Teens Vote John Green’s ‘Paper Towns’ No. 1
By SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 10/21/2009
Teens around the country voted John Green’s page-turning mystery Paper Towns (Dutton, 2008) as their favorite book this year in the annual Teens' Top Ten vote, sponsored by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA).
This year’s competition was fierce, with 25 finalists and only 10 slots. More than 11,000 teens voted in the 2009 Teens' Top Ten—and Green’s novel beat the hugely popular Breaking Dawn (Little, Brown) by Stephenie Meyer and The Hunger Games (Scholastic) by Suzanne Collins, which came in two and three, respectively.
“I’m so shocked by this that I honestly don’t know if I would have been more surprised to win the award for best professional wrestler of 2009,” says Green, referring to World Wrestling Entertainment, which promotes the event. “I also want to say how grateful I am for to all the awesome librarians who get great books for kids. This award is so meaningful because it’s chosen by teenager, and I respect and admire teenagers as readers so much.”
The Teens' Top Ten is a booklist created entirely by and for teens as part of YALSA's Young Adult Galley Project, which gains access to advance copies of young adult books to national teen book discussion groups. These groups evaluated books published between January 2008 through April 2009 and then created a list of 25 nominations. Teen voters across the country then cast ballots for their three favorites, creating the 2009 Teens' Top Ten.
The 2009 Teens' Top Ten are:
1. Paper Towns (Dutton) by John Green
2. Breaking Dawn (Little, Brown) by Stephenie Meyer
3. The Hunger Games (Scholastic) by Suzanne Collins
4. City of Ashes (S & S) by Cassandra Clare
5. Identical (S & S) by Ellen Hopkins
6. The Graveyard Book (HarperCollins) by Neil Gaiman
7. Wake (S & S) by Lisa McMann
8. Untamed (St. Martin’s) by P.C. and Kristin Cast
9. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (Hyperion) by E. Lockhart
10. Graceling (Houghton) by Kristin Cashore
To learn more about the teen book groups and participate in the YA Galley program, visit www.ala.org/teenstopten. Final nominations for the 2010 Teens' Top Ten vote will be posted on Support Teen Literature Day, April 15, 2010.
Publishers interested in participating in the program may contact Nichole Gilbert, ngilbert@ala.org, for more information.
Watch the official announcement in this Webcast from World Wrestling Entertainment, hosted by Divas Brie Bella and Nikki Bella and featuring John Green.
