And I love that you talked some more about the role that re-reading plays in the work of the Printz committee. As I mentioned on another post, the only committee I’ve served on is the Alex, and while we definitely did some re-reading, we weren’t trying to identify the One Best Book of the Year, we were trying to identify ten exceptionally good books that had been published for adults but which we wanted teens to know about, too, because we thought teens would find them worth reading. So…our emphasis was on quickly reading and discarding a LOT of 1st-50-pages and catching the gold in our pans, if that makes sense. It is a different approach to the quest for quality.

I remember being struck by something that Priscille Dando wrote in her candidate’s statement or whatever you call it when she was running for the Printz committee. (I knew and admired Priscille from her work on the Alex committee.) She said that she was prepared for the re-reading that the Printz would require. That was the first time I had thought about the importance of making timem to re-read.

Just this minute it occurs to me that whereas reading for the Alex is like panning for gold, reading for the Printz must be like mining for a wedding diamond: dig around a lot, set aside some promising lumps, cut and polish them (ie, re-read and discuss them at length), and finally identify the one that you want to live with forever as the Best of This Year.

Anyway, I also agree with you about the importance of taking notes as one reads. This is true for (I imagine) any committee work and “just” for good readers advisory work.