1999 Alex Award Winning Books Announced

[Esther Murphy <emurphy@ALA.ORG>]

PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release

Contact:  Linda Waddle
312/280-4391
lwaddle@ala.org

1999 ALEX AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED

The Alex Awards, announced annually in conjunction with National
Library Week, honor the top ten adult books for teenagers published
during the previous year.

This year*s winners are:

Almost a Woman by Esmeralda Santiago.  Perseus/Merloyd Lawrence
Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson.  Bantam
At All Costs by John Gilstrap.  Warner
Caucasia by Danzy Senna.  Putnam/Riverhead
The Endurance: Shackleton*s Legendary Antarctic Expedition by
Caroline Alexander.  Knopf
Getting In by James Finney Boylan.  Warner
Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger.  Avon/Bard
Legends: Stories by the Masters of Modern Fantasy.  Edited by Robert
Silverberg.  Tor; distributed by St. Martin*s
Needles by Andie Dominick.  Scribner
Space by Jesse Lee Kercheval.  Algonquin

The winners were chosen based on literary quality, readability, and
strength of teen appeal. As part of the Adult Books for Young Adults
Project, a  five-year project funded by the Margaret Alexander Edwards
Trust and cosponsored by Booklist and the Young Adult Library Services
Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association,
the Alex Awards recognize the work of Edwards, a pioneer in library
service to teens.

The Adult Books for Young Adults Project also includes a series of
programs intended to help librarians promote and use adult books for
their teen readers.  This year*s program, *Teen Readers and Adult
Books: A Winning Combination, Year 2,* which will be held at ALA*s
Annual Conference in New Orleans on Sunday, June 27, 2-4 pm, will
feature Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Rick Bragg, author of the
1998 Alex winner, All Over but the Shoutin* (Pantheon).  He will be
joined by representatives from Random House, who will talk about
marketing adult books to teens.  The program will also include full
introductions to the *99 Alex Award winners.

The complete list can be found on the ALA Web page at
http://www.ala.org/yalsa or via Fax-on-Demand.  To receive it by fax,
call 800-545-2433 and press 8.  The annotated list will also be
available in the April 1, 1999 Booklist and published in ALA's Guide
to Best Reading, 1999.

The 1999 Alex Award Committee: Bonnie Kunzel (chair), Princeton (NJ)
Public Library; Betty Carter, Texas Woman*s University, Denton, TX;
Susan Farber, Greenburgh Public Library, Elmsford, NY; Jack Forman,
Mesa College Library, San Diego, CA; David Mowery, Brooklyn (NY)
Public Library; Pamela Spencer, Virginia Beach, VA; Deborah Taylor,
Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, MD; and Stephanie Zvirin,
Booklist/American
Library Association, Chicago, IL.

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