Mock Printz 2026 discussion

One of our two reads for August: The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma. This book received starred reviews from Kirkus, SLJ, Horn Book, Bulletin, and Booklist! What makes this book so notable? Do you think it is Printz-worthy?

I don't know! I rarely put a book down without finishing it, but I did with this one. It was all over the place. Structure, character, plot, all of it.

An intense, haunting read.

What determines the arc of your life? Your talent? Your temperament? Your upbringing? Fate?

Orianna, Violet, and Amber are inextricably linked by violence and its consequences. How did they end up in such dire straits? Are they responsible for their situations? Are they trapped by their circumstances, or can they break free?

Nova Suma does a superb job of developing her characters; endearing or repulsive, each is compelling. Distinctive settings and most particularly the plot serve her emphasis on character.

"What does justice look like?" You will be turning the pages to find out.

Absolutely a Printz contender.

I did not care for this book. It was creepy but also strange. I won't be voting for this one to be the winner.

This one is definitely a contender for me.

It's disturbing and mysterious and by the end all of the strange moments makes sense if the reader has been paying attention. Plus the poetic prose was a perfect fit for the story.

Like "Challenger Deep", this book takes a bit to get into and understand what is going on, but it is worth the investment.

The characters are well done, and stay true to themselves throughout the book. The setting is also well done, painting a realistic picture of life in a juvenile detention center. I love when Amber's narration switches over to first person plural, emphasizing the shared experiences many of the girls had prior to ending up in Aurora Hills.

Even at 300+ pages, I feel like there were no unnecessary words in this book. Many seemingly unimportant details in the book end up having great significance by the end (eg: how Violet used a box cutter to trim her pointe shoes). The blend of gritty realism with the paranormal works in this case. The ending is both satisfying and frustrating, but definitely serves to drive home the theme.

I definitely think this is a contender.

I got that the repetitive voice of the primary narrator was meant to elicit creepy feelings of claustrophobia (and/or evoke the misty confusion of an unreliable narrator) but I just found it tedious to hear the same portentous descriptors over and over. Mainly, I just wanted the book to hurry up and get on with it. I thought the story was too thin to merit a whole book: that the author was relying on atmosphere to flesh out (as it were) the book; but since to me the atmosphere felt contrived, and the plot was more of a short urban-legend/campfire yarn, the whole thing felt like a short story stretched way too thin.
The comeuppance was satisfying, though.

I wasn't really feeling this book. It kind of gave me the heebie jeebies. I also found some parts droll and boring.

Review Contains Spoilers!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book!

This book is a different twist in the common theme of choices. One choice can change our lives and this book included three very different girls who made vastly different choice.

Vee symbolizes many girls and women. She envies her best friend Ori. Ballet comes to Ori easiy but Vee has to work extra hard for it. Ori gets the lead, the Firebird, while Vee is in the background. Everyone likes Ori but no one likes Vee. Ori is poor, her mother abandoned her, her father is absent, the goes to public school, and she Black or Latina (the book never specifies). Vee is White, privileged, attends private school, and has two parents. Vee thinks she's better than Ori but she never says it out loud because good girls don't do that.

Then Ori gets a boyfriend who loves her and Vee wants someone too but Vee makes a bad choice with a football player and the mean girls may or may not have pictures. I think Vee was holding on okay until the threat of those damning pictures overcame her and caused her to murder her bullies. She envied/hated Ori so much that she let Ori take the fall which eventually sent her to prison.

Then we meet Amber who is in prison for killing her abusive stepfather. Is she innocent? We don't know until midway thru. Suma creates a sympathetic character in Amber that when it is revealed that she did kill her stepfather, you feel she's justified. But Amber doesn't think so. Amber's bad decision was not hiding the damning evidence but in the end she accepts her fate. However, she's set to be released early on a technicality. She doesn't want to live with a mother who chose a sexually abusive man over her. She understands that she is guilty and doesn't deserve to be free so she poisons all 42 girls because they are all guilty.

Amber's story begins when the locks in the prison mysteriously open which happens three days before Ori arrives. But what Amber doesn't realize until later is that she's a ghost and she keeps reliving the month of August for three years-the mysterious locks, the arrival of Ori, and Amber's impending release. But on the third year, Vee arrives to see the prison where Ori perished before she attends Julliard.

Amber realizes that Ori is innocent and decides that she doesn't deserve death and she and the other inmates switch Ori with Vee-this is where the magical realism happens.

I thought this story was haunting and relatable for many girls and women. We all experience envy and we don't say anything because it's unlady like. What separates us from the Vees is that we choose to not let envy consume us.

There were other strategic things Suma did. For example, Amber's chapter titles are the first words of each chapter while Vee's titles were the last words in her chapter. Not sure why. Vee consistently tried to remove the blood on her hands much like Lady McBeth. The symbolism of The Firebird ballet. I interpreted it as Ori was The Firebird, Vee was the prince, and attention was the bride.

I think this is the type of book the Printz committee likes because of the voice and nuance. I think this is a Printz contender.