Living Canon

Michael L. Printz Award 2021: Complete list of winners

The 2021 Michael L. Printz Award, which honors the most outstanding literary work written for young adults, crowned Daniel Nayeri’s Everything Sad Is Untrue (a true story) as its Young Adult winner—a choice that underscores the award’s commitment to recognizing innovation in teen literature. Nayeri’s hybrid narrative, which blends memoir, magical realism, and philosophical inquiry, represents exactly the kind of boundary-pushing work the Printz Award has championed since its inception in 2000. The title’s paradoxical nature itself speaks to the book’s central tension: how do we tell our truth when reality feels too strange, too painful, or too wondrous for conventional storytelling?

What makes Nayeri’s win particularly significant is the way it validates experimental approaches to the young adult category. Everything Sad Is Untrue refuses easy categorization—it’s a story about an Iranian American boy grappling with displacement, belonging, and the immigrant experience, yet it achieves its emotional power through metafictional techniques and imaginative flourishes rather than straightforward realism. This victory suggests that the Michael L. Printz Award selection committee continues to value literary sophistication and authentic voice over marketability or genre conventions, qualities that have made the Printz Award one of the most respected honors in publishing.

Here are the complete 2021 Michael L. Printz Award winners:

Young Adult