The Committee

How Does the Maine Student Book Award Work?

The Maine Student Book Award is designed to expand literary horizons of students in grades 4-8 by encouraging them to read, evaluate, and enjoy a selection of new books and to choose a statewide favorite by written ballot each spring. The List of nominated books is built by a committee of dedicated professionals that hold levels of expertise in middle grade literature. The committee is comprised of four public librarians, four school librarians, and four elementary grade teachers. Together these twelve members read hundreds of books over the calendar year in effort to narrow down the nominees to the best of the best for young readers. The List is not designed to support any particular curriculum. Librarians are not required or expected to purchase every book on the list to participate in the voting program. Due to the diversity in age range and topics, librarians should follow their collection development policies and guidelines when considering which titles to purchase for their library. 

The Award is determined each year by participating Maine students in grades Four through Eight. The winning book is selected from a reading list that is compiled by the MSBA committee. Any interested readers - student, teacher, parent, librarian - may submit a book review for the committee's consideration for any fiction or nonfiction title published in the current year.

Timeline:

SPRING: The MSBA Title List for the upcoming school year is available online (usually by April 1st) and distributed at statewide conferences.

SUMMER: We encourage educators and librarians to consult the Annotated Title List for titles appropriate to your intended readers before ordering new books. This list includes grade level guidelines. While we hope that you will find many excellent suggestions for your readers on the list, it is not mandatory that all titles be available to students in order to be a participating site.

FALL/WINTER: Discuss the Maine Student Book Award with students, parents, library patrons, and faculty. Encourage students to read books from the MSBA list in preparation for voting in the spring. You may wish to devise a system to help students remember the books they have read and their opinions.

THE FOLLOWING SPRING: Students who read three or more MSBA books are eligible to vote for their favorite book at their school or public library. The ballot is available online. Librarians or teachers tally the votes and submit them via the MSBA online voting site.  We will not accept votes from individual students. The voting deadline is April 1st.

The students' top choice from the reading list is announced at Reading Round-Up, as well as on the MSBA webpage, MSBA Facebook page, ME-Libs listserv, and via email to those schools and groups who participated in the voting. The MSBA Committee encourages teachers and librarians to reward students' year-round reading with some sort of event or celebration - a cooperative display project; an ice-cream party; student skits or readings; or other activities. Consider using MSBA bookmarks, T-shirts and pencils. Use your imagination and please let us know about your successful events!

Meet the 2024-2025 Maine Student Book Award Committee