All the ALA Awards...Including the Teen and Adult Genre Awards and How To Use the Lists to Help Patrons

No Monday Discussion today for 2 reasons.

1. We had 19 inches of snow yesterday and everything is closed! Kids school is closed, the entire city of Berwyn is closed, it’s all shut down.  
2. But more importantly, all everyone is talking about are the fabulous and awesome awards announcements on all the great books we librarians think are worth your time. 

ALA Midwinter Meeting is one of the best examples of library marketing. The entire world pays attention to what our profession thinks are the books worth reading. Yes, the wider world pays the most attention to the picks for Children, but why I think our marketing is great and not just good is because we have jumped on the popularity of the Newbery and Caldecott and the attention they receive and use it to springboard into talking about other books too.

Once we have the outside world’s attention on the subject of books, you know we are not going to let go. That’s why I love my profession.

So, here are the links for the different awards:

• All of the youth media awards. But to those who use this blog as a resources, pay particular attention to the Alex Award for the 10 best adult books that appeal to a teen audience. I not only use these for teens, but I also find they make an excellent sure bet option for most adults. When I am struggling to help an adult who won’t tell me more than they want a good read, the Alex Award page (both current and past lists) is one of my go-to resources.
• The Listen List for the very best Audio Books for Adults. The list also includes listen-alikes. I have listened to 2 of the winners (and read 2 more here and here) and loved all of them.  In fact, my reviews of The Silkworm and The Martian audios are coming soon. 
• Here are the RUSA Adult Notable Books winners-- 26 titles in Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry.
• And last but not least, my absolute favorite award of all [and it’s not even close people]-- the one that makes me most proud to be a RUSA member...The Reading List. The only award that acknowledges the very best in all genre fiction for adults.  This is the only place where all of the genres are acknowledged in one place. The Reading List truly reflects the way people actually read.  Yes it is nice that, for example, the Horror Writers give out a Horror award and the Mystery Writers give out a Mystery one, but in truth, very few readers only read a single genre.  Most readers read across genre, Most read despite genre designation, and some don’t even know which genres their favorite books are in, they just know that they like that specific book. Plus, The Reading List has a short list of other good reads and readalikes specifically for the winner, so each year’s list contains a bounty of reading suggestions.  Click here for past lists.

There were other awards I did not single out on the adult side, so click here for more thorough information.

And sit back and bask in this day of national attention on books and reading.  Well done to all who worked so hard reading all the books and selecting winners.