Sometime yesterday YALSA (the Young Adult Library Services Association) released a statement saying that The School Library Journal had erred in reporting that a proposed Reader’s Choice list would replace the current BBYA (Best Books for Young Adults) list.
However, there are two separate proposals under consideration:
1) the shelving of the BBYA list in 2011. (More details on the possible phasing out of BBYA here.)
2) the creation of a Reader's Choice list. (More details on that list are available here.)
According to Michele Gorman of the YALSA Board of Directors these proposals “will be discussed, debated and voted on by the YALSA Board this conference - and none have had a final decision.”
Sadly, this does confirm that the Best Books for Young Adults list is in jeopardy. Whatever the YALSA Board of Directors decide about the creation of a Reader's Choice list, I sincerely hope they realize the value of the BBYA and vote to maintain it when they meet to discuss the issue on Monday.
C. K. Kelly Martin
likes to write things down and is a firm believer in the John Lennon quote, "If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliché that must have been left behind in the Sixties, that's his problem. Love and peace are eternal." She's written a middle grade sci-fi and multiple young adult books including I KNOW IT'S OVER, YESTERDAY, and DELICATE. Her most recent novel, released under the name Cara Martin, is a sci-fi centring around a young Canadian woman cryogenically frozen during a global pandemic and then reanimated to find herself and the rest of the world drastically changed, and Canada under threat.
