The kids at the Bank Street College of Education School for Children have decided which book they think should win the upcoming Printz Award. Forty-Two twelve and thirteen-year olds read, reviewed, discussed and voted on titles from a shortlist of 17 titles and the winner is:

Blood Red Road Moira Young Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 466 pages Publisher: S&S/McElderry – (2011-06-07) ISBN 9781442429987

S&S Audio

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In addition, they chose three honor books:

Between Shades of Gray Ruta Sepetys Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 355 pages Publisher: Penguin/Philomel – (2011-03-22) ISBN 9780399254123

Penguin Audio; Large Print, Thorndike; OverDrive, ebook and audio

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Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917 Sally M Walker Retail Price: $18.99 Hardcover: 160 pages Publisher: Macmillan/Holt (BYR) – (2011-11-22) ISBN / EAN: 0805089454 / 9780805089455

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My Big Mouth: 10 Songs I Wrote That Almost Got Me Killed Peter Hannan Retail Price: $16.99 Hardcover: 240 pages Publisher: Scholastic Press – (2011-07-01) ISBN / EAN: 0545162106 / 9780545162104

Following the jump, the rest of the titles from the short list:

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Penguin editor Amy Einhorn’s “unique ability to pinpoint the kinds of books that thousands of people want to read” is celebrated in a New York Observer profile.

Proof that her ability is unique — she was the only editor to spot the potential of Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, after it had already been rejected by 60 others. She’s had a few near-misses; she initially rejected The Postmistress, but later decided that it could work with some serious editing.

Einhorn’s big spring title is the debut, A Good American by Alex George (2/7/11; also Penguin Audio and Thorndike large print), which has been a hit among GalleyChat regulars.

If you are going to ALA Midwinter, there are several opportunities to meet the author and nab a copy of an ARC (click here for more information). UPDATE: It’s also available as an eARC on Edelweiss.

Kate Winslet is set to star as WWII magazine columnist, Juliet Ashton in the film version of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (Random House, 2008). Kenneth Branagh will direct (and, some speculate, star as Dawsey Adams). Filming is to begin in March.

Back in November, Variety reported that Branagh had abandoned Guernsey for an adaptation of Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell (New Press, 2009), starring Judi Dench and Anthony Hopkins. That project appears to now be on the back burner.

In a front-page article yesterday, the Washington Post highlights what librarians have been discussing for months; libraries can’t buy enough ebooks to meet demand, both because of “limited budgets” and because of “little cooperation from some publishers.”

Included is a chart that shows availability of best sellers in as ebooks in local libraries. Seven of the 20 titles are not available to libraries, most of the rest show heavy holds.

Our first clue that the film adaptation of The Descendants did well at last night’s Golden Globes was the rise of the tie-in on Amazon’s sales rankings (now at #125, from #2,944).

What do these wins portend for the Oscars? MTV explores that question.

Below are the winners based on books, with tie-ins (full list here).

Best Motion Picture (Drama)
The Descendants

Best Actor (Drama)
George Clooney (The Descendants)

Tie-in:

The Descendants: A Novel Kaui Hart Hemmings Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks – (2011-10-04) ISBN / EAN: 0812982959 / 9780812982954

Best Director
Martin Scorsese (Hugo)

Tie-in:

The Hugo Movie Companion Brian Selznick Retail Price: $19.99 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Scholastic Press – (2011-10-01) ISBN / EAN: 0545331552 / 9780545331555

Best Actress (Drama)
Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)

Tie-in: No specific book is listed as the source for the screenplay. In the UK, a biography titled The Iron Lady was published in 2003. Penguin has released an abridged version in the U.S. to coincide with the movie.

The Iron Lady: Margaret Thatcher, from Grocer’s Daughter to Prime Minister John Campbell Retail Price: $16.00 Hardcover: 576 pages Publisher: Penguin – (2011-10-25) ISBN: 9780143120872

Best Actress (Musical or Comedy)
Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn)
Tie-in:

My Week with Marilyn Colin Clark Retail Price: $16.00 Paperback: 336 pages Publisher: Weinstein Books – (2011-10-04) ISBN / EAN: 1602861498 / 9781602861497

Audio; Dreamscape

Best Animated Feature Film
The Adventures of Tintin

Tie-ins: In addition, to the following, LBYR has released new “Young Readers Editions” of the Tintin books, with original story and art, plus background material (full list of titles available here).

The Adventures of Tintin: The Chapter Book (Movie Tie-In) Retail Price: $4.99 Paperback: 80 pages Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers – (2011-11-01) ISBN / EAN: 0316185736 / 9780316185738

The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin’s Daring Escape (Movie Tie-In) Kirsten Mayer Retail Price: $3.99 Paperback: 24 pages Publisher: LB Kids – (2011-11-01) ISBN / EAN: 0316185744 / 9780316185745

The Adventures of Tintin: The Mystery of the Missing Wallets (Passport to Reading Level 2) Kirsten Mayer Retail Price: $3.99 Paperback: 32 pages Publisher: LB Kids – (2011-11-01) ISBN / EAN: 0316185752 / 9780316185752

The Adventures of Tintin: Danger at Sea (Passport to Reading Level 2) Kirsten Mayer Retail Price: $3.99 Paperback: 32 pages Publisher: LB Kids – (2011-11-01) ISBN / EAN: 0316185779 / 9780316185776

The Adventures of Tintin: A Novel (Movie Tie-In) Alex Irvine Retail Price: $14.99 paperback 240 pages Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers – (2011-11-01) ISBN : 9780316185790

Best Supporting Actress:
Octavia Spencer (The Help)

Tie-in:

The Help (Movie Tie-In) Kathryn Stockett Retail Price: $16.00 Paperback: 544 pages Publisher: Berkley Trade – (2011-06-28) ISBN / EAN: 0425245136 / 9780425245132

Many of us are eagerly awaiting the announcement of the Newbery winner and honor books at the upcoming ALA Midwinter meeting. So, too are the kids at the Bank Street College of Education School for Children. They have already voiced their opinion in the annual Bank Street Mock Newbery Awards. Seventy-seven kids, ages ten to twelve, read, discussed and voted on a short list of titles.

And, the winner is:

Wonderstruck Brian Selznick Retail Price: $29.99 Hardcover: 608 pages Publisher: Scholastic – (2011-09-13) ISBN / EAN: 0545027896 / 9780545027892

Honor Books

Divergent Veronica Roth Retail Price: $13.99 Hardcover: 496 pages Publisher: HarperCollins/Tegen Books – (2011-05-03) ISBN :  9780062024022

Bird in a Box Andrea Pinkney Retail Price: $16.99 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Hachette/LBYR – (2011-04-12) ISBN / EAN: 0316074039 / 9780316074032 Audio: Listening Library Okay for Now Gary D. Schmidt Retail Price: $16.99 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: HMH/Clarion – (2011-04-05) ISBN / EAN: 0547152604 / 9780547152608 RH/Listening Library; OverDrive The rest of the titles on the short list, after the jump: (more…)

To watch next week, a young adult title set during the Haitian earthquake has strong crossover appeal. Stewart O’Nan delivers a love story and Orson Scott Card returns with another title in the Ender series. In nonfiction, the fascination with SEAL’s continues with an autobiography by the most deadly sniper in U.S. military history.

Young Adult Watch List

In Darkness by Nick Lake (Bloomsbury) is set in Haiti, where a teenage boy is trapped among ruins, surrounded by bodies, with death seeming imminent. But then he becomes aware of Touissant L’Overture reaching out to him across 200 years of history. The Wall St. Journal covered it a roundup of YA titles for Black History Month, saying “elegant, restrained prose and distinct characters will reward adults and older teenagers able to brave a story with strong language, harrowing scenes of brutality and an almost painful stab of joy at the end.”

Notable Literary Titles

The Odds: A Love Story by Stewart O’Nan (Viking; Center Point Large Print) is set on Valentine’s weekend, as Art and Marion Fowler – both jobless and facing foreclosure – flee to the site of their honeymoon in Niagara Falls decades earlier, book a bridal suite, and risk everything at the roulette wheel. Library Journal says that O’Nan “sensitively makes the everyday hurts of everyday people real and important. This book will resonate profoundly in today’s strapped environment; great for book clubs.”

Usual Suspects

Raylan by Elmore Leonard (William Morrow; Blackstone Audio) is the third crime novel starring U.S. marshal Raylan Givens (now the star of the FX television series Justified), a former Kentucky coal miner, against three very different female crooks. Library Journal says, “Leonard lovers will find the fascinatingly twisted personalities common to his fiction here, along with memorable trademark Leonard moments of humor, grit, and greed. Raylan will play well with his current popularity and won’t disappoint fans of the books and the show.”

Death of Kings (Saxon Tales #6) by Bernard Cornwell (HarperCollins; HarperLuxe Large Print) is the sixth (but not final) installment of  Cornwell’s saga of England, in whichAlfred the Great lays dying, while the fate of the Angles, Saxons and Vikings hang in the balance. PW says, “Ninth-century combat lacks the grandeur of large armies, but Uhtred’s cunning, courage, and a few acts of calculated cruelty make for a compelling read.”

Shadows in Flight (Ender’s Shadow Series #5) by Orson Scott Card (Tor Books) finds Bean having fled to the stars with three of his children, who share the engineered genes that gave him both hyper-intelligence and a short, cruel physical life. Library Journal says, “Card deals with the repercussions of bioengineering for the human species. [His]graceful storytelling gives this narrative the feel of a parable or a futuristic myth; it is bound to please the author’s fan base and readers who enjoyed the first book.” But Kirkus cautions, “Do not attempt to appreciate this book without at least some familiarity with Card’s child-warrior Ender series.”

Young Adult

Hallowed (Unearthly Series #2) by Cynthia Hand (HarperTeen) is the second novel to feature part-angel Clara Gardner, who is torn between her love for her boyfriend Tucker and her complicated feelings about the role she seems destined to play. Kirkus says, “readers who enjoyed the steadfast characters, plotting and romance of Unearthly (2010) can expect more of the same in this equally satisfying sequel.”

Nonfiction

American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History by Chris Kyle (William Morrow; HarperLuxe Large Print) is the autobiography of SEAL Chief Chris Kyle, whose record 255 confirmed kills make him the most deadly sniper in U.S. military history. Booklist says, “The book reads like a a first-person thriller narrated by a sniper. The book follows his career from 1999 to 2009, and, like Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead (2003), it portrays a sniper’s life as a mixture of terror and mind-numbing boredom… A first-rate military memoir.”

Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America by Mark R. Levin (Threshold Editions; S&S Audio) finds the bestselling author of Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto exploring the philosophical basis of America’s foundations and the crisis that the government faces today.

Kim Jong Il’s oldest son is about to release a book in Japan and journalists are preparing to jump on it to try to uncover information about the secretive regime (see the Washington Post “Political Bookworm” blog).

Curiosity about North Korea may be driving interest in Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s Son, (Random House) a thriller about a North Korean soldier, which is based in part on firsthand accounts from defectors from that country.

It’s receiving strong reviews, even from the hard-to-please NYT critic, Michiko Kakutani. The Washington Post says it turns “implausible fact…into entirely believable fiction” and NPR’s The Takeaway took a look at the impressive research behind the book.

Libraries have ordered lightly and several are showing growing holds (thanks to Janet Lockhart at Wake County Library, NC, for the tip).

The Orphan Master’s Son: A Novel of North Korea Adam Johnson Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 465 pages Publisher: Random House – (2012-01-10) ISBN 9780812992793

RH Audio

Steven Spielberg’s two holiday movies are both based on books (War Horse and Tintin). The director  is currently at work on Lincoln, based on the last section of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals (S&S, 2005) starring Daniel Day Lewis and Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln. This week, he confirmed in an interview with Time Out London that his next movie will be Robopocalypse, based on the novel by Daniel H. Wilson (RH/Doubleday, June, 2011), a thriller set in the near future that was heavily promoted at BEA this year and landed on the NYT best seller list at #13 for one week. Spielberg signed it before it was published, based on a 100-page sample.

Spielberg describes the project to Time Out London,

It’s a movie about a global war between man and machine.I had a great time creating the future on Minority Report, and it’s a future that is coming true faster than any of us thought it would. Robopocalypse takes place in 15 or 20 years, so it’ll be another future we can relate to. It’s about the consequences of creating technologies which make our lives easier, and what happens when that technology becomes smarter than we are. It’s not the newest theme, it’s been done throughout science fiction, but it’s a theme that becomes more relevant every year.

In their regular seasonal books preview, USA Today lists ten books “sure to entice you,” from a longer list of thirty of the “biggest books” coming January through April (in slide show form, it’s like flash cards for readers advisors — for other previews, check our links at the right, under “2012 Book Previews”).

Most of them, of course, are titles from sure-bet authors, but there are a few lesser-knowns among the picks.

In the Top Ten:

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity Katherine Boo Retail Price: $28.00 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Random House – (2012-02-07) ISBN / EAN: /

RH Audio; Thorndike Large Print

The first book by Pulitzer-prize winning New Yorker writer, this book looks at the lives of  a some of the 3,000 people who live on piles of garbage in an area near Mumbai’s airport, hidden behind a fence covered with ads for a floor tile called “Beautiful Forever.” USA Today points out that it will have a ready audience among fans of the movie Slumdog Millionaire, (and those who read  Boo’s 2009 New Yorker story about a 13-year-old scavenger, Letter form Mumbai: Opening Night, The scene from the airport slums. The “Opening Night” of the title is the Indian premier of Slumdog Millionaire).

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One of two first novels on the the longer list is a title that may sound unlikely (how willing ARE Americans to delve into Greek mythology? Come to think of it, Rick Riordan has proved that at least one segment of the population is willing to go down that road), but the advance buzz on GalleyChat has us intrigued. If you’re going to MidWinter, try to nab a copy at the HarperCollins booth (they are also including copies in the goodie bag at their buzz session — sign up at librarylovefest@harpercollins.com).

The Song of Achilles Madeline Miller Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Ecco – (2012-03-06) ISBN / EAN: 0062060619 / 9780062060617

One of last year’s major fiction debuts, A Discovery of Witches, currently on the NYT trade paperback best seller list, is getting renewed attention. It’s a COSTCO book pick for January and Variety reports that Warner Bros. has signed screenwriter David Auburn for the movie adaptation. In hardcover, the book spent 6 weeks on the NYT bestseller list and 9 more on the extended list.

It is the first in the All Souls Trilogy (book 2, Shadow of Night, is coming in July). Libraries that have it on order are already showing significant holds.

Shadow of Night: A Novel Deborah Harkness Retail Price: $28.95 Hardcover: 592 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2012-07-10) ISBN / EAN: 0670023485 / 9780670023486

Penguin Audio; Thorndike Large Print

Yesterday, we reported on the next moves by various Harry Potter alums. In addition, Chris Columbus, director of the first two Harry Potter movies, is turning his eyes to creating source material. Entertainment Weekly interviewed him recently, after he signed a deal with HarperCollins to write House of Secrets, a middle-grade fantasy trilogy, with co-author Ned Vizzini (who wrote It’s Kind of a Funny Story, which became a movie starring Zach Galifianakis). No release date has been set.

Why buy the rights to someone else’s books when you can write your own?

The fledgling CBS This Morning show scored a major “get” today. First Lady Michelle Obama, who rarely gives interviews, sat down with Gayle King. The interview had been arranged before Christmas, but the timing was uncanny as it gave Obama an opportunity to address some of the issues raised in NYT reporter Jodi Kantor’s book, The Obamas.

While many news sources are simply reporting the book’s “juicy bits,” others, like Time magazine, have expressed skepticism. A list of the book’s alleged errors is supposedly making the rounds. The site Buzz Feed has gone to the extreme of fact-checking that fact-checking.

Despite all the attention, the book is at #26 and falling on Amazon, after reaching a high of #19 yesterday. Where ordering was light, libraries are showing heavy holds.

The Obamas Jodi Kantor Retail Price: $29.99 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2012-01-10) ISBN / EAN: 0316098752 / 9780316098755

Thorndike Large Print

Many of you were dismayed when you learned that Tom Cruise had been chosen to play Jack Reacher in the film version of  Lee Child’s One Shot (RH/Delacorte, 2005). At 6 feet 5 inches and  around 250 pounds, Reacher is an imposing figure. Tom Cruise is…smaller.

Here’s a way to vent your feelings; the Wall Street Journal today offers the opportunity to vote on who would make the best Reacher. So far, Cruise trails all the choices, with just 3% of the votes. Daniel Craig leads, with 28%, followed closely by Viggo Moretensen (23%) and Ray Stevenson (22%).

It’s been a long an tortuous road to bring Reacher to the screen, and not only because the lead was difficult to cast, as the accompanying WSJ article explores.

The movie, One Shot, is expected to be released in 2013. Child tells the WSJ that if it is a success, Killing Floor (Penguin/Putnam, 1997) will probably be the next title in the series. Bad Luck and Trouble (RH/Delacorte, 2007) is under discussion for #3.

Disney Publishing announced late yesterday that a 2-million-copy first printing of The Serpent’s Shadow, the final volume in Rick Riordan’s best-selling Kane Chronicles will be released on May 1. An excerpt of the first chapter is now available on TheKaneChronicles.com. It will also be released in audio by Brilliance.

The Serpent’s Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, Book Three) Rick Riordan Retail Price: $19.99 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: Disney Publishing – (2012-05-01) ISBN / EAN: 1423140575 / 9781423140573

Riordan appeard on Rock Center with Brian Williams last night. Towards the end of the interview, he announced the new title.

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