Morris Shortlist

The Morris Award is a Brand! New! Award from ALA. It honors the first book published by an unpublished author.

Part of the process includes releasing a shortlist; the winner will be announced at the Youth Media Awards on January 26.

Those finalists are:

A Curse Dark as Goldby Elizabeth C. Bunce, published by Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic;

Graceling by Kristin Cashore, published by Harcourt/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt;

Absolute Brightness by James Lecesne, published by HarperTeen/Laura Geringer Books;

Madapple by Christina Meldrum, published by Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books;

Me, the Missing, and the Dead by Jenny Valentine, published by HarperTeen.

Melissa at Librarian by Day* is reading the books and discussing them. She's not doing the liked it/didn't like type of post; rather, she's considering each book in terms of why it was selected as a finalist and how it meets the criteria of the Morris Award. Since some of the Newbery controversy revolves around what is (and isn't) the criteria of the Award, it's nice to see someone review with the actual procedures and standards of the Award in mind.

This is one of the good things about the shortlist; it's not just the buzz for these five books, but it's the opportunity to read these titles with a different perspective and to discuss these books and the award.

Other Morris Discussion:

Why, look at that! Carlie has a strong opinion about it. Who'd have thunk?

Jackie at Interactive Reader

Read Roger ponders the value of releasing the shortlist



*And a contributor to this blog