Award Winners

The Michael L. Printz Award for Teen Literature

The Michael L. Printz Award is an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature. The honor was named for a Topeka, Kansas, school librarian who was a long-time member of the Young Adult Library Services Association.

2008 Winners and Honors

The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean--Winner

Fourteen-year-old Sym Wates is fascinated with the Antarctic and the men who explored it, even to the point of creating an internal confidante in the form of Captain Lawrence "Titus" Oates, who was part of the doomed Scott expedition 90 years earlier. So when her "Uncle" Victor whisks the painfully shy, hearing-impaired teen away on a surprise trip to the South Pole, it seems like a dream come true. But Victor has his own agenda, seeking the legendary Symmes's Hole, portal to the interior of a hollow Earth. The lengths to which the madman pursues this quest provide the book with a dramatic drive and powerful revelations.

Honor Books

Dreamquake: Book Two of the Dreamhunter Duet by Elizabeth Knox

One Whole and Perfect Day by Judith Clarke

Repossessed by A.M. Jenkins

Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill