So, the major awards for children and  teen books from the ALA were announced today.  Being a library student, I was pretty psyched to see who won.  (My advisor and I actually had a countdown going during my advising appointment.)  I had not read the Caldecott or Newbery winners (A Sick Day for Amos McGee and Moon over Manifest respectively), but I had just read Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (winner of the Printz Award) over Christmas.  I definitely liked it.  It had a great storyline, and I felt like I believed in the world where the story takes place. It felt like there was a history to the people and the places.

When books win awards, especially such high profile awards, I like to read reviews of them.  I looked on Amazon earlier to see what people were saying.  What I find interesting is that one of the negative reviews on Amazon seem primarily interested in the amount of swearing in the books.  Not the content or the writing or the plot- just that there was a lot of swearing.

The funny thing is that I don’t specifically remember an excessive amount of swearing in the book.  When I think about it, I could probably say that there was swearing.  However, I was so engrossed in the story that I didn’t even notice any extra swearing.  Of course, there are some people that think no one under the age of 18 should be exposed to any swearing which seems excessive in the other direction.

I definitely thought the book was appropriate for young adults as I read it, swearing or not.  It’s one I would recommend to the YA readers in my life.  Congratulations to all of the winners!