Monday, January 10, 2011

Choosing Books

The ALA announced the awards in Children's Literature today. The only one of the award-winning books I had read was Five Flavors of Dumb, which received the Schneider Award for teen fiction (my review of the book here). Will Grayson, Will Grayson cleaned up. This week, I picked it up and got turned off by the secondary protagonist's voice (sad, I love John Green). Am I now ashamed, since it is award-winning?

No.

Am I going to add every award-winner to my to read list on GoodReads (already overflowing)?

No.

Why? First of all, I'm sure they'll all end up on my syllabi over the next year or so. But more than that, what makes a book appeal to me isn't going to be what makes it appeal to the Newbery Committee. I might read them down the line, but the award won't make me pick them up. And that's okay. My resolution for 2011? Don't bother with the books I don't like. It makes the ones you do seem all the better.

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