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YALSA has announced the five titles for the 2010 Mor­ris Award short­list. YALSA will name the Mor­ris Award win­ner at the Youth Media Awards in Boston at ALA’s Mid­win­ter Meet­ing on Jan. 18. YALSA will also honor the win­ning title, as well as Mor­ris short­list titles and YALSA Non­fic­tion Award win­ners at a recep­tion on Mon­day, Jan. 18 from 8–10 p.m. at Westin Cop­ley Place Essex Cen­ter South.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to this year’s finalists:

• “Ash” by Malinda Lo, by pub­lished by Lit­tle, Brown Books for Young Readers
• “Beau­ti­ful Crea­tures” by Kami Gar­cia and Mar­garet Stohl, pub­lished by Lit­tle, Brown Books for Young Readers
• “The Ever­after” by Amy Hunt­ley, pub­lished by Balzer + Bray, an imprint of Harper­Collins Publishers
• “Flash Burnout” by L.K. Madi­gan, pub­lished by Houghton Mifflin/Houghton Mif­flin Harcourt
• “hold still” by Nina LaCour, pub­lished by Dut­ton Children’s Books, a Divi­sion of Pen­guin Young Read­ers Group

The William C. Mor­ris YA Debut Award, first awarded in 2009, hon­ors a debut book pub­lished by a first-time author writ­ing for teens and cel­e­brat­ing impres­sive new voices in young adult literature.

The award’s name­sake is William C. Mor­ris, an influ­en­tial inno­va­tor in the pub­lish­ing world and an advo­cate for mar­ket­ing books for chil­dren and young adults. Bill Mor­ris left an impres­sive mark on the field of children’s and young adult lit­er­a­ture. He was beloved in the pub­lish­ing field and the library pro­fes­sion for his gen­eros­ity and mar­velous enthu­si­asm for pro­mot­ing lit­er­a­ture for chil­dren and teens.

The William C. Mor­ris YA Debut Award cel­e­brates the achieve­ment of a pre­vi­ously unpub­lished author, or authors, who have made a strong lit­er­ary debut in writ­ing for young adult read­ers. The work cited will illu­mi­nate the teen expe­ri­ence and enrich the lives of its read­ers through its excel­lence, demon­strated by:

• Com­pelling, high qual­ity writ­ing and/or illustration
• The integrity of the work as a whole
• Its proven or poten­tial appeal to a wide range of teen readers

The Mor­ris Award will be awarded annu­ally at ALA’s Mid­win­ter Youth Media Awards. A short­list of up to five titles will be announced the sec­ond Mon­day of Decem­ber. In 2010, the win­ner and final­ists will be hon­ored at a recep­tion at ALA’s Mid­win­ter Meet­ing in Boston on Mon­day, Jan. 18 from 8–10 p.m. at the Westin Cop­ley Place Essex Cen­ter South, along with the win­ner and final­ists for YALSA’s Non­fic­tion Award.

Mem­bers of the 2010 William C. Mor­ris Award are: Chair Judy Nel­son, Pierce County Library Sys­tem, Tacoma, Wash.; Jeana Actkin­son, Bridge­port (Texas) High School; Dr. Joni Richards Bodart, School of Library and Infor­ma­tion Science-San Jose (Calif.) State Uni­ver­sity; Susan Fichtel­berg, Pub­lic Library of Wood­bridge, N.J.; Angela Fred­er­ick, Nashville (Tenn.) Pub­lic Library; Clio Hath­away, Mar­tin Memo­r­ial Library, York, Pa.; Melanie Koss, North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­sity DeKalb, Ill.; Anne Leon, Alvin Sher­man Library-Nova South­east­ern Uni­ver­sity, Fort Laud­erdale, Fla.; Gail Zachariah, Keene (N.H.) Pub­lic Library; David Durante, admin­is­tra­tive assis­tant, Pierce County Library Sys­tem, Gra­ham, Wash.; and Book­list Con­sul­tant, Ilene Cooper, Chicago.21