In the simplest terms, the Michael L. Printz award is an award for young adult books sponsored by Booklist, which is a publication of the American Library Association. The award was named for a librarian who was super active in the Young Adult Library Services Association and is pretty much THE young adult book award. If you read YA, you've probably see the seals before--they're giant, metallic P's:
As far as I can tell, there isn't a year-long reading challenge out there specifically for the Printz award books. There are a lot of personal goals, The Printz Project exists as a perpetual challenge, the Printz of the Past Challenge is open game for anything, and the Award Winning Reads Challenge is all about the Printz AND Newbury award winners. But hey, maybe I'm blind. Either way, Squidink is going to host the 2012 Printz Reading Challenge.
Challenge levels
As of right now, there are 13 Printz award winners and 49 honor books.* Which is a lot. Goodreads has put together two fabulous lists of the books, so click here for the full list of award winners and click here for the full list of honor books.
Anyway, because there are so many Printz award books, there are a lot of different reading options and thus, the Printz Reading Challenge only has one rule: finish your goal within the year. That's right, you're encouraged to create your own reading goal. Want to read five books? Cool. Ten? Even better. Just get finish by the end of the year.
Of course, if you need some ideas, I've come up with a few suggestions to get you started:
- Read one full year's worth of Printz award books (4-5)
- Read the most recent year's worth of Printz award books (5)
- Read 10 Printz award books
- Read every Printz award winning book (13)
- Read 3-5 years' worth of Printz award books (14-24)
- Read 20 Printz award books
- Read every Printz honor book (49)
- Read 7-10 years' worth of Printz award books (34-49)
- Read 50 Printz award books
- Read every Printz award book (13) and Printz honor book (49)
* Remember, these are the numbers for 2012. There are new award and honoree winners every year (usually 1 and 4 respectively), so if you're thinking of hitting up every Printz book, doing it now will be easier than later.
Web badges
Just in case you want to show off, I've created some fabulous web badges for the 2012 Printz Reading Challenge participants. Use them as you will:
Sign-ups for the challenge
To sign-up for the 2012 Printz Reading Challenge, just click the button beneath the list and fill out the form to be added. It's up to you to keep track of your goal, but feel free to give me a heads up in the comments!
