What’s Wrong With the Printz?
Debbie Reese recently noted that ALSC had added language in support of diversity to their committee manuals, but YALSA has had that language in the Policies and Procedures since the inception of the Printz Award: “Librarianship focuses on individuals, in all their diversity, and that focus is a fundamental value of the Young Adult Library Services Association and its members. Diversity is, thus, honored in the Association and in the collections and services that libraries provide to young adults.”
While 4 books written by people of color have won the Printz Award (MONSTER, A STEP FROM HEAVEN, THE FIRST PART LAST, and AMERICAN BORN CHINESE), only 3 have won Honors (CARVER, ARISTOTLE AND DANTE, THIS ONE SUMMER). In contrast, the Newbery Medal, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the National Book Award have each recognized 4 winning books by people of color in the same time span, but both the Newbery and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize also named 9 honor books (or finalists), while the National Book Award recognized a whopping 14 finalists! None of these other awards had diversity written into their criteria so explicitly, yet they managed to honor it much better than the Printz did, and that’s disappointing, to say the least.
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While the Printz has recognized a pair of nonfiction titles (JOHN LENNON and CHARLES AND EMMA), the Newbery managed 4 in a similar time span (and with much fewer honor books); The Los Angles Times Book Prize had 7 finalists in that span, 2 of which won the award outright; while the National Book Award had 9 finalists with 1 book going the distance. The Printz has recognized other genres that are recognized less often (memoir, poetry, comics), but so too have the other awards.
Many will remember that in the early years of the Printz Award there was much discussion about the overlap in the ages 12-14 served by both the Newbery and Printz with many ALSC members wanting to cede those books to YALSA and many YALSA members wanting to take those books from ALSC; we’ve heard less of that talk from the YALSA end in recent years because it’s painfully obvious that the Printz committee has no intention of serving those readers with only 4 middle school titles in 16 years: SKELLIG, THE HOUSE OF THE SCORPION, LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY, and NAVIGATING EARLY. Once again, both the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize have a much better track record of serving both ends of the YA spectrum–and the Newbery serves the younger end much better, too.
Why use the full complement of 4 honor books year after year after year if you’re not going to embrace the breadth of your charge and honor diversity? I love the Printz Award as much as anyone, can point to brilliant picks by each and every committee, but the collective omissions are starting to wear me down. Can we fix this, please?
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About Jonathan Hunt
Jonathan Hunt is the Coordinator of Library Media Services at the San Diego County Office of Education. He served on the 2006 Newbery committee, and has also judged the Caldecott Medal, the Printz Award, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. You can reach him at hunt_yellow@yahoo.com
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A key difference to me between the language you quote from YALSA and the language Debbie highlighted from the manuals is that the YALSA language treats diversity as a value we are assumed to hold (“diversity is, thus, honored”/we focus on individuals and individuals are diverse, therefore whatever we do is diverse!) and the ALSC language suggests that it is a work in progress (committee members should strive to be aware, committee members should be open to listening, every committee member brings gaps).
To put it another way, the YALSA language suggests that “good” librarians are already awesome at diversity, and the new ALSC language suggests that “good” librarians recognize their own areas of ignorance and continue to seek new information and other perspectives. I’m being a tiny bit glib here, but I do think it’s an instructive difference in perspective.
I’m not sure that you can legislate an appreciation of diversity by putting such clauses in the criteria, anyway. The bottom line is that the Printz lags behind other awards, but it wasn’t always that way. They had three people of color win the Printz in the first five years . . . then one winner and three honor books in the next eleven. What happened?
Jonathan,
The Printz Committee is responsible for books 12-18 that is a 7 year span. The 12-14 year old ‘younger end’ you refer to above accounts for 43% of the age span. The Newbery committee must accounts for a 15 year span (0-14). If you are going to hold the Printz accountable for their “younger end” shouldn’t we hold the newbery equally accountable?
The lower 43% of the newbery age span is approximately birth through age 6 1/2 or birth through first grade. You say that the Newbery serves the younger end “much better”. I’m not sure I agree.
What Newbery winners or honors from the last 16 years sit firmly in the 1st grade and under range? The two picture books receiving honors during this time Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night and Show Way both work better with older picture book readers (though their are certainly 1st graders who would appreciate them, much like the 13 year olds that appreciate The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, American Born Chinese, This One Summer, or Airborn) . The younger novels: The Year of Billy Miller, 26 Fairmount Avenue, and Because of Winn-Dixie can all be enjoyed by first graders though again they work better with slightly older kids. (I am thinking of these primarily as read alouds for this age not independent reading though certain precocious readers would have no trouble (which can also be said about the aforementioned precocious 12 and 13 year old readers of Printz books).)
If you are going to claim that the “Newbery serves the younger end much better” then I’d need to see an example of a title that works for more children under 7 years old not just the precocious readers or the very upper part of the younger end.
It’s not that the committees haven’t had opportunities. We are in a Book, I Broke My Trunk, City Dog, Country Frog, and Ling & Ting are all distinguished contributions that were discussed here in the past as dark horse possibilities.
You say that it is “painfully obvious that the Printz committee has no intention of serving those [12-14 year old] readers”
To be fair it’s equally obvious that the newbery committee has no intention of serving it’s youngest readers either.
The hypothetical up hill battle for gaining consensus that WE ARE IN A BOOK might have faced in the Newbery committee room should probably be compared to the up hill battle Oppel’s THE NEST would likely face in this year’s Printz deliberations. (btw, I really hope THE NEST can overcome the odds and pull off a Printz medal or honor since it’s best middle grade novel of the year but isn’t Newbery eligible.)
Yes, it’s very clear that every award committee likes to hang out at the top of their age range, Newbery included. (Roger had a great post yesterday on the good work being done in high school YA: http://www.hbook.com/2015/11/blogs/read-roger/tbt/#_) The Newbery does have a greater span of developmental reading needs than the Printz does and they do have language in their manual that encourages committee members to think twice about being seduced by the overlap range. As you well know, it is also a source of constant frustration to me that the Newbery doesn’t serve *its* younger range as well as it should either.
Unfortunately, there’s not a comparable award for ages 0-14 to compare and contrast with the Newbery, but the NBA and the LATBP both have similar ranges as the Printz yet manage to serve both ends of the 12-18 range. Many of this year’s NBA finalists are not outside the interest of some middle school students (CHALLENGER DEEP, BONE GAP, MOST DANGEROUS, NIMONA, and THE THING ABOUT JELLYFISH), but the past couple years the finalists have also included REVOLUTION, BROWN GIRL DREAMING, THREATENED, BOXERS & SAINTS, THE THING ABOUT LUCK, THE PORT CHICAGO 50, PICTURE ME GONE, THE TRUE BLUE SCOUTS OF SUGAR MAN SWAMP, FAR FAR AWAY, and NOGGIN. So basically in 3 years the National Book Award has served 6th grade readers better than the Printz has in 16 years. Do you want me to stop or shall we continue to look at the LATBP, too?
I’m don’t disagree that both LATBP and NBA are better at serving the lower end of their ranges. I do disagree with what you state in your original post about Newbery doing a better job, and was most surprised that you would make that claim considering how often you fight for younger titles on this blog.
“Once again, both the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize have a much better track record of serving both ends of the YA spectrum–and the Newbery serves the younger end much better, too.”
I’m sorry that my meaning wasn’t clear, but I never intended to suggest a comparison between the younger end of their respective ranges. Rather, when I use “younger end” in the sentence above I thought I had already established the context of 12-18. Thus, in this case by younger end I mean ages 12-14. I do believe that the Newbery also serves those ages better than the Printz does. Sorry for the confusion.
Let’s clear up the misconceptions and quit with the cross over all together.
Caldecott: Age 0-8
Newbery Age 9-13
Printz Age 14-18/19
Let’s say Young Adult is REALLY Young Adult or high school aged readers.
It drives me CRAZY when book for 12 year olds are considered for Printz books. That is too big of a range developmentally. I am always delighted when only high school interest books are considered. That is where I think the award should live ONLY.
Maybe one new category is needed so it could be organized by grades
Emerging Readers (Need a new category) Grades 2-4
Middle Grade readers (Newbery) Grades 5-8
High School readers (Printz) Grades 9-12
About the diversity issue, I wonder if the Real Committee for Printz looks at all the other Youth Services Awards and thinks they are spreading out the awards throughout the range of awards (Belpre, Corretta Scott King, Schneider Family, YALSA Nonfiction, etc.)
I don’t see splitting up the age groups more as a solution. Seems to me it would only have the effect of diluting the significance of the awards. Out In the greater world beyond ALA I think Siebert, Geisel and even Printz are not recognized. Mention Newbery and Caldecott awards and there is often head bobbing of recognition.
Throwing Caldecott in there is apple and oranges, it’s not a literary award and shouldn’t be treated as such. Nor should picture books be seen as an age designated category, images transcend age, especially when they are done on such an award winning level as Caldecott.
Why so much fuss over clear cut categories for awards for excellence? Perhaps what you’re looking for might be better served by the plethora of state children’s literary awards that breakdown into many more age appropraite categories.
What’s with the Printz-bashing? I don’t see how this post serves the Heavy Medal blog.
Todd, I was traveling yesterday and was thus unable to respond to your comment in a timely manner . . .
While the focus of this blog is the Newbery Medal, we have often discussed other awards here, too, such as the Caldecott, Printz, National Book Award, and Carnegie (UK) to name a few. Since the Newbery and the Printz share an overlap in their age ranges, the Printz frequently gets mentioned in our comments and if you browse some of our recent posts you will see that that is indeed the case. A third of this post addresses that overlap and is thus squarely within the purview of this blog, while the other two thirds, though a bit farther afield, are part of a running conversation the children’s book industry is having about diversity, and I think YALSA and its members would be wise not to absent themselves from that discussion, regardless of whether it takes place on Heavy Medal or elsewhere.
Moreover, I don’t really think you are objecting to *where* the conversation takes place, I think you are objecting to the criticism itself by labeling it “bashing,” a term which connotes prejudice, defamation, hate, and violence. I do not believe that my criticism evidences any of those characteristics.
Indeed, I have not criticized what books the Printz Award *has* recognized, only what it has *not*. If I was critiquing a single committee–which I have not done, by the way–it would be an infuriating and specious criticism because the nature of the process is that excellent books are going to be left out every year. But it’s a different thing altogether to look at 16 years and say, “This is a problem! We can do better!”
I’m very proud of the work that my own Printz committee did during that span, and yet I also know that we inadvertently contributed to the very problems I am decrying. I would hope that no past or present committee member feel personally attacked by this post. If I didn’t care so passionately about the Printz Award and the readers that it serves, then I wouldn’t bother to comment on the situation.
I guess it was the title of the post was that got my attention. Let me know if you would like to take your concerns to the YALSA Board.
Yeah, I dithered on the title. Perhaps not the best choice. Not sure that my concerns need to formally go before the board at this point. I think these kinds of things often sort themselves out, especially once awareness is raised. Last year was a step in the right direction and this year could be as well. Books like DROWNED CITY, THE BOYS WHO CHALLENGED HITLER, MOST DANGEROUS, GOODBYE STRANGER, and X: A NOVEL all have six starred reviews and could easily find themselves among the winners if the committee is so inclined.
Pardon me for my ignorance on the criteria for the Printz, but I would say that members of the Newbery committee cannot and should not be citing diversity as their primary argument in favor of a title because diversity does not qualify a book for consideration under the criteria we so diligently apply to our discussions. That diverse titles have frequently risen to the top is a function of their distinguished”ness” not their diversity. Maybe I’m being too simple, but perhaps the Printz committee likewise applies their criteria to the field of contenders and has legitimately found fewer diverse titles in the top tier of their fields. I feel that there is mounting pressure on publishers to bring us more diverse books to consider. We can all hope that with greater efforts to publish diverse voices we will see greater diversity in our most distinguished books for all ages in the years to come.
To be sure, both committees are basing their decisions on excellence rather than diversity, but while it’s hard to fault any particular committee for omitting any particular titles, shouldn’t we expect to see diversity represented in the long run, especially when we define it as broadly as I have done above?