Samuel Teer knew what to expect when he watched the Youth Media Awards ceremony on Monday morning. He received the news the day before, after finally answering the unknown phone number—three calls and a text later. So when his graphic novel Brownstone was announced as the 2025 Printz Award winner, there should not have been any surprises.

But Teer something unforeseen did happen. As YALSA president Yvette Garcia finished recognizing the Printz Honor titles and moved on to the award winner, she appeared to be overcome by emotion.

“I am pleased to announce that the winner of Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature is Brownstone, written by Samuel Teer and illustrated by Mar Julia.” Garcia’s words caught in her throat.

“Her voice was wavering,” said Teer. “That did a lot for me. That was like, ‘Oh, this book, this story that Mar and I put together is connecting with people. And to me, that means the world. The only thing I really wanted out of the book was to be able to tell this story the way we wanted to tell it, and for people to connect with it.”

Garcia wasn’t the only one moved by the graphic novel, which tells the story of Almudena, a mixed-race teen reconnecting with her estranged father and learning about her heritage among an ensemble cast of diverse characters that enrich her world.

“ Brownstone has everything the committee was looking for in a winner,” said Printz committee chair Jackie Bush, who made the calls to Teer and Julia to share the good news. “The story, characters, diversity, and themes of family. The beautiful art—from the colors to each carefully drawn illustration—brings out powerful emotions. We, as members, got very emotional reading it. We are so proud a graphic novel won the Printz this year, especially with this being the 25th anniversary of the award! It's a very special year.”

Brownstone is the third graphic novel to win the award, joining March: Book Three written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin and illustrated by Nate Powell (2017), and American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (2007).

For Teer, it’s a team victory.

“I feel like we won an award, and that ‘we’ includes myself and Mar, of course, but also Ashanti Fortson, who did color designs for the book, and Mary Claire (Cruz), who was our designer. Without Ashanti and Mary Claire, I don't think the book is nearly as good as it came out today. Comics are a group effort.”

Teer reached out to Julia almost a decade ago after seeing their work and wanting to collaborate. The pair spent about six years on Brownstone, working on it together before finding a publisher willing to tell their story their way. Throughout the process, Teer adapted his scripts to Julia’s images.

“I just let Mar do what they were going to do, because that's what you do when you find a really great artistic collaborator, you just listen to what their thoughts are and let them bring things to the table, and you adjust to that,” said Teer. “It’s me laying a foundation and Mar being able to build on top of it, to use a construction metaphor, which seems apt for the book.”

It was a process that worked for Julia.

“I like to feel engaged with scripts when I don't write them,” they said. “Having the flexibility to say, ‘I see what you wrote, and I want to embody this in the best way possible, but I think rearranging it slightly might make it flow better,’ was important to me. He was really receptive to it being a collaboration between the two of us. I'm super grateful for that. Even when he didn't quite understand where I was coming from at first, he really trusted me. We were both just trying to make the best book possible.”

Teer and Julia got a glimpse of the graphic novel’s impact at the Miami Book Fair in November when they spoke to hundreds of high schoolers. The teens then lined up, reading the book as they waited to get their copies signed and ask for selfies.

“It was just really lovely to see,” said Teer. “I didn't think it was going to connect as broadly as it has. You can never anticipate that, right?”

The only thing he knew for sure was that they had created exactly what they intended and had given it their all.

“I wrote the story I wanted to write,” he said. “I poured every ounce of my being into it. Mar poured every ounce of their being into illustrating it. Ashanti poured every ounce of their being into it. That's all we knew. That's as much as we could do, and we just hoped it would reach some people.”

Now, Teer and Julia hope that—even amidst ongoing attempts to censor books featuring characters like theirs—the Printz Award will mean a broader reach that allows more readers to find the story.

“It’s really incredibly meaningful to me that this book is going to be in more and more libraries,” Teer said. “That readers, not just young readers, but readers of all ages are going to pick it up. There's a lot of emotions that go into it. I understand that it's a book that could potentially be banned, and we'll deal with that when we come to it.”

For now, they both want as many people to have access to it as possible.

“I really wanted it to be in libraries, I wanted people have access to it,” Julia said. “When I was younger, my interest in books and publishing and printmaking came from accessibility—the fact that you can have access to all these different stories and artwork. So that's really important to me.”