The Michael L. Printz Award, established in 1999, honors excellence in literature written for young adults. The award-winning book may be fiction, nonfiction, poetry or an anthology and can be a work of joint authorship or editorship. Nominated books may have been previously published in another country, but must have been in the U.S. during the preceding year. The books must be designated by their publishers as either a young adult book or one published for ages 12 through 18. The award is named in honor of the late Michael L. Printz, longtime YALSA member and Topeka, Kansas, school librarian, known for discovering and promoting quality books for young adults.

2011 Winner

SHIP BREAKER
Paolo Bacigalupi
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780316056212
Ages 12-up
336 pages
May 2010

In America's Gulf Coast region, where grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts, Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota --- and hopefully live to see another day. But when, by luck or chance, he discovers an exquisite clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of his life: Strip the ship for all it's worth or rescue its lone survivor, a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life.

2011 Honors

NOTHING
Janne Teller
Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 9781416985792
Ages 12-up
240 pages
February 2010

When Pierre Anthon decides there is no meaning to life, he leaves his classroom, climbs a plum tree, and stays there. His friends and classmates cannot get him to come down, not even by pelting him with rocks. So to prove to him that there is a meaning to life, they set out to build a heap of meaning in an abandoned sawmill.

 
But it soon becomes obvious that each person cannot give up what is most meaningful, so they begin to decide for one another what the others must give up. The pile is started with a lifetime’s collection of Dungeons & Dragons books, a fishing rod, a pair of green sandals, a pet hamster --- but then, as each demand becomes more extreme, things start taking a very morbid twist, and the kids become ever more desperate to get Pierre Anthon down. And what if, after all these sacrifices, the pile is not meaningful enough?

PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ
A.S. King
Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780375865862
Ages 14-up
336 pages
October 2010

Vera’s spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she’s kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything.

So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone --- the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to?

REVOLVER
Marcus Sedgwick
Roaring Brook Press
ISBN: 9781596435926
Ages 12-up
224 pages
April 2010

In an isolated cabin, 14-year-old Sig is alone with a corpse: his father, who has fallen through the ice and frozen to death only hours earlier. Then comes a stranger claiming that Sig’s father owes him a share of a horde of stolen gold. Sig’s only protection is a loaded Colt revolver hidden in the cabin’s storeroom. The question is, will Sig use the gun, and why?

STOLEN
Lucy Christopher
The Chicken House/Scholastic
ISBN: 9780545170932
Ages 13-up
304 pages
May 2010

Gemma, 16, is on layover at Bangkok Airport, en route with her parents to a vacation in Vietnam. She steps away for just a second, to get a cup of coffee. Ty --- rugged, tan, too old, oddly familiar --- pays for Gemma's drink. And drugs it. They talk. Their hands touch. And before Gemma knows what's happening, Ty takes her. Steals her away. The unknowing object of a long obsession, Gemma has been kidnapped by her stalker and brought to the desolate Australian Outback. STOLEN is her gripping story of survival, of how she has to come to terms with her living nightmare --- or die trying to fight it.