LibGuides: Michael L. Printz Awards: 2020s

2020-2029

2020s

Winner

Dig by A. S. King
Call Number: YA F KIN-AS
ISBN: 9781101994917
Publication Date: 2019-03-26
Five white teenage cousins who are struggling with the failures and racial ignorance of their dysfunctional parents and their wealthy grandparents, reunite for Easter.

Honor Books

The Beast Player by Uehashin, Nahoko
Call Number: YA F UEH-N
ISBN: 9781250307460
Publication Date: 2019-03-26
YA fantasy about a girl with a special power to communicate with magical beasts and the warring kingdom only she can save.

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking up with Me by Tamaki, Mariko
Call Number: YA G TAM-M (Young Adult Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 9781626722590
Publication Date: 2019-05-07
Laura Dean, the most popular girl in high school, was Frederica Riley's dream girl, but Freddy is learning she is not the best girlfriend, so she seeks help from a mysterious medium and advice columnists to help her through being a teenager in love.

Ordinary Hazards by Nikki Grimes
Call Number: YA B GRI-N
ISBN: 9781629798813
Publication Date: 2019-10-08
Growing up with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a mostly absent father, Nikki Grimes found herself terrorized by babysitters, shunted from foster family to foster family, and preyed upon by those she trusted. At the age of six, she poured her pain onto a piece of paper late one night - and discovered the magic and impact of writing. For many years, Nikki's notebooks were her most enduing companions. In this accessible and inspiring memoir that will resonate with young readers and adults alike, Nikki shows how the power of those words helped her conquer the hazards - ordinary and extraordinary - of her life.

Winner

Everything Sad is Untrue (a True Story) by Daniel Nayeri

Everything Sad Is Untrue : (a true story) by Daniel Nayeri
Call Number: YA F NAY-D (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781646140008
Publication Date: 2020-08-25
At the front of a middle school classroom in Oklahoma, a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls "Daniel") stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy with a big butt whose lunch smells funny; who makes things up and talks about poop too much. But Khosrou's stories, stretching back years, and decades, and centuries, are beautiful, and terrifying, from the moment he, his mother, and sister fled Iran in the middle of the night, stretching all the way back to family tales set in the jasmine-scented city of Isfahan, the palaces of semi-ancient kings, and even the land of stories. We bounce between a school bus of kids armed with paper clip missiles and spitballs, to the heroines and heroes of Khosrou's family's past, who ate pastries that made them weep, and touched carpets woven with precious gems. Like Scheherazade in a hostile classroom, author Daniel Nayeri weaves a tale of Khosrou trying to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. And it is (a true story). It is Daniel's.

Honor Books

Apple (Skin to the Core) by Eric Gansworth
Dragon Hoops created by Gene Luen Yang
Every Body Looking by Candice Iloh
We Are Not Free by Traci Chee

Apple : skin to the core : a memoir in words and pictures by Eric Gansworth
Call Number: YA B GAN-E (Young Adult Biography)
ISBN: 9781646140138
Publication Date: 2020-10-06
The term "Apple" is a slur in Native communities across the country. It's for someone supposedly "red on the outside, white on the inside." Eric Gansworth is telling his story in Apple (Skin to the Core). The story of his family, of Onondaga among Tuscaroras, of Native folks everywhere. From the horrible legacy of the government boarding schools, to a boy watching his siblings leave and return and leave again, to a young man fighting to be an artist who balances multiple worlds. Eric shatters that slur and reclaims it in verse and prose and imagery that truly lives up to the word heartbreaking.

Dragon Hoops by Yang, Gene Luen
Call Number: YA G YAN-GL (Young adult graphic novels)
ISBN: 9781626720794
Publication Date: 2020-03-17
Gene understands stories - comic book stories, in particular. Big action. Bigger thrills. And the hero always wins. But Gene doesn't get sports. As a kid, his friends called him 'Stick' and every basketball game he played ended in pain. He lost interest in basketball long ago, but at the high school where he now teaches, it's all anyone can talk about. The men's varsity team, the Dragons, is having a phenomenal season that's been decades in the making. Each victory brings them closer to their ultimate goal: the California State Championships. Once Gene gets to know these young all-stars, he realizes that their story is just as thrilling as anything he's seen on a comic book page. He knows he has to follow this epic to its end. What he doesn't know yet is that this season is not only going to change the Dragons's lives, but his own life as well.

Every Body Looking by Iloh, Candice
Call Number: YA F ILO-C (Young Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780525556206
Publication Date: 2020-09-22
"Ada" means first daughter, means oldest girl, means most pressure. When Ada leaves home for her freshman year at a historical Black college, it's the first time that she's been able to make her own choices. As she stumbles deeper into the world of dance and explores her sexuality, she also begins to wrestle with her past-- her mother's struggle with addiction, her Nigerian father's attempts to make a home for her. Will she find the courage to shape a life of her own?

We Are Not Free by Chee, Traci
Call Number: YA F CHE-T (Young Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780358131434
Publication Date: 2020-09-01
For fourteen-year-old budding artist Minoru Ito, her two brothers, her friends, and the other members of the Japanese-American community in southern California, the three months since Pearl Harbor was attacked have become a waking nightmare: attacked, spat on, and abused with no way to retaliate--and now things are about to get worse, their lives forever changed by the mass incarcerations in the relocation camps.

Winner

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley
Call Number: YA F BOU-A (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781250766564
Publication Date: 2021-03-16

Honor Books

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
Revolution in Our Time by Kekla Magoon
Starfish by Lisa Fipps

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas
Call Number: YA F THO-A (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780062846716
Publication Date: 2021-01-12
Concrete Rose [E-Book] by Angie Thomas
Call Number: YA F THO-A Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780062846754
Publication Date: 2021-01-12
Concrete Rose [Streaming audiobook] by Angie Thomas; Dion Graham (Read by)
Call Number: YA F THO-A Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780063043817
Publication Date: 2021-01-12

Revolution in Our Time: the Black Panther Party's Promise to the People by Kekla Magoon
Call Number: YA 322.4 MAG-K (Young adult nonfiction)
ISBN: 9781536214185
Publication Date: 2021-11-08

Starfish by Lisa Fipps
Call Number: Juv F FIP (Juvenile fiction)
ISBN: 9781984814500
Publication Date: 2021-03-09
Bullied and shamed her whole life for being fat, twelve-year-old Ellie finally gains the confidence to stand up for herself, with the help of some wonderful new allies.

Winner

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir
Call Number: YA F TAH-S (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780593202340
Publication Date: 2022-03-01
A family extending from Pakistan to California, deals with generations of young love, old regrets, and forgiveness.
All My Rage [E-Book] by Sabaa Tahir
Call Number: YA F TAH-S Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780593202357
Publication Date: 2022-03-01
All My Rage [streaming audiobook] by Sabaa Tahir
Call Number: YA F TAH-S Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780593502235
Publication Date: 2022

Honor Books

Scout's Honor by Lily Anderson
Icebreaker by A. L. Graziadei
When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb
Queer Ducks (and Other Animals): the Natural World of Animal Sexuality by Eliot Schrefer

Scout's Honor by Lily Anderson
Call Number: YA F AND-L (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781250246738
Publication Date: 2022-04-05
Sixteen-year-old Prudence Perry is a legacy Ladybird Scout, born to a family of hunters sworn to protect humans from mulligrubs interdimensional parasites who feast on human emotions like sadness and anger. Masquerading as a prim and proper ladies' social organization, the Ladybirds brew poisons masked as teas and use knitting needles as daggers, at least until they graduate to axes and swords. Three years ago, Prue's best friend was killed during a hunt, so she kissed the Scouts goodbye, preferring the company of her punkish friends lovingly dubbed the Criminal Element much to her mother and Tía Lo's disappointment. However, unable to move on from her guilt and trauma, Prue devises a risky plan to infiltrate the Ladybirds in order to swipe the Tea of Forgetting, a restricted tincture laced with a powerful amnesia spell. But old monster-slaying habits die hard and Prue finds herself falling back into the fold, growing close with the junior scouts that she trains to fight the creatures she can't face. When her town is hit with a mysterious wave of demons, Prue knows it's time to confront the most powerful monster of all: her past.
When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb
Call Number: YA F LAM-S (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781646141760
Publication Date: 2022-10-18
Uriel the angel and Little Ash (short for Ashmedai) are the only two supernatural creatures in their shtetl (which is so tiny, it doesn't have a name other than Shetl). The angel and the demon have been studying together for centuries, but pogroms and the search for a new life have drawn all the young people from their village to America. When one of those young people, Essie, goes missing. Uriel and Little Ash set off to find her. Along the way the angel and demon encounter humans in need of their help, including Rose Cohen, whose best friend (and the love of her life) has abandoned her to marry a man, and Malke Shulman, whose father died mysteriously on his way to America. But there are obstacles ahead of them as difficult as what they've left behind. Medical exams (and demons) at Ellis Island. Corrupt officials, cruel mob bosses, murderers, poverty. The streets are far from paved with gold.

WINNER

The Collectors: Stories edited by A. S. King

The Collectors : Stories by A. S. King (Editor); M. T. Anderson; E. E. Charlton-Trujillo; David Levithan; Cory McCarthy; Anna-Marie McLemore; G. Neri; Jason Reynolds; Randy Ribay; Jenny Torres Sanchez
Call Number: YA F KIN-AS
ISBN: 9780593620281
Publication Date: 2023-09-19
An anthology of ten stories by young adult authors about surprising and unusual collections. CONTENTS: Play House / by Anna-Marie McLemore -- The White Savior Does Not Save the Day / by Randy Ribay -- Take It from Me / by David Levithan -- Ring of Fire / by Jenny Torres Sanchez -- Museum of Misery / by Cory McCarthy -- La Concha / by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo -- Pool Bandits / by G. Neri -- We Are Looking for Home / by A.S. King -- A Recording for Carole Before It All Goes / by Jason Reynolds -- Sweet Everlasting / by M.T. Anderson CONTENTS: An anthology of ten stories by young adult authors about surprising and unusual collections.

HONOR BOOKS

Fire from the Sky by Moa Backe Astot ; translated by Eva Apelqvist
Gather by Kenneth M. Cadow
The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be: a Speculative Memoir of Transracial Adoption by Shannon Gibney
Salt the Water by Candice Iloh

Gather by Kenneth M. Cadow
Call Number: YA F CAD-KM
ISBN: 9781536231113
Publication Date: 2023-10-03
Ian Gray isn't supposed to have a dog, but a lot of things that shouldn't happen end up happening anyway. And Gather, Ian's adopted pup, is good company now that Ian has to quit the basketball team, find a job, and take care of his mom as she tries to overcome her opioid addiction. Despite the obstacles thrown their way, Ian is determined to keep his family afloat no matter what it takes. And for a little while, things are looking up: Ian makes friends, and his fondness for the outdoors and for fixing things lands him work helping neighbors. But an unforeseen tragedy results in Ian and his dog taking off on the run, trying to evade a future that would mean leaving their house and their land. Even if the community comes together to help him, would Ian and Gather have a home to return to?
The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be : a speculative memoir of a transracial adoption by Shannon Gibney
Call Number: YA B GIB-S
ISBN: 9780593111994
Publication Date: 2023-01-10
Two girls on different timelines-- each growing up as a mixed-Black trans-racial adoptee-- find their lives bridged by a mysterious portal. Part memoir, part speculative fiction, Gibney examines the absurdities of the adoptee experience through her own adoption experiences.

WINNER

Brownstone by Samuel Teer ; illustrated by Mar Julia

HONOR BOOKS

Bright Red Fruit by Safia Elhillo
Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White
Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag
Road Home by Rex Ogle

Bright Red Fruit by Safia Elhillo
Call Number: YA F ELH-S
ISBN: 9780593381205
Publication Date: 2024-02-06
Samira is determined to have a perfect summer filled with fun parties, exploring DC, and growing as a poet--until a scandalous rumor has her grounded and unable to leave her house. When Samira turns to a poetry forum for solace, she catches the eye of an older, charismatic poet named Horus. For the first time, Samira feels wanted. But soon she's keeping a bigger secret than ever before--one that that could prove her reputation and jeopardize her place in her community.
Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White
Call Number: YA F WHI-AJ
ISBN: 9781682636121
Publication Date: 2024-09-03
After being nearly beaten to death for evidence he holds against the corrupt sheriff, sixteen-year-old transgender Miles joins his fellow townsfolk to end the blood feud and oppressive politics that plague his town.

Michael L. Printz Awards

2020s

Winner

Honor Books

Winner

Everything Sad is Untrue (a True Story) by Daniel Nayeri

Honor Books

Apple (Skin to the Core) by Eric Gansworth

Dragon Hoops created by Gene Luen Yang

Every Body Looking by Candice Iloh

We Are Not Free by Traci Chee

Winner

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

Honor Books

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

Revolution in Our Time by Kekla Magoon

Starfish by Lisa Fipps

Winner

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

Honor Books

Scout's Honor by Lily Anderson

Icebreaker by A. L. Graziadei

When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb

Queer Ducks (and Other Animals): the Natural World of Animal Sexuality by Eliot Schrefer

WINNER

The Collectors: Stories edited by A. S. King

HONOR BOOKS

Fire from the Sky by Moa Backe Astot ; translated by Eva Apelqvist

Gather by Kenneth M. Cadow

The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be: a Speculative Memoir of Transracial Adoption by Shannon Gibney

Salt the Water by Candice Iloh

WINNER

Brownstone by Samuel Teer ; illustrated by Mar Julia

HONOR BOOKS

Bright Red Fruit by Safia Elhillo

Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White

Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag

Road Home by Rex Ogle