The Michael L. Printz Award
for
Excellence in Young Adult Literature
The Michael L. Printz Award is an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature. It is named for a Topeka, Kansas school librarian who was a long-time active member of the Young Adult Library Services Association.
You can also listen to audio recordings of the previous winners acceptance speeches in the YALSA For Members Only section. (Access to the print and audio versions of the speeches require a username and password.)
2003 Award Winner
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 Postcards from No Man's Land
by Aidan Chambers
Dutton/Penguin Putnam
Chambers’ novel is a passionate narrative about 17-year-old Jacob, who comes to Amsterdam to find the grave of his grandfather who died there during World War II. He meets Geertrui, the Dutch woman who cared for his wounded grandfather. Her teenage World War II story is interwoven with Jacob’s surprising discoveries about love, sex, family secrets and his own identity.
“The alternating narratives of Jacob and Geertrui make a story that is intense, sophisticated and surprising,” said Suzanne Manczuk, acting chair of the Printz Award Selection Committee. “Jacob discovers that ‘nothing in Amsterdam is what it appears to be.’” Chambers lives in England, and his previous young adult works have been acclaimed by critics on both sides of the Atlantic. “Postcards from No Man’s Land” was awarded the British Carnegie Medal, and Chambers received the Hans Christian Andersen Award 2002 for the body of his work.
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2003 Honor Books
The House of the Scorpion
by Nancy Farmer
Simon and Schuster/Richard Jackson |
My Heartbeat
by Garret Freymann-Weyr
Houghton Mifflin Company |
Hole in My Life
by Jack Gantos
Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
Award sponsored by Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association.
Development and promotion of the Michael L. Printz Award supported by Farrar Straus Giroux, HarperCollins Publishers, Little Brown and Company, Random House Children's Publishing, Scholastic, Inc., and Simon & Schuster.
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