Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library Reader Advisory Blog: newbery medal

Here are some new award-winning titles to share with a special young person in your life! This week, the American Library Association awarded the Newbery Medal (for children's literature) to Moon Over Manifest by debut author Clare Vanderpool, the Caldecott Medal (for illustration) to A Sick Day for Amos McGee written and illustrated by husband-wife team Philip and Erin Stead, and the Printz Award (for young adult literature) to Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi. Here's the full list of award winners from the American Library Association.

Award winning YA author Paolo Bacigalupi has also written books for the adult market, including the Locus Award-winning science fiction book The Wind-Up Girl about a bleak, food-scarce future where an enterprising main character teams up with a discarded female android.

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Genre: Adult Non-Fiction
Rating: 5 out of 5

"Being Mortal is about the limitations of what modern medicine can provide for people as their lives draw to a close. Gawande argues that the objective of medicine should not merely be treatment and survival; medical care should also ensure dignity in death and having control over one's final moments. He argues that instead of aggressively fighting the inescapable realities of aging, we should ask the hard questions of ourselves and our loved ones -- What makes life worth living? When should we try to extend our lives, and when should we choose a better quality of our remaining days over extending their quantity?

This book is difficult to read. Not because of the way Gawande writes -- his style is highly engaging, and he never lapses into excessively scientific jargon or overly simplistic explanations -- but because of the tough subject matter. Gawande draws on his own experiences as a doctor and peppers his book with honest and humane stories of his patients, friends, and family; the stories he tells make the book more accessible, and also more heartbreaking. (And that's not a bad thing.)

No one likes to think about their loved ones', or their own, impending mortality. But it's important to have these hard conversations, because as Gawande says, "endings matter." - Amanda

Share with a young person: New award-winners