Every year the American Library Association gives awards for the best new books for children and young adults. Probably the oldest and most famous of these prizes are the Randolph Caldecott Medal, given for illustration, and the John Newbery Medal, given for children’s literature. This year, life stories and family stories feature prominently in the prizes.

The 2012 Newbery Award-winning young adult novel, Dead End in Norvelt, is set in the 1960s.  Norvelt, Pennsylvania—named for EleaNOR RooseVELT--was created by the federal government in the 1930s as a place for laid-off coal miners to live. By 1962, Norvelt has become the author’s small-town hometown…a place for spending his 12^th summer getting into trouble in all kinds of interesting and often funny ways. Jack Gantos has written something here that blends fiction with autobiography for a really entertaining and memorable read.