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The Assem­bly on Lit­er­a­ture for Ado­les­cents (ALAN) of the National Coun­cil of Teach­ers of Eng­lish (NCTE) is pleased and proud to announce the win­ner of the inau­gural Amelia Eliz­a­beth Walden Book Award for Young Adult Fic­tion.  Estab­lished in 2008 to honor the wishes of young adult author, Amelia Eliz­a­beth Walden, the award allows for the sum of $5,000 to be pre­sented annu­ally to the author of a young adult title selected by the ALAN Amelia Eliz­a­beth Walden Book Award Com­mit­tee as demon­strat­ing a pos­i­tive approach to life, wide­spread teen appeal, and lit­er­ary merit.

The win­ner of the 2009 Amelia Eliz­a­beth Walden Award is:

My Most Excel­lent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Pop­pins & Fen­way Park

by Steve Kluger (Dial)

2009 Amelia Eliz­a­beth Walden Award final­ists are:

After Tupac and D Fos­ter by Jacque­line Wood­son (Putnam)

Gracel­ing by Kristin Cashore (Harcourt)

The Grave­yard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins)

Me, The Miss­ing, and the Dead by Jenny Valen­tine (HarperCollins)

All Amelia Eliz­a­beth Walden Award titles will be iden­ti­fied by an award sticker—gold for the win­ner and sil­ver for the four finalists.

This year’s win­ning title was announced at an open recep­tion and read­ing on Mon­day, Novem­ber 23 dur­ing the 2009 ALAN Work­shop in Philadel­phia, Penn­syl­va­nia.  Final­ists Steve Kluger (My Most Excel­lent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Pop­pins & Fen­way Park) and Jacque­line Wood­son (After Tupac and D Fos­ter) were present to read from and sign their nom­i­nated titles.  Mem­bers of the 2009 com­mit­tee, Jen­nifer Buehler, Erica Berg, and Mary Arnold, read from the remain­ing nom­i­nated titles.

The 2009 Amelia Eliz­a­beth Walden Award Com­mit­tee would like to thank: NCTE and the ALAN Board of Direc­tors; all of the pub­lish­ers who nom­i­nated books for con­sid­er­a­tion; Scot­tie Bowditch and Kim­berly Lauber from Pen­guin Group for mak­ing arrange­ments for their authors to attend the recep­tion and for sup­ply­ing books for the sign­ing; Daniel Gill for design­ing the beau­ti­ful award seal; Ger­ard Men­doza, event plan­ner for the Philadel­phia Down­town Mar­riot, for his assis­tance in plan­ning the recep­tion; and Don Gallo for pho­tograph­ing the reception.

The 2009 Amelia Eliz­a­beth Walden Award Com­mit­tee was com­prised of ten mem­bers rep­re­sent­ing the uni­ver­sity, K-12 school, and library com­mu­ni­ties who con­sid­ered 232 young adult titles over the dura­tion of the process:

Dr. Wendy Glenn, Chair
Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor, Uni­ver­sity of Con­necti­cut, Storrs

Will­ing­ton, CT

Mary Arnold
Teen Ser­vices Man­ager, Cuya­hoga County Pub­lic Library

Cleve­land, OH

Erica Berg
Class­room Teacher, Rockville High School

Ver­non, CT

Dr. Jean Boreen
Pro­fes­sor, North­ern Ari­zona University

Flagstaff, AZ

C.J. Bott
Retired Class­room Teacher and Edu­ca­tional Con­sul­tant
Solon, OH

Dr. Jen­nifer Buehler
Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor, Saint Louis University

Saint Louis, MO

Bon­nie Kun­zel
Youth Ser­vices and Ado­les­cent Lit­er­acy Con­sul­tant
Ger­man­town, TN

Dr. Teri Lesesne
Pro­fes­sor, Sam Hous­ton State University

Huntsville, TX

Daria Plumb
Class­room Teacher, Dundee Alter­na­tive High School

Dundee, MI

Dr. Bar­bara Ward
Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor, Wash­ing­ton State Uni­ver­sity, Tri-Cities

Rich­land, WA

For more infor­ma­tion on the award, please visit ALAN Online: The Offi­cial Site of the Assem­bly on Lit­er­a­ture for Ado­les­cents http://www.alan-ya.org/ .