MOCK PRINTZ

A wild and intense afternoon of book discussions ending with an attempt to guess which release from the previous year will win ALA's Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature! The Mock Printz will be held every other year with the next in person event planned for 2027.

Plans for 2027 will be announced in the Fall of 2026 

REGISTER HERE!

In 2025, the committee chose to provide materials for libraries to host a Mini Mock Printz event. We’ve begun offering our Mock Printz workshop every other year, with our next hybrid event in January of 2027. Of course, we still love to celebrate incredible Young Adult books, so we’ve prepared some resources to encourage you to hold Mini Mock Printz events in your own community. This is your chance to explore some of the most talked-about and thought-provoking young adult books of the year — and to help decide which one you think deserves the 2026 Michael L. Printz Award.

Here’s how it works:

• You read all eight selected titles listed below...
• You’ll have until mid-January to read them all and then... 
• Host your own Mock Printz book group! The attached document has further details, instructions, and a link to a voting form so we can choose our statewide winner and see how our pick stacks up against YALSA’s official Printz Award selection. If you are unable to hold your own book group, please feel free to join one nearby, or read on your own and vote.
• If you’re planning to participate, please email [email protected] or [email protected] to let us know! The Mock Printz is the most fun when teens are involved. Maybe you’d like to offer this as a library event? A staff book group? A winter gathering with bookish friends? A solo exploration of the best in teen lit? It all sounds good to us!

This year’s Mini Mock Printz titles:

• Song of a Blackbird by Maria Van Lieshout
• Death in the Jungle: Murder, Betrayal, and the Lost Dream of Jonestown by Candace Fleming
• The Corruption of Hollis Brown by K. Ancrum
• Banned Together: Our Fight for Reader’s Rights by Ashley Hope Pérez
• Sisters in the Wind by Angeline Boulley
• (S)Kin by Ibi Zoboi
• Run Away With Me by Brian Selznick
• I Am the Swarm by Hayley Chewins

Let’s celebrate great storytelling, critical thinking, and the joy of reading together. We can’t wait -to see which book you’ll champion

We do love to have teen readers at the Mock Printz. We celebrate them. We listen to them. Teen participants have to be willing to read the books (or read most of the books) and then spend a day talking intensively with other teens and adults about books. That's a "not for me" proposition for a lot of teens, but for just the right people, it is MAGICAL.

So, ask around. Maybe you'll find a couple of students who are up for giving it a try!

--Sonja Somerville  [email protected]

Here is some graphics you can download and use to invite students on social media or through email: