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Librarians Honor Sand Chronicles, Real, Uzumaki, Japan Ai
posted on by Mikhail Koulikov
The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association, has named CMX).
Beyond the top 10 titles, YALSA has also announced 43 more graphic novels that its award committee chose as the year's Great Graphic Novels for Teens. 154 books and series which published between September 2007 and December 2008 were nominated for recognition. YALSA selected the winners on the basis of both their literary and artistic qualities, and for being books that teenagers would be interested in. The top 10 were then picked from the 53 total winners, but the rest were not ranked. In all, 19 of the 53 titles originated in Japan.
In addition to Viz's three titles in the top 10 list, books from six other Viz series were named as part of the Great Graphic Novels for Teens: Venus in Love.
YALSA also honored Daniel H. Pink's nonfiction The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need (Riverhead), which is illustrated like a manga, and Mariko Tamaki's Emiko Superstar. The latter was published by DC Comics' now-defunct Minx imprint, which tried to create original manga-influenced comics that would appeal to American teenage girls.
YALSA announced the awards at the conclusion of the American Library Association's mid-winter meeting, which was held this year in Denver, Colorado. For comparison, 43 separate titles received the Great Graphic Novel honor last year — 14 of them from Japan, and one from Korea. The year before, only five manga were among the 67 total books honored.
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