Georgia Teens Pick Their Favorite Peaches!!!
by Julie Hatcher
The winning author from the 2006-2007 nominees for the Georgia Peach Book Award for Teen Readers is Graham McNamee for Acceleration, an action-packed suspense novel of seventeen-year-old Duncan who finds the diary of a serial killer and sets out to stop him.
The honor books this year are Jude by Kate Morgenroth, which tells the story of fifteen-year-old Jude who is tricked into pleading guilty to a crime he did not commit, and Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin. This original story tells how Liz, a dead fifteen-year old, finds herself in a place that is both like and unlike Earth, where she must adjust to her new status and figure out how to "live."
This school year is showing an even more exciting top twenty lineup! Nominees include stories on dealing with being freshman, finding out your parents have evil superpowers, a thrilling vampire love story, several dark mysteries that will leave you hanging, a true story about growing up with a very dysfunctional family, and more!
The new list of nominated books for 2007-2008 is available at the Georgia Peach Book Award webpage, http://www.glma-inc.org/peachaward.htm, which is part of the GLMA website. Links can also be found from the Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl website, and the Georgia Public Library Service site. From this webpage, a PowerPoint presentation of each of the nominated titles may be downloaded, as well as forms, sample booktalks, discussion questions, spreadsheets, voting forms, and book posters. Feel free to print and distribute!
The Georgia Peach Book Award for Teen Readers was established four years ago to help promote reading and literacy skills in teens. The Georgia Peach Book Award for Teen Readers is supported by GLMA, GLA, GAE, the Georgia Department of Education, and Georgia Public Library Service.
Each year titles are researched and selected by a committee of high school media specialists and Young Adult public librarians. School media specialists, teachers, librarians and students are encouraged to submit titles for consideration. In early winter, the committee meets to narrow the list to 20 titles. The purpose of this project is to highlight and promote the best of young adult literature for Georgia high school age students.
The voting will be done through high schools and public libraries. For each book read, students will give the book a rating from 0(low) – 4 (high). Each school and public library participating will tally the votes and submit the scores for all books using the forms provided by beginning of March each year. The committee will tally the votes and announce the Peach and two Honor books. The voting deadline for this year is Friday, March 14th, 2008.
The Georgia Peach Book Awards for Teen Readers Committee are Media Specialists: Julie Hatcher (Co-Chair), Amy Golemme (Co-Chair), Verley Sue Dotson, Heather Newman, Connie Hanes, Susan Hawk and Public Librarians: Sarah McGhee, Kathy Pillatzki, Marlan Brinkley, and Jesse De Maria.