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? 

Dare I embark on a new challenge? A big one?

After ruminating about some of my favorite books of the past few years I realized that many of them were Pulitzer Prize winners. While looking at the PP list of books I also realized there were several others on the list I've "always" wanted to read. So I am embarking on a big challenge...or a small one depending how I approach it...to read the Pulitzer Prize winning book each year moving forward AND to catch up on past winners (the ones I have identified on the chart.) It sounds doable: one book per year plus as many as I want to read to catch up. But, to keep the pressure a little lower, I am not signing my name on anyone's challenge page about this. Ha!

Pulitzer Prize List for the past 15 years and beyond 

(no award was issued for fiction in 2012)

Have you read any Pulitzer Prize books? What are your favorites? Do you have other suggestions of books I should add to this list? Here is the actual Pulitzer list for fiction.

Year	Title	Author	Read	Comments
2016
2015	All the Light We Cannot See	Doerr, Anthony	Aug '15	My favorite book of 2015.
2014	Goldfinch, The	Tartt, Donna	Dec '14	One of my favorite books of 2014.
2013	Orphan Master's Son	Johnson, Adam
2011	Visit from the Goon Squad, A	Egan, Jennifer
2010	Tinkers	Harding, Paul
2009	Olive Kitteridge	Strout, Elizabeth	Mar '10	I discovered I can like a book and not like the main character.
2008	Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, A	Diaz, Junot		I started this one. Why didn’t I finish?
2007	Road, The	McCarthy, Cormac
2006	March, The	Brooks, Geraldine	Apr '08	Made me want to re-read Little Women
2005	Gilead	Robinson, Marianne
2004	Known World, The	Jones, Edward
2003	Middlesex	Eugenides, Jeffrey	Oct '06	Indescribably good.
2002	Empire Falls	Russo, Richard	Apr '05
2001	Amazing Kavalier and Clay, The	Charbon, Micahel
2000	Interpreter of Maladies	Lahiri, Jhumpa
1999	Hours, The	Cunningham, Michael
1995	Stone Diaries	Shields, Carol	1996
1994	Shipping News	Proulx, Annie	1997	I’ve long thought of this as one of my top ten favorite books.
1992	Thousand Acres, A	Smiley, Jane	1993	Demands to be discussed!
1988	Beloved	Morrison, Toni	2010	The Gold Standard!
1986	Lonesome Dove	McMurty, Larry
1983	Color Purple, The	Walker, Alice	2009	Listen to this on audiobooks.
1981	Confederacy of Dunces, A	Toole, John Kennedy	2013	This book is in a category of its own. Love it!
1972	Angle of Repose	Stegner, Wallace	1995
1961	To Kill a Mockingbird	Lee, Harper	2008	Can you believe I waited so long to read this classic?
1953	Old Man and the Sea, The	Hemingway, Ernest	1972

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.

Sunday Salon, the first of 2016

Snowy Idaho, photo by P. Kinkela, used with permission

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Weather: Cold, but no snow or precipitation. The above photo was taken by a friend. She lives in Northern Idaho. As you see it is quite snowy there. Bad weather is projected for Oregon where my sister and her husband live. They will be driving home through it. Update: after this blog post was published it started to snow. We have a nice white world right now.

Company: The week after Christmas brought company our way. First Don's dad and his wife came for a few days. We mostly visited and ate. Ha! Kay and I did make our way to a used book store where she bought quite a few books, some for her little lending library she operates in her front yard. Secondly, my sister and brother-in-law and their little dog came up for New Year's Eve and to watch the Alamo Bowl together. The game was an epic fail but the company was good.

Books: Even though I had lots of time off I didn't read as much as I would have liked. The books I finished over break were---

• El Deafo by CeCe Bell---a graphic memoir about growing up deaf. Very sweet.
• The Next Big Thing by Richard Faulk---a nonfiction book in short chapters about inventions/things/concepts which have really turned things around in history. Some of the funny chapters were "teenagers"(who knew they weren't called this until the 1930s?); "the Segway" (Did you know the owner died in a Segway accident?); and "microbiomes" (Gross info about the way to replace the bacteria in your sick and ailing gut. Let's just say, it is a crappy solution.) 
• The Uses of the Body by Deborah Landau---a poetry collection. I didn't care for it at first because I couldn't tell where one poem ended and the next began and the lack of punctuation but once I got past that i found a type of charm in the poetry and I enjoyed several of the poems.
• A Jane Austen Christmas: Celebrating the Season of Romance, Ribbons, and Mistletoe by Carlo DeVito---not an especially well edited book but I enjoyed learning a bit of new info on my favorite author. This was the only book I received as a Christmas gift.

Currently reading:

• The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. I am making slow, but steady progress on this book which I am reading for the Classics Club Challenge. Progress: 52%.
• Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead. This is my current audiobook which I really didn't listen to the whole break so I will get back to it tomorrow as I head back to work.

Today: Taking down Christmas. We spend all the time in early December putting up the Christmas decorations and then we have to put everything away a month later. But I prefer to do this before I go back to work, which happens tomorrow. I think I will use it as an excuse to play Christmas music for one more day, too. Update: It is 1:30 PM and we have almost completely finished taking down the decorations. We just sat down to watch the Seahawks game felling quite accomplished.

Frozen: This video seems perfect for this frozen week. I'm guessing you've already seen it since 74 million people have viewed it, but it is worth a second look:

Resolutions: A few generic goals for me in the year...

• Move more
• Play more
• Call friends more often/socialize more
• Dream
• Seek the positive

May 2016 bring you good and happy times!

Friday Quotes---THE YEARLING

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: The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Book Beginnings:

A column of smoke rose thin and straight from the cabin chimney. The smoke was blue where it left the red of the clay.

Friday 56: 

Lem said to him in a low voice, "Iffen I only had my sweetheart here, to sing and dance." Jody asked him brashly, "who-all's your sweetheart?"

Comments: I am finally reading this classic coming-of-age tale which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1938. The book isn't exactly riveting stuff but it is very descriptive as you see from the first quote and full of the local dialect from the Florida setting exampled in the second quote. Have you every read this classic? What are your memories of it?

Read my full review here. CLASSIC REVIEW: THE YEARLING 

Anne