Michael L. Printz Award 2022: Complete list of winners

The Michael L. Printz Award, often called the Printz Award, has long served as one of the most prestigious honors in young adult literature, celebrating exceptional literary merit in books written for teens. The 2022 winners demonstrate the award’s continued commitment to recognizing ambitious storytelling that takes young readers seriously as intellectually engaged audiences. This year’s selections showcase the diversity and depth that defines contemporary YA fiction at its finest.

Angeline Boulley’s Firekeeper’s Daughter claimed the top honor as the 2022 Michael L. Printz Award Young Adult winner, a distinction that feels well-deserved for this sweeping debut. The novel, centered on Daunis Fontaine, an Ojibwe teenager navigating identity, belonging, and dangerous secrets in her Michigan community, draws praise for its authentic voice, intricate plotting, and unflinching examination of contemporary Native American life. Boulley’s work represents the kind of genre-defying storytelling—blending mystery, romance, and cultural specificity—that the Printz Award champions as literature rather than mere entertainment.

The 2022 Printz Award winners reflect a broader recognition within the literary establishment that young adult fiction deserves the same critical attention as adult literature. This year’s selections continue a tradition of honoring books that expanded readers’ worldviews and pushed against conventional boundaries of what YA could be. Below, you’ll find complete details on this year’s honorees and what made them stand out to the award’s selection committee.

Young Adult

• Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley