Hello Everyone,
April is an ‘off’ month so no Printz meetings until May, but we have the last 2 weeks’ meetings and our reviews.
Before we get to that, however, let’s talk about our most recent book that sparked a discussion. On a Scale of One to Ten by Ceylan Scott is a story about a teen in a psychiatric hospital following the disappearance of her best friend. It is at least partially based on the author’s experiences as a teen with Borderline Personality Disorder. We received an Advanced Reader’s Copy from the publisher. The first person who read it had a lot of critiques, including the lack of people of color. The teen passionately declared that “Mental illness does not discriminate,” and we discussed how in the setting (London), it didn’t make a lot of sense for there to be no people of color, especially since London has a large immigrant population. The teen also disliked how the teen characters interacted with the hospital staff and the effect that one of the more chaotic characters had on the rest of the cast. I took it home to read and we discussed the book again at the meeting on the 22nd and I offered my thoughts as well. We have another teen reading the book over April so I’m looking forward to having another discussion. Throughout our discussions about On a Scale of One to Ten, the book club members had a really good talk about mental illness, how it is depicted, and how different people react to experiencing it and reading about others experiencing it.
In our March 22 meeting, we also discussed if we should add award categories as well as voting for our Printz nominees. Some suggested categories were ‘Best of’ and ‘Worst of’ heroes, villains, and supporting characters. We’ll talk some more about adding other categories in May.
Reviews
Bloom by Kevin Panetta & Savanna Gancheau
“It was a sweet idea, but I felt like the characters were kind of annoying and weak. I also didn’t like the consistently blue coloring, it didn’t show much and I felt like it was mainly for the aesthetic attempt but it got old very quickly. The story also got kind of boring as it went on and I really lost interest.”
–Anonymous (Recommended)
Nominations
Voices by David Elliot
“A wonderfully styled story in verse with a natural flow that carries the book well.”
–Caleb
Nocturna by Maya Montayne
“An amazing story for any fantasy-lover, it follows a thief and a prince’s journey to save their kingdom from a dark magic [that] they accidentally released. The story takes place in a well-described Latinx kingdom, this novel is a page turner!”
–Shreeya
The next month will not have any new posts or reviews but we’ll be reading and should have plenty for you come May.
Happy Reading!
Eva Perry Regional Library Mock Printz Book Club 