It’s time to vote!
Just to make sure we’re all on the same page: The Pyrite is Someday’s Mock Printz. Instead of gold, we award fool’s gold — because mock/fool, right? (I am a sucker for a pun or pun adjacent reference.) We have no affiliation with the actual Printz, but occasionally we do in fact intersect with the RealPrintz winners, which is always super exciting.
This year, we’re doing it in high speed – no preliminary conversation beyond the conversations we’ve been having all along, no shorter list of nominations. ALL 2015 YA titles are eligible. Voting will happen in the comments. Votes are weighted (see process notes, below); feel free to add editorial comments but this is really a straight vote.
Process notes:
- RealPrintz votes are weighted: first place votes receive 5 points, second place 3 and third place 1. To be declared a winner, a book must have at least five first place votes (which we have interpreted as 50% + 1 to accommodate our larger numbers) AND at least a five point lead over any other title in raw numbers (which we have followed strictly rather than scaling for larger voter numbers).
- This vote is ONLY for the winner. You may have a book you love but feel only deserves an honor; you can save it for that vote (if you double time here and on Heavy Medal, note that this is one of the major differences between the Newbery and Printz polling procedures).
- RealCommittee votes are blind (often the table is littered with small squares of paper by the end, between straw polling and real polling and revoting and honor votes), but since our purpose is to transparently have the kinds of conversations and experiences that the RealCommittee has (although obviously not identical since we are (almost) always wrong!), we’ll vote transparently as well, using the comments. Number your votes 1, 2, 3 for clarity, and consider carefully the order in which you list your picks.
- We always recommend voting BEFORE looking at any other responses to avoid the temptation to do math and strategize — because the RealCommittee can’t, so it’s maybe a little bit like cheating. Also, that’s what second votes are for, and we will go to a second vote if we don’t get a decisive winner.
Okay, that’s it. VOTE!
About Karyn Silverman
1. Most Dangerous
2. The Rest of Us Just Live Here
3. Goodbye Stranger
1. Mosquitoland by David Arnold
2. I Crawl Through It by A.S. King
3. Cut Both Ways by Carrie Mesrobian
1. Challenger Deep
2. Most Dangerous
3. Drowned City
Like-minded!
1. Simon vs. the Homosapiens Agenda
2. Bone Gap
3. The Walls Around Us
1) Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
2) We Are All Made of Molecules
3) Saint Anything
Ooh. We Are All Made of Molecules! Yasssssss!!! Excellent choice!!
Thanks! I would like to applaud your inclusion of The Rest of Us Just Live Here. It almost made my top 3. I love Patrick Ness! I’m still not over A Monster Calls being snubbed by the Newbery committee!
I will never be over that, Emily. NEVER.
Glad I’m not the only one. Before the winner was announced that year, I would have bet even money on Okay for Now or A Monster Calls taking the top spot, and I would have been thrilled with either outcome. Both were wonderful books that children loved. But when I saw that neither of them had made the list at all, and that Dead End in Norvelt (a book that in my years as a librarian I’ve never seen a child check out) had won instead, I wanted to punch a whole through my wall. It was Katherine Erskine’s Mockingbird losing to Moon Over Manifest all over again! Over the past decade or so (however long its been since Despereaux won) the Newbery Committee has really fallen out of step with what children love. This year, though, has serious redemptive potential. The War That Saved My Life, Echo, The Hired Girl, all great options that kids will actually read. Then you’ve got the contemporary titles: Lost in the Sun, Fuzzy Mud, Fish in a Tree, The Thing About Jellyfish, they really can’t go wrong. I say that knowing full well that this committee will find a way to yet again produce disappointing results. It happens every year.
One thing that we will never know is whether A MONSTER CALLS was ruled eligible. We discussed this on Heavy Medal and it would have required ALSC to make inquiries to Candlewick about the editorial arrangements and such in order to make a determination.
This is a TOUGH year for me to Pyrite vote because many of my perceived frontrunners are books I haven’t read–but I can’t vote on reviews/reputation alone. Two of this year’s Printz committee members are also former selection committee-mates of mine, so I’m constantly second-guessing what I think they might argue for/against.
That said, my votes, all books I’d be pleased as punch to see recognized:
1. Shadowshaper
2. Out of Darkness
3. What We Saw
1. Goodbye Stranger
2. Drowned City
3. All the Bright Places
1. Symphony for the City of the Dead
2. Cuckoo Song
3. The Walls Around Us
1. Bone Gap
2. Game of Love and Death
3. A Thousand Nights
1. Bone Gap
2. The Walls Around Us
3. The Hired Girl
1. Bone Gap
2. The Walls Around Us
3. Most Dangerous
1. Honor Girl
2. The Walls Around Us
3. Nimona
1. Out of Darkness
2. Bone Gap
3. Challenger Deep
1. Challenger Deep
2. Most Dangerous
3. Mosquitoland
1. Challenger Deep
2. Symphony for the City of the Dead
3. Most Dangerous
Two nonfiction. That would be a record!
1. Challenger Deep
2. Bone Gap
3. The Unlikely Hero of Room 13-B
1. The Walls Around Us
2. The Truth Commission
3. The Game of Love and Death
1. SYMPHONY FOR THE CITY OF THE DEAD
2. THE WALLS AROUND US
3. CUCKOO SONG
1. Bone Gap
2. The Boy in the Black Suit
3. The Darkest Part of the Forest
So glad to see Darkest Part of the Forest on your list. I also thought that was one of the best books of the year.
1. The Truth Commission
2. The Hired Girls
3. The Walls Around Us
1. Most Dangerous
2. A Thousand Nights
3. The Hired Girl
1. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
2. Bone Gap
3. Drowned City
1. Challenger Deep
2. Shadowshaper
3. All the Bright Places
1. Walls Around Us
2. Symphony for the City of the Dead
3. Cuckoo Song
1. Shadowshaper
2. Bone Gap
3. More Happy Than Not
1. MOST DANGEROUS
2. SYMPHONY FOR THE CITY OF THE DEAD
3. MY SENECA VILLAGE
I’m with you. I think this very well may be the year of the nonfiction winner.
Regarding Symphony for the City of the Dead…this is a little late in the day to bring this up, but there is an adult book by Brian Moynahan, published last year (2014), which apparently takes a similar approach to Anderson’s history, in that the Shostakovich symphony, Stalin’s purges, and the Nazi attack on and siege of Leningrad are combined in one grand narrative.
Does the Newbery Committee care about about such literary similarities?
sorry, sorry, Printz Committee!
1. Bone Gap
2. The Truth Commission
3. Nimona
1. Bone Gap
2. Symphony for the City of the Dead
3. Shadowshaper
1. Challenger Deep
2. The Walls Around Us
3. Bone Gap
1. The Unlikely Hero of Room 13-B
2. Bone Gap
3. Symphony for the City of the Dead
Emperor of Any Place
Cuckoo Song
Courage & Defiance
1. Honor Girl
2. Most Dangerous
3. Symphony for the City of the Dead
1. Bone Gap
2. Most Dangerous
3. Challenger Deep
1. Bone Gap
2. Audacity
3. Cuckoo Song
My comment says it is still awaiting moderation!
In case it never gets though, here are my votes again.
1. Challenger Deep
2. The Walls Around Us
3. Bone Gap
1. Challenger Deep
2. Hired Girl
3. A Thousand Nights
The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma!
Oops, I need two more 🙂
Bonegap
More Happy Than Not
1. Bone Gap
2. Challenger Deep
3. All the Bright Places
1. Challenger Deep
2. Nimona
3. Drowned City
1. Nimona
2. Challenger Deep
3. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
1. The Accident Season
2. The Walls Around Us
3. The Scorpion Rules
1. Symphony for the City of the Dead
2. Nimona
3. Challenger Deep
1. Symphony
2. Challenger Deep
3. More Happy Than Not