YA Book Wins Both Morris and Printz Awards for 2012

Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley is the winner of both the 2012 William C. Morris Award (for young adult book by first-time author) and Michael L. Printz Award (for excellence in literature written for young adults). John Corey Whaley has got to be one very happy author! Where Things Come Back was published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing.
Four 2012 Printz Honor books were also named: Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey, The Returning by Christine Hinwood, The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, and Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket).
Susan Cooper is this year’s winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults. A well-deserved honor! (And apparently she has recently moved back to Massachusetts, so we can once again claim this English native and Oxford graduate as a Massachusetts author.) As an adult, I really enjoyed reading Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising sequence aloud to my kids, especially as I remembered reading it myself back in the 70s or so. All five books in The Dark Is Rising sequence are excellent examples of quality fantasy written for young adults that adult readers can also enjoy without a qualm. I haven’t kept up with the rest of Susan Cooper’s work, except for The Boggart (also excellent) but her later books have also received high praise.
Winners of all of the 2012 American Library Association media awards were announced this morning in Dallas at the annual Midwinter Meeting. See today’s press release for the complete list of all winners.