ctCM.dpuf

Another follow-up:  Read an interview with author John Green and find questions for discussion at:

https://www.teachervision.com/tv/printables/penguin/tl-guide-looking-for-alaska.pdf

Pura Belpre' Award Winners

The Pura Belpré Award, established in 1996, is presented to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.

2014 Winner

Morales, J. (2013). Niño wrestles the world. New York, NY: Roaring Brook Press.

Lucha Libre champion Niño tackles the horrific opponents who line up to wrestle him: La Momia de Guanajuato, Cabeza Olmeca, La Llorona, El Extraterrestre, and El Chamuco.  Using his superb talents he defeats them with flair.  When Las Hermanitas, his little sisters, wake from their nap, he finds that since they are too difficult to beat he must join them.

Follow-up:  Go to Yuyi Morales' Web page at:

http://www.yuyimorales.com/ninowrestles.htm

You can make lucha masks:

Students may want to read other books by Yuyi Morales:

In this original trickster tale, Senor Calavera arrives unexpectedly at Grandma Beetle's door. He requests that she leave with him right away. "Just a minute," Grandma Beetle tells him. She still has one house to sweep, two pots of tea to boil, three pounds of corn to make into tortillas -- and that's just the start! Using both Spanish and English words to tally the party preparations, Grandma Beetle cleverly delays her trip and spends her birthday with a table full of grandchildren and her surprise guest. This spirited tribute to the rich traditions of Mexican culture is the perfect introduction to counting in both English and Spanish. The vivacious illustrations and universal depiction of a family celebration are sure to be adored by young readers everywhere.

Under October’s luna, full and bright, the monsters are throwing a ball in the Haunted Hall. Las brujas come on their broomsticks. Los muertosrise from their coffins to join in the fun. Los esqueletos rattle their bones as they dance through the door. And the scariest creatures of all aren’t even there yet!

This lively bilingual Halloween poem introduces young readers to a spooky array of Spanish words that will open their ojos to the chilling delights of the season.


Los Gatos Black on Halloween is a 2007 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year, the winner of the 2008 Pura Belpre Medal for Illustration and a Pura Belpre Honor Book for Narrative.

2009 Winner

Engle, M. (2008) The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom. NY: Henry Holt and Company.

This book tells the story of the period in early Cuban history when the country was involved in three different wars for independence between 1868-1898.  The captivating story, which includes mostly real people, is told in free verse form which serves to make the story manageable for young people.  The amount of text per page is not overwhelming and each page is devoted to one person’s point of view.  The simplicity makes the story easy to follow.  It is the story of Rosa, a medicine woman and freed slave, who works to heal the injured in all three of Cuba’s wars for independence. 

Follow-up:

The following Website offers Lesson Plans, an Educator's Guide, Discussion Guide, Interview with the Author, and much more.

http://teachinglatinamericathroughliterature.wordpress.com/the-surrender-tree/

View the author's appearance at the 2010 National Book Festival in Washington D.C.

http://youtu.be/XqofuvmCN04