My Head Is Full of Books: Woops, I missed the 2015 Morris Award finalists announcement, too

"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend, inside a dog it is too dark to read!" -Groucho Marx========="The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." -Jane Austen========="I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."-JK Rowling========"I spend a lot of time reading." -Bill Gates=========“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.” -Jacqueline Kelly=========

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Woops, I missed the 2015 Morris Award finalists announcement, too

Apparently December wasn't a good month for me in terms of paying attention to what was happening in the world of books. I missed announcements of the finalists for both the 2015 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction books AND The 2015 Morris Award finalists.

The Morris Award is handed out each year for excellent YA literature written by a debut author (debuting in the YA genre, that is.) Finalists are announced early, giving the committee time to reread and mull over their favorites. “This year’s Morris Committee had the distinguished task of finding the strongest voices from a quantitatively and qualitatively exceptional field of debut writers,” said Robin F. Kurz, chair of YALSA’s Morris Award committee. (ALA News)

The 2015 Morris Award finalists are:

“The Carnival at Bray” written by Jessie Ann Foley, published by Elephant Rock Books.
“The Story of Owen: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim” written by E.K. Johnston, published by Carolrhoda Lab™, an imprint of Carolrhoda Books, a division of Lerner Publishing Group.
“Gabi, a Girl in Pieces” written by Isabel Quintero, published by Cinco Puntos Press.
“The Scar Boys” written by Len Vlahos, published by Egmont Publishing.
“The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender” written by Leslye Walton, published by Candlewick Press.

I have read The Story of Owen, Gabi, A Girl in Pieces, and The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender. In fact, all three of these books are on my Mock Printz list of books. My favorite of the three is Ava Lavender. It has been a year of magical realism reading for me and this book is an exceptional example of that genre. To my knowledge this genre has never won a YA award. It is time to change that.

Hmmm...now I must run out and see if I can locate copies of The Carnival at Bray and The Scar Boys. Finalists for the Morris Award are usually quite good and are worthy of a spot in my library.

The Morris Book Awards will be announced at the conclusion of the ALA Midwinter meeting, Feb. 2nd.

Stay tuned.