MASSACHUSETTS - Over 1,100 teens in the Commonwealth have voted and the winning book for the third Massachusetts Teen Choice Book Award is the manga graphic novel Blue Lock Vol. 1 by Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yusuke Nomura (Kodansha Comics, 2022).  The first runner-up is Rez Ball by Byron Graves (Heartdrum, 2023) and the second runner up is Just Do This One Thing for Me by Laura Zimmermann (Dutton Books for Young Readers, 2023). 

The Massachusetts Teen Choice Book Award is the only award in the Bay State that invites students in grades 7-12 to vote for their top new books.  For more information, visit https://www.mateenchoicebook.org/home. 

Teens chose these books for top honors from a list of nominees curated by a committee of public librarians, school library media specialists, and educators.  Teens were invited to read the titles during spring and summer and vote for their favorite books from September 1-20, 2024.   

Blue Lock, Vol. 1 by Kaneshiro and Nomura is the first in a series of manga novels and tells the story of Japan's football team struggling to regroup after a devastating loss at the 2018 World Cup. The Japan Football Union (JFU) decides to gather 300 of Japan's best young players to create an ace striker who can lead the team to victory. The JFU's solution is to put the players through a series of bizarre challenges in a high-tech colosseum called Blue Lock.

Rez Ball is the debut novel by indigenous author Byron Graves and tells the relatable, high-stakes story of a young athlete determined to play basketball like the hero his Ojibwe community needs him to be.

Just Do This One Thing for Me by Laura Zimmermann is the sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking story of rule-following daughter Drew.  When their mother disappears on the way to a New Year's Eve concert in Mexico and her schemes start unraveling, Drew is faced with a choice: follow the rules, do the responsible thing or walk away—alone—from her mother's mess.

“We are thrilled to announce this year’s Teen Choice Book Award winner and are so pleased that teens across our state responded so enthusiastically, creating social media content and submitting over 1,100 votes online and in local libraries and schools. It is our hope that this will encourage more teens in our state to read some of the best new fiction, non-fiction and graphic novels published for their age group,” said Suzanne Larson, committee chair and high school library media specialist at Seekonk High School in Seekonk, MA.

The Massachusetts Teen Choice Book Award is a cooperative project between the Massachusetts School Library Association (MSLA) and the Massachusetts Library Association (MLA) with support from Salem State University.  For more information on the award process, the selected titles and how to participate, please visit www.mateenchoicebook.org