Mock Printz Winner 2013

After delaying the meeting twice due to weather, the Eva Perry Mock Printz Book Club met for their final decision on what books published in 2012 would be the Mock Printz winners. After much lively discussion, we had our final vote.

The winner is Railsea by China Mieville

Things cited about this books were its fantastic, unique setting, and the gorgeous writing of Mieville.  People also loved how, despite the fact that the setting is archaic and foreign, Mieville puts you right in the middle, so that you are experiencing things as the characters might.  The people in this world don’t know what we know about trains and helicopters, etc.  Mieville also creates new words in the English language, which is what will happen in the future, when this books is set.

We selected two Honor books:  Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein and The Children and the Wolves by Adam Rapp.

For Code Name Verity, the group loved the characters in this book, two very different girls with a strong bond of friendship.  We also liked how the narrator was unreliable, and we didn’t know what the truth was until the very end of the book, and maybe we never will know the full truth about Verity.  The theme was carried through the book in all sorts of ways you didn’t realize.

Children and the Wolves was probably the most controversial book in the club.  The content is horrific.  There isn’t a hero, and whether or not Wiggins is even a sympathetic narrator was up for debate.  The writing was condensed.  At times, there was even discussion of “is there a theme?” and if that matters for a book.  It was hotly debated.  In the end, what we could all agree on, was that this book was unique and we know that Printz is famous for giving edgy books a shot.

What a year.  What were your picks, and are you ready to hear the official winners tomorrow?

Visit with Jasper Fforde, October 2012

Jasper Fforde meets Printz Club (from left to right): Heather, Ellen, Lindsey (me), Danny, and Karen.

Several of our Printz Club members received the opportunity to meet privately with Jasper Fforde before a book signing at Quail Ridge Books and Music on October 22, 2012.  Right before his public speaking event, he met with club members to answer questions about writing, his books, and some of his inspirations.  For this year, Fforde is the author of The Last Dragonslayer, one of the books in consideration for the Mock Printz Award. 

Replication: The Jason Experiment by Jill Williamson

Martyr—otherwise known as Jason 3:3—is one of hundreds of clones kept in a remote facility called Jason Farms. Told that he has been created to save humanity, Martyr has just one wish before he is scheduled to ‘expire’ in less than a month. To see the sky. Abby Goyer may have just moved to Alaska, but she has a feeling something strange is going on at the farm where her father works. But even this smart, confident girl could never have imagined what lies beneath a simple barn. Or what would happen when a mysterious boy shows up at her door, asking about the stars. As the reality of the Jason Experiment comes to light, Martyr is caught between two futures—the one for which he was produced and the one Abby believes God created him to have. Time is running out, and Martyr must decide if a life with Abby is worth leaving everything he’s ever known.

Zonderkidz

Partials, by Dan Wells

Humanity is all but extinguished after a war with partials—engineered organic beings identical to humans—has decimated the world’s population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island. The threat of the partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to the disease in over a decade. Humanity’s time is running out.

Balzer + Bray

Find it at WCPL here.

Never Eighteen by Megan Bostic

Austin Parker is never going to see his eighteenth birthday. At the rate he’s going, he probably won’t even see the end of the year. But in the short time he has left there’s one thing he can do: He can try to help the people he loves live—even though he never will.

It’s probably hopeless. But he has to try.

HMH Children’s Books

I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga

What if the world’s worst serial killer…was your dad? Jasper (Jazz) Dent is a likable teenager. A charmer, one might say. But he’s also the son of the world’s most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, Take Your Son to Work Day was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could–from the criminal’s point of view. And now bodies are piling up in Lobo’s Nod. In an effort to clear his name, Jazz joins the police in a hunt for a new serial killer. But Jazz has a secret–could he be more like his father than anyone knows?

Little, Brown

Find it at WCPL here.

The Girls of No Return by Erin Saldin

The Alice Marshall School, set within a glorious 2-million acre wilderness area, is a place where teenage girls are sent to escape their histories and themselves. Lida Wallace has tried to negate herself in every way possible. At Alice Marshall, she meets Elsa Boone, Jules, and Gia Longchamps, whose glamour entrances the entire camp. As the girls prepare for a wilderness trek, Lida is both thrilled and terrified to be chosen as Gia’s friend. Everyone has their secrets – the “Things” they try to protect; and when those come out, the knives do as well.

Scholastic

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Oct. 11th, 1943—A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it’s barely begun. When “Verity” is arrested by the Gestapo, she’s sure she doesn’t stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she’s living a spy’s worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution. As she intricately weaves her confession, Verity uncovers her past, how she became friends with the pilot Maddie, and why she left Maddie in the wrecked fuselage of their plane. On each new scrap of paper, Verity battles for her life, confronting her views on courage and failure and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets be enough to save her from the enemy? Harrowing and beautifully written, Elizabeth Wein creates a visceral read of danger, resolve, and survival that shows just how far true friends will go to save each other. Code Name Verity is an outstanding novel that will stick with you long after the last page.

Hyperion

Find it at WCPL here.

Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood

Blessed with a gift… cursed with a secret. Everybody knows Cate Cahill and her sisters are eccentric. Too pretty, too reclusive, and far too educated for their own good. But the truth is even worse: they’re witches. And if their secret is discovered by the priests of the Brotherhood, it would mean an asylum, a prison ship – or an early grave. Before her mother died, Cate promised to protect her sisters. But with only six months left to choose between marriage and the Sisterhood, she might not be able to keep her word . . . especially after she finds her mother’s diary, uncovering a secret that could spell her family’s destruction. Desperate to find alternatives to their fate, Cate starts scouring banned books and questioning rebellious new friends, all while juggling tea parties, shocking marriage proposals, and a forbidden romance with the completely unsuitable Finn Belastra. If what her mother wrote is true, the Cahill girls aren’t safe. Not from the Brotherhood, the Sisterhood – not even from each other.

G.P. Putnam’s Sons

Find it at WCPL here.

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

The long-awaited companion to New York Times bestsellers Graceling and Fire. Eight years after Graceling, Bitterblue is now queen of Monsea. But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisors, who have run things since Leck died, believe in a forward-thinking plan: Pardon all who committed terrible acts under Leck’s reign, and forget anything bad ever happened. But when Bitterblue begins sneaking outside the castle–disguised and alone–to walk the streets of her own city, she starts realizing that the kingdom has been under the 35-year spell of a madman, and the only way to move forward is to revisit the past. Two thieves, who only steal what has already been stolen, change her life forever. They hold a key to the truth of Leck’s reign. And one of them, with an extreme skill called a Grace that he hasn’t yet identified, holds a key to her heart.

Dial Books

Find it at WCPL here.