Guidelines

The Award

The Georgia Peach Book Award for Teen Readers was established to help promote reading and literacy skills in teens. The criteria for this award were developed using modified guidelines developed for the Georgia Book Awards and the Kentucky Blue Grass Award. The Georgia Peach Award will be administered by the Georgia Library Media Association, the Georgia Library Association, and the Georgia Public Library Service.

Each year titles are researched by the Reading Committee members. School media specialists, teachers, librarians and students are encouraged to submit titles for consideration. In early winter, the committee meets to narrow the list to 20 titles. The purpose of this project is to highlight and promote the best of young adult literature for Georgia high school age students.

Guidelines

1. The committee will be composed of representatives from public libraries and school media centers. All members are encouraged to join either GLA or GLMA while on the committee.

2. Each committee member will serve from a minimum of one to a maximum of three years, unless called upon to lead the committee for a fourth year.

3. Terms on the committees will run from spring through spring, to encompass the Kennesaw State Conference, where members will present the titles and winners of the awards, and the fall COMO Conference.

4. Committee member applications will be solicited and voted on during or before March of each year.

Book Selection

1. Only titles published in the past two years are eligible.

2. The focus of the list will be young adult fiction; however, both adult books and nonfiction books of interest to teens may be chosen as well.

3. Books nominated should have literary and artistic merit and be free of negative stereotyping and be of interest to high-school-age readers.

4. Consideration will be given to genre diversity, gender representation, racial/ethnic diversity, and diversity of cultural, social, political, economic, and religious viewpoints.

5. Recommended titles are to be submitted no later than September 30 of each year.

6. To make the list of 20 GA Peach nominees, titles should receive support from 50% or more of the committee members ( 6+ readers); however, determining the final list is left to the discretion of the committee and its chairs.

Voting

1. Voting will be done through high schools and public libraries.

2. For each book read, students will choose their favorites.

3. All voting will take place online through Google Forms. Each school and public library participating can also collect paper ballots and submit those votes online by the deadline, typically the second week of March.

4. The committee will tally the votes and announce the Peach and two Honor books at the KSU Conference on Young Adult Literature.