Friday Quotes, NICE RECOVERY

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from the book.
The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56.

Check out the links for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Participants don't select their favorite, coolest, or most intellectual books, they just use the one they are currently reading. This is the book I'm reading right now:

Book Title: Nice Recovery by Susan Juby


Book Beginning: 

I sometimes imagine my pre-drinking personality as a rich field just waiting for some mind-altering substance to come along so that my alcoholic self could sprout and flourish.

Friday 56:

It took Hank a minute or two to realize what was happening, but once he did, he also grasped that he'd just been dumped in front of a crowd and that was not cool. Not cool at all.

Comment: I read a book by Susan Juby, The Truth Commission, earlier this Fall and really enjoyed it. In the end notes of that book the author mentioned she was in recovery from alcoholism and named the title of the book about her experiences with recovery. In the preface she writes, "Addiction memoirs have an odd reputation, and I find myself a little embarrassed to be writing one." Thought I would check it out and see if there are any little jewels of wisdom I can share with students or friends who are in trouble with alcohol. I'm only a few pages in so I can't really judge it yet as to its usefulness.

Anne

TTT: Books I Just Didn't Get to in 2015...but still want to read

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I meant to but didn't read in 2015.  I hope to get to them soon.

On Goodreads one can add books to a "WANT TO READ" category. The following books I added to that category on my Goodreads account last year, included is the date I added it to the list. Many of these books were not published or released in 2015, however.

1. Laughing at My Nightmare by Shane Burcaw---Jan. 30, 2015

2. Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment by Tal Ben-Shahar ---Mar. 4, 2015

3. In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume--- July 6, 2015

4. Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave----July 6, 2015

5. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng ---- July 6, 2015

6. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson --- July 6, 2015

7. The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith --- July 6, 2015

8. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson --- July 6, 2015

9. The Book of Aron by Jim Shepherd --- Sept. 12, 2015

10. The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr--- Oct. 21, 2015

11. Trigger Warnings by Neil Gaiman --- Dec. 3, 2015

12. Tracks by Louise Erdrich--- Dec. 21, 2015

Sign up for the Challenge to read all the Youth Media Award YA books for 2016...UPDATED!!!!!

Read the 2016 ALA Award Winners Challenge -YA only Books

Join me in reading the YA Award Titles from the Youth Media ALA Awards. It is only eight to eleven books and you will be reading the best of the best. Just sign up by adding your name to the comment section and have fun reading. The AWARDS were announced on January 11th this year. 

1. Michael L. Printz Award (Best YA literature of the year) 

• Bone Gap by Laura Ruby

2. Schneider Family Book Award (Teen living with a disability)

• The Unlikely Hero of Room 13-B by Teresa Toten

3. Alex Awards -10 best adult books that appeal to teen audiences (Pick one of ten)     

• All Involved by Ryan Gattis; Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates; Bones and All by Camille DeAnglelis; Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong; Girl at War by Sara Novic; Half the World by Joe Abercrombe; Humans of New York-Stories by Brandon Stanton; Sacred Heart by Liz Suburbia; Undocumented: a Dominican Boy's Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League by Dan-el Padella Peralta; The Unraveling of Mercy Louis by Keija Parssinen

4. Margaret A. Edwards Award (Read one book by the winning author who has made a significant contribution to YA or Children's Lit)

• Name of author __David Levithan__________________ (Choose one of his books)
• Title: ____(You fill the title you read of his books)_______________________________

5. Stonewall Children's and Young Adult Literature (LGBT) 

• Porcupine the Truth by Bill Konigsberg (It tied with George by Alex Gino, which it is a Middle Grade book)

6. William C. Morris Award (First YA novel by author)

• Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

7. YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults 

• Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War by Steve Sheinkin

8. Coretta Scott King Author Award (African American Author) (The winner is a children's book, so select one of the Honor Books)

• All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Keely; The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds; X: a Novel by Iliyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon

9. Pura Belpre (Latino Author) 

• Enchanted Air by Margarite Engle

*********Below the line are Youth Media Award Winners which are geared towards children or middle grade students. You may read them if you like, but they are not part of this challenge _______________________________________________________________________________________*10. *10. Odyssey Award (Best audiobook for Children or Teens) 

• (The War that Saved Me by Bradley)

*11. Batchelder Award (Translated into English) 

• (The Wonderful Fluffy Little Squishy by Beatrice Alemagna, translated from French by Claudia Zoe Bedrick)

*12. Newbery Medal (Best Children's Literature) 

• (Last Stop by Market Street by Matt de la Pena)

*13. Caldecott Medal (Best Illustrated Picture Book) 

• (Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear illustrated by Sophie Blackall)

*14. Sibert Informational Book Award (Best Information Book for Children)

• (Funny Bones: Posada and his Day of the Dead Calaveras by Duncan Tonatiah)

*15. Laura Ingalls Wilder Award (Honoring an author or illustrated who has made a substantial contribution to children's literature) 

• (Jerry Pinkney, illustrator. Read one book illustrated by him)

If any of the awards for these categories go to Junior or Children's books those books will not be included for this Challenge. Last year, for example, only eight of the categories had YA books, so we only read eight books, not fifteen. Honor books will be listed if the award book is geared toward a younger audience but the honor book is for teens.

If you REALLY want to challenge yourself, you can read some or all the honor books in each category, too. OR you could move down and include books for the Junior and Children's Award categories like the Newbery, Caldecott, Siebert, etc. But I draw the line at YA books. That is enough for me. For the full list of all winners and honor books go to the Youth Media Awards 2016 Page.

Join me. Sign up by adding your name and an email or a hyperlink to your blog on the comment section. Then stay tuned and keep in touch. Let me know how you are doing. Happy reading. Just and paste this page to your blog! 

Here is my progress page on this challenge: YMA Challenge

GKHS Mock Printz Results

I am finally home from the Mock Printz Workshop where 35 students and I met to discuss our long list of books to try to determine what the Real Printz Committee would select as the best YA book of the year.

After much spirited and thoughtful debate the students came up with this slate:

GKHS Mock Printz Awards go to:

Winner: Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

Honor1: The Truth Commission by Susan Juby

Honor2: Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

Honor3(tie): The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough

Honor3(tie): All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

I am tired. More analysis and discussion tomorrow when I also look at the ACTUAL winners and talk about my thoughts on these and those books.

Sunday Salon, January 10th

Eagle, Skagit Valley, January 2016. Photo by James Clarke, used with persmission

Weather: Clear and cold. We've had a week of wintry weather which included snow, ice, fog. In fact, we had a two-hour late start to school one day due to snow. Now that is rare around here.

Yay! the Seattle Seahawks just won their playoff game, Poor Vikings missed the last field goal. It was improbable but happened.

Youth Media Awards are announced tomorrow. After 50+ YA books, after months and months of speculation tomorrow we will know who the actual winners will be. I am so ready to settle in to some adult reading and take a break from YA for a month or two! Here is my speculative slate of winners.

The house is back to normal: We took down all the Christmas decorations this tree. Last Sunday we undecorated the Christmas tree (artificial) but then didn't dismantle the tree. We finally got to it on Thursday night. Everything always looks so boring after all the red and green color splashes around the rooms get tucked away.

First book of 2016: Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead. I wonderful coming-of-age book for middle grade students. I was very impressed and have already recommended it to a teacher whose daughter is in that age range.

Classics Club Challenge: I am within 50 pages of the end of The Yearling by Majorie Kinnan Rawls, my classics club book for spin#11. It has been slow going but I really apprecaite the fantastic writing. Here is my mid-book report.

Audiobook: I started listening to Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson yesterday. It is a book club selection. Boy, I'm a little worried about the discussion because it sure doesn't seem to have much  of a plot. Sigh. Progress: 50%

Seal-a-meal: A few years ago Don and I won a seal-a-meal at a white elephant party. Since that time it has sat in a bag in our garage, unused. Over the holidays my in-laws encouraged us to get it out and use it. We did and had so much fun sealing up hamburger and cheese. Yesterday was the first time we thawed out meat which we had sealed previously. Thawing is easier if the meat is sealed, too. Thanks K and A we like the gift you gave us!

Message from church today: Remember your baptism. Think of it as a hug from God, who loves us simply for being ourselves.

Alex Boye: I'm a new fan. This guy has had an Internet presence for several years but I just discovered him so I have spent all week looking at his videos. This video combines another favorite musical group, The Piano Guys with Boye. Love it. When I was a kid my family lived in Africa. There is so much about Boye's dress and movements that reminds me of living of that time.

(Anne's) Youth Media Awards. Here is my very biased slate.

Tomorrow the Youth Media Awards will be announced at 8 AM Eastern Standard Time. Today, therefore, is my last day to speculate about who I think the winners should be. In order to be eligible the books must be published in 2015 and geared toward children or young adults.

Anne's Youth Media Awards go to...

1. Michael L. Printz Award (Best YA literature of the year) 

• The award winner and four honor books:
• Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman
• Bone Gap by Laura Ruby
• Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege on Leningrad by MT Anderson
• Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War by Steve Sheinkin
• Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge

2. Schneider Family Book Award (Teen living with a disability)

• The Unlikely Hero of Room 13-B by Teresa Toten (Living with OCD)

3. Alex Awards -10 best adult books that appeal to teen audiences (Pick one of ten)     

• (I will list a few books here which I think will be among the ten)
• All the Light We Cannot See by Doerr; The Nightingale by Hannan; Station Eleven by St. John Mandel; Red Rising by Pierce Brown

4. Margaret A. Edwards Award (Read one book by the winning author who has made a significant contribution to YA or Children's Lit)

• Name of author __John Green; why? He has reinvigorated YA lit____ (Choose one of his/her books)
• Title: Looking for Alaska; Paper Towns; The Fault in Our Stars; The Abundance of Katherine, etc.

5. Stonewall Children's and Young Adult Literature (LGBT) 

• Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

6. William C. Morris Award (First YA novel by author)

• Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

7. YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults 

• Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege on Leningrad by MT Anderson

8. Coretta Scott King Author Award (African American Author)

• X: a novel by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon

9. Odyssey Award (Best audiobook for Children or Teens)

• The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett, read by Stephen Briggs

10. Pura Belpre (Latino Author)

• Shadowshaper by Daniel Perez Older (Puerto Rico-American culture, mythology)

11. Batchelder Award (Translated into English)

• (I don't know any books which were translated into English this year)

12. Newbery Medal (Middle grades) 

• Goodbye Strangers by Rebecca Stead

13. Caldecott Award (Illustrated) 

• (No opinion, I haven't read any which would qualify.)

14. Scott O'Dell Award (Historical fiction)...I didn't realize that this category was not part of the ALA-YMA. I made my prediction (below) and then went to the website and learned this book actually did win category, the announcement was made Jan. 6th! Ha! Here is the announcement.

• Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz

15. Siebert Informational Book Medal 

• Drowned City by Don Brown (Hurricane Katrina)

Youth Media Awards will be announced this coming Monday, how do I think the BSD Mock Printz list will fare?

We selected a laughably long reading list of books this year for the Bethel School District 2016 Mock Printz Workshop. Some of these books are likely to show up on the actual Youth Media Awards lists and others, well, we enjoyed reading but are very likely to remain awardless. Here is how I THINK the books will fare. HOPE is factored in.

1. Challenger Deep 

by Neal Shusterman

Theme: Mental Illness.

This book won the National Book Award last year. I think it is likely this book will win at least a Printz Honor, if not the winner. The approach of looking at mental illness from the inside out is very unique and disturbing. This is one of my favorite YA books of the year.

2. Alex Crow 

by Andrew Smith

Genre: Defies Categorization.

Andrew Smith won a Printz Honor last year for Grasshopper Jungle which was also very weird and defied categorization. I think the RealCommittee will pass over this one. This book should win the prize for creativity, though.

3. Cuckoo Song 

by Frances Hardinge

Genres: Horror and Fantasy

A changeling story which is completely unique, and frankly quite frightening. I think this one will be in the running for a Printz Honor, if not the top prize.

4. Truth Commission 

by Susan Juby

Theme: Dysfunctional Family; written in the narrative nonfiction style.

As much as I liked this book, especially because of the funny footnotes, I honestly don't think it has a chance to win a spot on the podium.

5. All the Bright Places

by Jennifer Nevin

Themes: Friendship, Mental Health and Depression.

This book was a favorite at the beginning of the year but as it settled its flaws started to show themselves. The biggest flaw, and I am not alone in my estimation on this point, is how poorly and inaccurately the mental health issues were handled. 

6. The Game of Love and Death

by Martha Brockenbrough

Genre: Paranormal and historical

Students are big fans of this book and it will likely get a lot of attention at the Mock Printz discussion on Monday. I think it tries to bite off more than it can chew, however, and some aspects of the book just don't work for me. 

7. Nimona

by Noelle Stevenson

Type: Graphic novel

Everyone who has read this book on my team LOVES it. I think the book would have a real chance for Printz consideration if it was any year but this year. That is because a graphic novel won an honor last year, This One Summer and it was so, so good and the illustrations really added to the story. Nimona doesn't meet that high standard.

8. Shadowshaper

by Daniel Perez Older

Genre: Urban Fantasy

I wasn't a huge fan of this book, not a favorite genre of mine. But it is getting a lot of national attention, so it may be given an honor this year. It may also end up with an honor for the Pura Belpre award, given out to books by Latino authors.

9. Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda
by Becky Albertalli

Theme: Friendship and LGBTQ

I love this book and so do my students. It has been named as a finalist for the Morris Award for debut authors. That alone doesn't mean it won't get a Printz award but I think there are stronger books ahead of it. I hope it will win the Morris Award, though.

10. Audacity

by Melanie Crowder

Genre: Historical fiction, written in verse

I am a fan of this book and would love for it to get an award this year. The poetry is very good, too. I will be surprised, however, if it does get a Printz honor just because I seem to be alone in my estimations of its virtues.

11. Bone Gap
by Laura Ruby

Theme: Mythology

The readers of Someday My Printz Will Come voted this book as the Pyrite winner this year, or the YA book we they thought should win the Printz this year. It has a lot to like, especially if the reader is familiar with the Greek Mythology about Persephone. I wasn't, but liked the book better after I went back and read the myth. It is a very clever book and I hope it gets a prize this year.

12. Ghosts of Heaven 

by Marcus Sedgwick

Technique: Interconnect short stories.

Segwick's book, Midwinterblood, was also made up of interconnected short stories and it was the Printz winner a few years ago. I think for that reason alone the RealCommittee will leave it off the prize list.

13. I am Princess X

by Cherie Priest
Genre: Mystery, part graphic novel.

We love this book because it is set in Seattle but to be honest that is why we put it on the list, not because we thought it was a serious contender.

14. Mosquitoland 

by David Arnold

Theme: Mental Illness and Self Acceptance

I listened to the audio version of this book and really liked it but there are flaws which I think will prevent the real committee from selecting it, most especially the inaccurate and stereotyping of Native American culture and practices. It is a pity because as I said before, I really like it.

15. The Tightrope Walkers 

by David Almond

Theme: Coming-of-age

To be honest this book has a shot at a Printz because Almond is a spectacular writer but I hope it doesn't win. Why? I honestly think this book was written for adults not young adults. I think the publisher here in America assumed it was YA because the story begins when the main characters are young. Pity.

16. The Wrath and the Dawn 

by Renee Ahdieh

Retelling: 1,001 Arabian Nights

We made a conscious decision to include books on our list which we thought our students would really like even if they weren't likely contenders. This is one of those books. It is also the first book in a series which we hope will encourage the students to read on when the next book in the series is published.

17. The Unlikely Hero of Room 13-B
by Teresa Toten

Theme: Mental Illness and treatment

I am hoping this book will be the outlier this year and gets a prize even though no (but me) is predicting it will receive one. This book does accurately describe the struggles of having OCD and how therapy can and does help. It is also a great favorite of my readers. This book also qualifies for the Schneider Family Book Award given to books which have a positive view of people living with disabilities.

18. I Crawl Through It 

by A.S. King

Style: Surrealism

The unique style of this book, surrealism, may at least be enough to get it to the table for discussion by the RealCommittee. It is indeed a strange book but I like it and think it has an outside shot at an honor.

19. Scorpion Rules 

by Erin Bow

Genre: Science Fiction

Last year the author Ursula LeGuin lambasted the literary award world for overlooking fantasy and science fiction books when awards are handed out each year. If anyone was listening to LeGuin and is now serving on the Real Printz committee, this book is certainly worthy of consideration.

20. Drowned City

by Don Brown

Type: Graphic History of New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina

Super well done with the illustrations adding to our understanding the tragedy. It deserves recognition but I don't think it will win a Printz honor this year.

 WOW, That was a long reading list!

In summary, I think these books have a real shot at winning a Printz Award or Honor this year:

Challenger Deep

Bone Gap

Cuckoo Song

Shadowshaper

These books are outliers but may surprise us with prizes:

I Crawl Through It

Scorpion Rules

The Unlikely Hero of Room 13-B

These books may win other awards which are also announced on Monday:

Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda (Morris Award)

Shadowshaper (Pura Belpre Award)

The Unlikely Hero of Room 13-B (Schneider Family Book Award)

Drowned City (Caldecortt)

Cuckoo Song (Newbery)

There are other books, which we didn't add to the Mock Printz list for a variety of reasons, that have a real chance of winning this year, two of them are nonfiction:

Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege on Leningrad by MT Anderson

Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War by Steve Sheinkin

The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma

We don't have long to wait. The Printz Award will be announced on Monday. We'll see how we did at that time.

What was your favorite YA book published in 2015? 

THE YEARLING...an update on progress, themes, artwork, hunting, you name it.

The Yearling, illustration by Edward Shenton

Tonight when I stood to make dinner, having put next to no thought into the meal prior to standing up, I retrieved some frozen chicken from the freezer, where I also found some frozen vegetables. In the pantry I found some instant rice and a can of creamed soup. I was in business. 45 minutes later dinner was on the table. From frozen to edible in under an hour. Maybe it wasn't the healthiest dinner, but it sure was convenient. While the chicken was cooking my thoughts trailed back to my Classics  Club selection for the month, The Yearling by Marjorie Rawlings. This classic book was written by Rawlings in 1938 but it was set in the scrub lands of Florida in the late 1800s, some time after the Civil War. Jody, an only child, and his parents eek out an existence on a farm they call Baxter Island, a little refuge surrounded by the shrub. If they want to eat they have to grow it and harvest it and prepare it or they have to hunt it, haul it home, deal with it before they can get around to cooking it. No convenient meal for them.

The Yearling is not an easy book to read. First off all the dialogue is written in vernacular. I can usually tell what is being said, but not always. I sometimes figure out what a word is by context. "The Forresters is bent on pizenin' em." Means, "The Forresters want to poison them." Pizen had me confused for several pages. But by and large the dialect and speech patterns have me enchanted. This is a cute exchange between Jody and Father about his pet deer getting into the potatoes, which are an important source of food for the people.

"Don't get yourself in a swivet, boy. We'll work this out, one way or t'other. Now the 'taters in near about the only thing he'll bother, do you keep him outen the house. They ought to be under kiver, anyway..."

The Yearling is also a very difficult book to read because of all killing. Jody and his father mainly kill animals just for food but their neighbors kill animals for sport and because predators, like panthers and wolves, are all bad. It is so disgusting to think people used to think of predators as disposable animals. I've had to speed read through several sections, I was just so disgusted. And when I say "speed read" I really mean, skip words and paragraphs because I cannot actually read this book fast. No way.

Now here is a non sequitur. I am completely charmed by the artwork that accompanies the story. Edward Shenton was the original artist who created the block prints in the 1st edition. The Reader's Digest edition I am reading has added colorized versions. NC Wyeth is more famous for the artwork in subsequent editions. But I am completely delighted with these.

Jody in The Yearling, illustration by Edward Shenton

Tied up bear cubs; illustrations from The Yearling by Edward Stenton

Progress: 74%. Progress is slow. but I am plodding along.

Quotes that make me happy today...mostly about bookish things.

I signed up to receive the Goodreads quote-of-the-day email, perhaps stupidly since they do pile up. But every once in a while I go through them. Today I decided to share a few of my favorites from the latest logjam of quotes in my inbox. These make me happy. Enjoy:

"The nicest thing about feeling happy is that you think you'll never be unhappy again." 

Manuel Puig

     (When he was young, Argentinian author Manuel Puig (born December 28, 1932) dreamed of becoming a screenwriter. His screenwriting career never took off, but his novels received worldwide acclaim. One of them, The Kiss of the Spider Woman, was even adapted into an Oscar-nominated film.)

"That's what literature is. It's the people who went before us, tapping out messages from the past, from beyond the grave, trying to tell us about life and death! Listen to them!"

Connie Willis

     (The acclaimed science fiction writer introduced the world to her time-traveling historians in Fire Watch, a novelette that won the Hugo and Nebula Award. Since then, she's brought back the historians in her novels Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Blackout, and All Clear.)

"We are flawed creatures, all of us. Some of us think that means we should fix our flaws. But get rid of my flaws and there would be no one left." 

Sarah Vowell

     (Besides writing nonfiction books and serving as a contributing editor on This American Life, the American journalist has also starred in a Pixar movie. She was the voice of Violet in The Incredibles.)

"If I could believe in myself, why not give other improbabilities the benefit of the doubt?" 

David Sedaris

     (The American writer's first major break was an essay called SantaLand Diaries, a humorous account of his experiences working as a Christmas elf at Macy's.)

"The heaviness of loss in her heart hadn't eased, but there was room there for humor, too." 

Nalo Hopkinson

     (The Jamaican speculative fiction writer's mother was a library technician and her father was a poet. With all that literary influence surrounding her, she was reading Kurt Vonnegut's books by the age of six.)

"When I only begin to read, I forget I'm on this world. It lifts me on wings with high thoughts." 

Anzia Yezierska

     December 17, 1920: On this day, Anzia Yezierska told her editor that she had been offered $10,000 for the film rights to her debut book, Hungry Hearts. The offer had come as quite a shock to Yezierska—she had been offered only $200 when the book was sold.

"When you read a book, you hold another's mind in your hands." 

James Burke

      (In 1973, the British broadcaster and author accurately predicted the widespread use of computers for business and personal applications.) 

"I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here." 

Arthur C. Clarke

     (Early on in his writing career, acclaimed science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke emigrated from England to Sri Lanka. Because of his dual status, he was able to receive a knighthood from the British government in 1998 and then the Sri Lankabhimanya, Sri Lanka's highest civil honor, in 2005.)

"I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe." 

Donna Tartt

     (The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Goldfinch was well on her way to literary stardom at the age of 18. Her writing gained her special admittance into a graduate short story course when she was just a freshman at the University of Mississippi.)

"Books are always obviously having conversations with other books, and some times they're amiable and sometimes not." 

China Miéville

     The award-winning fantasy writer (and self-proclaimed purveyor of "weird fiction") was named with a dictionary. His parents picked one up looking for a beautiful word—they nearly named their son "Banyan" before landing on China.

"That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth." 

Tim O'Brien

     ( His celebrated 1990 short story collection, The Things They Carried, blurs the line between fiction and reality. Some of the stories even seem to share characters with his previously published 1973 autobiographical book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home.)

"A childhood without books – that would be no childhood. That would be like being shut out from the enchanted place where you can go and find the rarest kind of joy." 

Astrid Lindgren

      Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren created her most famous character, Pippi Longstocking, to amuse her young daughter. Today Lindgren is the third most translated children's book author after Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm brothers.

"I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary." 

Margaret Atwood

      (In addition to writing modern classics like The Handmaid's Tale and The Blind Assassin, the Canadian author is also a part-time inventor. She came up with the idea for the LongPen, a signing device that lets people write remotely in ink from anywhere in the world.)

"They were all brilliant. They wrote books and painted pictures, and if they ever stopped talking, which I was sure they would never do, they planned to change the world." 

Gloria Whelan

     (When the American poet and novelist was a young girl, she dictated stories—and convinced her baby sitter to transcribe them.)

"People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned." 

Saul Bellow

     (November 27, 1947: On this day, Saul Bellow got a job offer. His father, perhaps unimpressed with his son's career as a novelist, offered to make him a mine supervisor at $10,000 a year.)

"A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe." 

Madeleine L'Engle

     (On her 40th birthday, Madeleine L'Engle (born November 29, 1918) tried to give up writing. She was drowning in rejection letters and unable to help support her family. The writing break didn't last long, though—L'Engle couldn't stop jotting down her ideas. Five years later, she finally found success with her beloved science fiction classic, A Wrinkle in Time.)

"It doesn't matter. I have books, new books, and I can bear anything as long as there are books." 

Jo Walton

     (The Welsh-Canadian author has been writing books since she was 13. Her 2011 fantasy, Among Others, won the Hugo and the Nebula Award for Best Novel.)

"There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story." 

Frank Herbert

     (On a trip to Florence, Oregon, Frank Herbert studied the effects of sand dunes that could "swallow whole cities, lakes, rivers, highways." His article on the subject was never completed. Instead, ten years later, he published his epic science fiction novel, Dune.)

And this video. This makes me double-smile:

 

Cybils Finalists were announced this week

The Cybils (Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards) announced their finalists over the weekend. Check out the YA lists of the many categories. Links below.

Graphic Novels
Young Adult Fiction
Young Adult Non-Fiction
Young Adult Speculative Fiction

Graphic Novels (only the YA books on the list)

• Nimona by Stevenson *
• March, Book Two by Lewis
• Honor Girl: A Graphic Memoir by Thrash
• Lion of Rora by Gage
• Ms. Marvel, Vol.1 by Wilson
• Oyster War by Towle

Young Adult Fiction

• All the Rage by Summers
• Dumplin' by Murphy
• Every Last Word by Stone
• Everything, Everything by Yoon
• How It Went Down by Magoon
• Infandous by Arnold
• The Truth Commission by Juby *

Young Adult Non-fiction

• Bayard Rustin: the Invisible Activist by Houtan, Naegle, and Long
• Courage and Defiance: Stories of Spies, Saboteurs, and Survival in WWII in Denmark by Hopkinson
• Give Me Wings: How a Choir of Former Slaves Took on the World by Lowinger
• I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives by Ganda
• Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War by Sheinkin *
• Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege on Leningrad by Anderson *
• Tommy: the Gun Which Changed America by Blumenthal

YA Speculative Fiction

• An Inheritance of Ashes by Bobet
• Bone Gap by Ruby *
• Mortal Heart by LaFever
• Shadowshaper by Older
• Slasher Girls and Monster Boys by Tucholke
• The Six by Alpert
• The Walls Around Us by Suma

The underlined books are those which I've read.
The star* is my favorite in the group. The non-fiction category has a tie.