So, starred reviews and the Printz award. We’re going to cover this topic in at least two posts this year, so whatever I don’t address (or get dead wrong), Karyn will cover in a couple of weeks!
I’m a visual, list-making sort of person, so as I mulled over this topic this week, I found myself making a mental chart of how they relate, in terms of their functions as well as how they’re determined.
Pyrite! (CC-licensed image by Flickr user Pictr 30D)
So, remember when I wrote that whole post about changes?
And I mentioned that we might make the whole Mock Printz thing a bit more—what’s the word?—organized, planned, intentional this year?
Well, now we are ready to unveil that set of changes. Because we don’t just have a plan. We have a vocabulary.
So, it’s taken me quite a while to get organized to drop by and say hello in a post, rather than comments, and now I’m feeling a little pressure to do a really amazing job with my introductory post, which is resulting in my throwing two pop culture jokes your way (more on that later).
Hi! I’m Sophie Brookover. Like Sarah & Karyn, I’m a Printz Committee alumna (2012 represent!) and have been a public YA librarian. Also like Karyn, I’ve been a high school librarian. I now work for LibraryLinkNJ–The New Jersey Library Cooperative, where I’m a Program Coordinator and my bailiwick is continuing education (or as I like to describe it, developing programs to help already-awesome librarians become even more awesome). (And, as noted in my fancy, official bio, my opinions are strictly my own.)
Oh how pleased we are to report that today, you voted and you were decisive!
We ran the total numbers (only 30 voters; everyone else was probably on a plane en route to Dallas, which is where I wish I was headed!) three ways: total voters and points, and then only those who had read all 9 books (5 voters) and again for the 9s and 8s combined (7 voters), just to see if there was any noticeable change based on number of candidates read.
And boy howdy there sure was! [Read more...]
Let’s start off by acknowledging that this data would have gotten me kicked out of statistics class back in grad school days. Our sampling is random, but it might also include far fewer than 114 people, despite the 114 responses: it’s the interwebs, and we have no idea who really voted!
Plus, of our 115 voters, only 6 people definitely read all 10 books, and one of those 6 forgot to actually vote (despite answering how many he or she had read). Then, because of our own lack of thinking this all through, we also don’t even know how many books our first 22 voters read, since that question wasn’t there at first.
And–yes, there’s more!–we had a handful of votes where only first or first and second places were filled out, which skews the data, since a book with dozens of third place votes can outpoint a book with a few first place votes, all else being equal.
So, you know, bad bad data.
But hey, why let that slow us down?
Please note: this is a revised version of the post that went up at 2:30 this afternoon.
We will give a more detailed break down of the results with numbers and statistics and complex math shortly, but for now:
A Monster Calls and Chime are vying for the Pyrite medal, but the point spread between them is so narrow that we are doing a second vote. If you’ve read both of titles, please vote in our second poll so that we can declare a clear-cut winner!
Voting ends tonight at 7:30 8:30 PM, Eastern: new deadline based on 7:30 closing resulting in no tiebreak! This is close, but only one book can win. Once we have any sort of conclusion (come on, vote! Get others to vote!) we’ll let you know and post all the rest of the data as well.
Honor vote tomorrow, using the 8 finalists that are not Chime or A Monster Calls plus whichever of those doesn’t win.
CC-licensed image by secretlondon123
Ok, here it is, the moment you’ve all been waiting for.
(Well, we hope you’ve been waiting for it. Possibly with bated breath, or maybe on tenterhooks?)
Below you will find Someday’s short list. We looked at our own reading, other Mock Printz lists, reviews, and more to determine this final list of ten titles that we really think have what it takes to receive a shiny sticker on Monday.
CC licensed image by benleto "Coin Operated Crystal Ball"
Over at The Hub, YALSA has a great description of hosting a Mock Printz program. They’ve also got a nice Roundup post.
There are so many enthusiastic, dedicated librarians running these events around the country, it’s really inspiring. We thought we’d find a few more and see what the scattershot results can tell us. Everyone knows, Crystal Balls are polished with spreadsheets made up of Mock Printz results, right?
A lot of places tend to hold their mock events around this time, so we don’t have a ton of results yet. Between the links here and the ones at YALSA, I tried to see which books were getting recognized most often (although this doesn’t necessarily tell us anything about which books will take the Mock Prize and of course doesn’t tell us what will win gold). A Monster Calls comes in with the most nominations at eight. Between Shades of Gray, by my count, got six nods, while Chime and Paper Covers Rock each had five.
Want more details?
CC-licensed image by Hellojenuine.
For the past few months, I’ve been circling around and back to two books.* I start reading. I stop reading. I start again, from the beginning. I get a little further. I accidentally leave these books at home instead of carrying them to read on the train; when I do have them in my bag, I somehow leave them on my desk instead of carrying them home again.
In between, I’ve read many other books, but for whatever reason, I am just spinning my wheels with these two.
As a result of all this (and possibly as an additional procrastination method) I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between writing a blog and being an actual committee member. Mostly, I’ve been thinking about the sacrifices committee members make, and the amazing effort they put out to create a wonderful list of books each year.
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