Roger Sutton: "I loved terrible books" (an interview)

What's more fun, Roger Sutton (editor of The Horn Book) or the Scott O'Dell Award? Happily, we don't have to choose, because Roger Sutton is the chair of the Scott O'Dell Award committee.

Here's what the medal
looks like, on a book chosen 
totally at random.

I love the Scott O'Dell Award. I love it because twice it wasn't awarded when the committee didn't think anything was good enough--a bold move when the award is given for juvenile historical fiction set in the Americas, which makes up about 80% of kids' books published today*. I love it because once they awarded it to Scott O'Dell himself. I love it because there's a cash prize attached** and most authors I know*** are not rolling in independent wealth.

I love it because I love historical fiction. The website is great. You can get a list of the books grouped into historical periods. They say this is for teachers; I say it's for me, because I am more interested in some periods than others, and because it makes posting those statistics I love**** so much easier.

Roger Sutton is a busy man, as well as a witty one. He generously took some time out of his day recently to discuss the award with me. I borrowed his five-question format. Because otherwise I would have tried to talk historical fiction with Roger Sutton all day.

Wendy: When you are choosing books for this award, what works really well? What makes great historical fiction?

RS: We're always looking for a book that needs to be set at the time and place that it is. Not just a story kind of thrown into another era, nor is it a book that has great history, but there's no story.

Wendy: That's interesting, because it was suggested on Heavy Medal that Dead End in Norvelt wouldn't win [the Scott O'Dell] because it didn't have enough history in it*****.

RS: Well, when else could that story have taken place? I thought that story not only told us a lot about that time and place, which in itself was historically significant--I think what also pushed the committee in its favor was that its character is so interested in history himself.

Wendy: What is something that you see over and over again in the books you read, a common mistake that authors make [in writing historical fiction]?

RS: The thing that always bothers me the most, both judging this award and reviewing books, is undigested historical information thrown into a story. There was this great article in School Library Journal by Joan Blos called "Bunches of Hessians" where she talks about the various mistakes that are made in historical fiction. She said to take something from a historical novel--for example, a mother making dinner--and translate it into contemporary fiction. And then she wrote this hilarious passage about "Mother stood in front of the white box and carefully adjusted the black dial." It has to be natural to the person telling the story. They shouldn't be noticing things that only an outsider would be paying attention to. That always pulls me right out of the story.

Wendy: Now, considering this award, I'd like to know something about the logistics--how many books each of you read, and what it's like for three people to come to a consensus.

RS: Probably about sixty books were submitted [by the publishers], but the committee is not limited to books that were submitted. I would say, personally, I probably read close to 50 books. Some of them I could dismiss very quickly; carefully read... maybe 20 books.

Wendy: Was there a list of books that you discussed seriously as a committee?

RS: It's a very casual process, because we've known each other for thirty years. I would say we seriously discussed fewer than half a dozen books.

Wendy: A very different experience from the Newbery, I imagine.

RS: Oh, yes. I mean, there are criteria that you can see on the website--the author has to be an American, the book has to be set in the New World--which I'm guessing is a term we're not supposed to use anymore. Do you know?

Wendy: Yes, I was describing it to someone who wasn't familiar with the award and said "it has to be set in the New World--I mean, I guess I should say that it has to be set in South, Central, or North America"--and then I wondered why they didn't say that in the first place.

RS: Well, I'm guessing that's Scott's wording. And he was very big on that, that he thought we needed more books told to American kids about their own history, rather than books that go back to Europe.

Wendy: So, speaking of setting, is there a particular setting or historical period that you'd like to see more of?

RS: I haven't really thought about it... The last two books have been set in the sixties. I feel like we're doing pretty well with colonial times, Civil War does well. In more recent years it's been the twenties and the thirties... what are we missing?

Wendy: I would love to see more books about Latinos and American Indians, South America.

I have one more question. This award has only been around since the early 80s. Is there a work of historical fiction that stands out to you from your childhood, a classic, or something that you feel like is a great exemplar of historical fiction?

RS: Oh, I loved terrible historical fiction when I was a kid. I loved the We Were There series. That's what I read over and over and over again. Don't look to my personal reading history for excellence here.

Thank you, Roger! I found this most enlightening.

^{* not intended as a factual statement↩}.

^{** Scott O'Dell donated his prize money to charity.↩}

^{*** Read: "who have twitter feeds I follow"↩}

^{**** 17% of winners have a World War II setting.↩}

^{***** What Jonathan actually said, which shouldn't be taken as a criticism of the book: "I also think they tend to prefer books where the history is front and center, rather than a backdrop. So I’d be inclined to think that because OKAY FOR NOW, DEAD END IN NORVELT, and THE TROUBLE WITH MAY AMELIA don’t have those easy taglines–WWII, Civil Rights, etc–they might not contend as strongly as some of the other stuff."↩}

I am contractually obligated as a Betsy-Tacy fan (you think I'm joking) to mention Maud Hart Lovelace on every occasion, at least where it's applicable. So let me sneak in that Scott O'Dell was buddies with Maud Hart Lovelace and her husband Delos, and they gave him advice about writing, and Maud read the manuscript of Island of the Blue Dolphins and was the first to tell him he'd written a children's book, a very good one.

Newbery: What I Said Before They Won

It's incredibly difficult to review Newbery winners and honors in an objective way after you KNOW they've won. Sometimes you feel stupid about what you said earlier, after you found out they won. (Though I don't take the attitude that I was "wrong" about a book based on its win; I just figure "well, we like different stuff, then".)

I'm going to own what I said earlier. I don't know if I would do it if I didn't like what I'd said, though. These are from my Goodreads reviews and comments on Heavy Medal.

Honor, Inside Out and Back Again:

(three stars) I find it difficult to review this, just like I found it difficult to review the last novel-in-verse about a Vietnamese refugee in the 1970s that I read, All the Broken Pieces. Like anything negative I might say is me judging the immigrant experience itself. At first I didn't like this that much, but it's growing on me some after the fact. Ha reads like a more original character than many, and the thoroughly-sketched mother and sketchily-sketched brothers are all so clear to me in my mind. One heartbreaking sentence at the very end made me feel that Brother Khoi has his own fascinating book in a parallel universe. The sense of place is much greater for the scenes in and memories of Vietnam than they are for Alabama. Overall: good, but not great. I don't think it's a Newbery.

******************

Hmm. While Inside Out and Back Again isn’t one of my top choices, nor is it one of my favorite novels in verse (a small group; I react to these with distrust and they have to win me over), I don’t find the line breaks ineffective. They feel a little more daring, innovative, than what you quote from Eddie’s War (which I haven’t read). And the style also evokes to me (I hope I can say this without sounding horribly racist) both the harshness of life depicted in the book, and the rhythm/sound/feel of what spoken Vietnamese sounds like to someone who doesn’t understand it. [ETA: I should have said "what it sounds like to me as a nonspeaker"] I felt like it added to my perception of the mother, in particular, as a living breathing character.

Honor, Breaking Stalin's Nose:

(four stars) An intriguing little book, certainly a perspective I have not read before (devoutly Communist child). Does not waste any words or any time. The ending is pretty ambiguous and I'm not convinced it will work for young readers. I don't know enough about Stalin and Communist Russia to know how much of this is realistic and how much might be propaganda. Pulls no punches.

Winner, Dead End in Norvelt:

(three stars) I got impatient with this about halfway through. Occasional moments of clever brilliance, but Newbery-wise, I can't see this standing out in a field that includes Okay For Now. Also, the punk kid with quirky elderly neighbor plot ought to be locked in the vault for the next ten years or so.

***********

I finished Dead End in Norvelt last night. I thought there was a great sense of setting–I was interested enough to read the Wikipedia article on the town, and as I read I could picture the town I’d imagined from the book very clearly. But I agree on the plot getting lost, and I’m also iffy about most of the characters. I’m not sure whether this is intentional or not, though. Jack is a fully-realized character; Miss Volker comes close; but everyone else felt pretty muddled to me. Mrs. Gantos, in particular, I couldn’t get a handle on. I didn’t understand her or her relationship with Jack, and certainly not her relationship with her husband. But since so much of the book takes place in Jack’s head, maybe we’re seeing all the characters through his eyes without nuance. I could sort of support that.

It irritated me that there are a couple of references to Girl Scouts selling cookies to make money for themselves/their families. That’s one of those small things that shouldn’t matter and probably only matters to people with specialized Girl Scout knowledge, right? It’s a much smaller point than the Eagle Scout inaccuracies that actually affected the plot of Mockingbird last year.

Miss Volker felt like the secondary character equivalent of a Mary Sue. She always seemed to have the precise 21st-century liberal view of every issue. The teasing Harold-and-Maudey jokes about Jack being her boyfriend that people kept making did not ring true to me as being things people would really say, especially not the boy himself.

I did think there were moments of comedic brilliance. My favorite scene was the initial one with Miss Volker cooking her hands. I’m unfamiliar with Gantos’s work, so I can’t compare this to my reaction to his humor in general.

****************

The books have a lot of similarities and it’s unfortunate that they came out in the same year; I said in my Goodreads review that I didn’t think Norvelt would get attention in Okay For Now’s year. Yet looking back on both books, after not having looked at either in quite some time, it seems like Norvelt is the more daring, risky book; Okay For Now is easier to like. It may actually be better (as was my first impression) or it may just be more comfortable.

Morris Finalists 2012: The Girl of Fire and Thorns

Yes, I really did read this in between posting about Between Shades of Gray last night and right now, 24 hours later.

The Girl of Fire and Thorns is Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle, soon to be Queen Lucero-Elisa de Vega né Riqueza of Joya d'Arena, and familiarly known as Elisa. We meet her on her wedding day, when she is to be married to King Alejandro de Vega of Joya d'Arena. It's a political match, naturally; she's given in exchange for an alliance and protection from the invading forces of Invierne.

And while the names and titles sound impressive, Elisa is actually the fat, awkward second daughter of the king of Orovalle. But she's also the chosen one of her generation: on her naming day, as a baby, a stream of light from the heavens bestowed on her a Godstone, a blue gem embedded in her navel. A child is chosen in this way every hundred years, destined to complete some great service to his or her people.

So Elisa is an unlikely heroine, about to undertake her heroine's journey in this book. And she is a heroine, though she doesn't always feel it: strong, intelligent, morally and spiritually aware, but not afraid to question. She is a leader of others; a true queen.

I enjoyed both the story and the setting. Author Rae Carson builds a world that is both strange and familiar. It's earthlike, but there is just a bit of magic, and it's made clear that this is not the first world that these people have lived on. There are references to the old world that died before God brought them here. It's also a pre-modern world -- people ride horses and camels and fight (mostly) with swords and arrows and spears.

The story moved along at a good pace and never went quite where I expected it to, especially in terms of romance.

Spirituality is an important part of Elisa's life. Neither she nor anyone else in the story ever questions the existence of God. After all, he put the stone in her belly, right in front of everyone! And she senses God through the stone when she prays or when she is involved in worship. However, Elisa does have questions about God's will and God's purpose for her. She wonders why everyone, both friend and enemy, has a different interpretation of God's will. And she wonders whether all of the killing she and her people have to do is worth it, even if it is done to protect others.

Elisa doesn't resolve these questions. She completes her mission to protect the people of Joya d'Arena and Orovalle, but people do die. And I had other unanswered questions after reading the book -- like where did the people of this world originally come from? Their religious practices do have things in common with Christianity. For instance, Elisa prays something called the Glorifica, which is similar to Mary's Magnificat (and it's entirely fitting for Elisa):

My soul glorifies God; let it rejoice in my Savior

For he has been mindful of his humble servant

Blessed am I among generations

For he lifted me from the dying world...

There's also a ceremony similar to a communion service in which people are pricked with the thorn of a rose instead of receiving communion bread (hence the thorns of the title, I suppose). Aside from these elements (and the priests and monasteries which are also in the story), there are no overt references to Christ or Christianity. So I'm interested in seeing whether anything else will develop in future books (this is apparently the first of at least 3 books).

I'd have to say this one is my favorite of the Morris finalists so far. I've got one more to read -- Under the Mesquite.

Morris Finalists 2012: Between Shades of Gray

Yes, I did read this over my holiday break! But then, well, life got in the way and I never reviewed it. And it had to go back to the library!

But I can tell you that it was well worth reading. Between Shades of Gray is the story (not based on any one true story) of 15-year-old Lina, whose family is taken by pre-KGB Soviet secret police from their home in Lithuania and sent to Siberia. Horrible things happen. The ending is not particularly happy.

This is good storytelling. Author Ruta Sepetys does a good job unfolding the events in a not-totally-predictable manner. I also liked a theme that ran through much of the book: kindness matters. Lina's mother is in the habit of being kind to people, even when they are not kind to her, and it does matter in the end, even though Lina thinks it silly.

However, I did notice that despite the really horrible things that happen in this book, emotionally, it didn't pull me in as deeply as other books have (for instance, The Birchbark House). I couldn't pinpoint exactly why; perhaps just because this story is told fairly starkly.

Between Shades of Gray takes place during World War II (it begins in 1939), but tells a different, little-known part of the war story. It would make a good companion to World War II studies in the classroom. And if you've read Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, this would make a great comparison read.

The Newbery is Coming

It is possible that I have completed my pre-Newbery reading for the season, with sixty books.

Sixty! That's almost as many as I had to read in order to read all the winners in the first place. I have a better-funded library system here, so I was able to read almost twice as many contenders as I was last year. (The two years before that I didn't keep track in the same way.)

Yet still, I have the nagging feeling that I'm missing something. Even though every year I've already read most of the books that get make the podium, and this year I've read so much more. I think there are always the books that don't get attention from any of the attention-makers that the committee has ferreted out. And, of course, sometimes the ways of the committee are mysterious.

My ideal Newbery results are when I have read everything on the podium except one book; it gives me a good feeling of satisfaction, but I still have something exciting to read. (Last year it was Moon Over Manifest, which I did have out of the library to read next; it hadn't escaped my notice. In 2010 it was Homer P. Figg, which I admit I still haven't read because the cover is so wildly unappealing to me. In 2009 I hadn't read The Graveyard Book, because we didn't think it was eligible, or The Surrender Tree, which would have been my own frontrunner if I'd read it.)

I don't feel invested in the results this year. There are so many books that are considered frontrunners that I don't think are good enough that none of them even particularly stand out as "ANYTHING BUT THAT". There are a lot of books that I think are pretty good. Most of all, I think the theme of this year for me is the number of books that I really enjoyed but don't think will win. They're books for readers, regardless of award podiums. Books like One Day and One Amazing Morning

on Orange Street, and Jefferson's Sons, and The Great Wall of Lucy Wu, and Akata Witch, and Icefall.

You can see my list of everything I read that has been mentioned as a possibility for the Newbery somewhere here. (You'll see only 57 books. I count 60, but I didn't include any of the three Mo Willems books that have been suggested as possibilities. I can't bring myself to believe that these books' Newbery chances are anything but manufactured by the blogosphere.)

And the Goodreads poll for Newbery winners always makes for interesting reading. I've read 50 of the 69 listed there as of today.

There are still a few books I would like to read--Wildwood, Blizzard of Glass, The Freedom Maze, Eddie's War--but looking at the hold list, I'm unlikely to get to read them before the ALA Youth Media Awards on January 23.

As soon as they're over, I'm going to read NOTHING but adult non-fiction for a solid month.

Morris Finalists 2012: Paper Covers Rock

Alex is a junior at a boys' boarding school in North Carolina. He and three friends decide to drink some vodka and jump off of a rock into the French Broad River. One of them dies. This book is about the aftermath. Will the school find out that the boys were drinking? Will Alex and his friend Glenn get kicked out? Or is there something more going on?

Alex is also a talented writer who has a crush on his fresh-from-Princeton female English teacher. The book is told from his point of view, as a journal/novel he's been writing.

I kept hoping the novel would turn into something better, but it pretty much stayed the same throughout: annoyingly angsty. I also kept wondering why the book was set in 1982. It didn't seem relevant to the story. Pop culture references were few and unnecessary. There were no 1980s fashion references. There were no news stories from that time involved. I didn't feel like I was being immersed in 1982 in any significant way. The only thing I could think of is that there are some issues around homosexuality in the story, and I suppose it was more of a taboo to be gay in 1982 than it is now.

There were two parts that really struck me. One is when then English teacher, Miss Dovecott, really gets the boys talking about Emily Dickinson's "There's been a Death, in the Opposite House." Alex brings God into it, suggesting that the minister in the poem represents God, who in the poem owns "all the mourners...And little boys. Dickinson is saying he owns all of us." And his friend Glenn promptly shuts down the discussion, saying that "God does not own any of us." And no one has anything to say after that. I could relate to the frustration of that moment. "One of these students...wants desperately to come back to her world -- her heavenly, wide-open world -- but it is roped off now, like an unsafe balcony."

The other is another God-moment. One of the teachers substitutes in chapel and preaches a sermon.

"There is God in all of us," he says. "God is programmed into our DNA, so He's there under our skin, biologically there, to connect us to a force larger than ourselves. It's what makes me feel not so alone in this world, as if inside of me is a seed, and if I nurture that seed, I can become my best far-reaching self." This is the first time that God has made sense to me, and I am writing it down so I won't forget it.

This is followed by:

The other guys do not see what Miss Dovecott is doing for us. They do not see how she is working by degrees to get us back to a time when our inds were freer, more connected to the world around us. More connected to what was programmed inside our DNA, just like Mr. Parkes said.

Things get even weirder after the sermon. I had a really hard time with the ending, and I'm going to hash it out here, so if you don't want to know, don't read any further.

--SPOILERS BELOW--

Okay, so all through the book, Glenn has been trying to convince Alex that Miss Dovecott suspects they were drinking and is trying to get them to reveal it. And Glenn has a plan to harass Miss Dovecott, possibly going as far as to get her to leave or be kicked out of the school.

Alex doesn't want to follow the plan, although much of the time he ends up doing it anyway -- because, as he says at one point, the real honor code at a boys' school is between friends -- you protect your friends and you never, ever turn them in.

I didn't think he'd really end up getting Miss Dovecott kicked out, though, but he does. And that bothered me.

Alex thinks that Glenn thinks Miss Dovecott is onto them about the drinking. But when Alex finally confesses to Miss Dovecott, she's not so worried about that. What she thinks she saw was Glenn possibly suffocating Thomas (who may or may not have been already dead) while Alex ran for help. She doesn't know why, but Alex knows that if Glenn had done it, it might have been to hide his own (Glenn's) homosexuality -- because Thomas had seen Glenn and another boy coming out of the same shower stall.

But NOBODY, besides Glenn, knows whether Glenn is really gay, or whether he tried to kill Thomas. Glenn says neither is true, and swears on the Bible that he was only checking to see whether Thomas was breathing.

And then, after Glenn swears on the Bible, Alex goes through with the plan, invites Miss Dovecott to go for a walk, and kisses her in front of a waiting Glenn. Glenn reports this to the school authorities, and voila, no more Miss Dovecott. And she doesn't report anything at all on her way out.

Alex's final actions don't make any sense to me, except in the context of the honor code between friends -- Alex decides in the end that his friendship with Glenn is more important than the teacher he respects and thinks he loves? Alex decides that this action really is in his own self-interest? I don't like either of those motivations.

Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe there's supposed to be some deeper meaning here. I'm purposely not reading any other reviews until I publish this, because I want to be honest about how I saw it. But for me, this ending doesn't work. It's painful, and leaves me not liking Alex. And I mostly didn't like Alex anyway -- he seems like a stereotypical angsty, intelligent teenager.

So while this was an interesting book in many ways, it's really not for me, and I'm not sure it's original enough to be award-worthy.

Morris Finalists 2012: Where Things Come Back

I've decided to read the finalists for the 2012 William A. Morris YA Debut Award! If you're new to the Morris, it "honors a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens" and celebrates "impressive new voices in young adult literature." I've requested the five finalists from the library and am hoping they all come in while I'm on winter break.

My first read is Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley. This book was a bit of a mystery to me after reading the inside of the jacket. The jacket copy talks about lighthearted tales of adolescent love, the disappearance of a little brother, an extinct woodpecker, zombies and talking birds, without weaving any of those items into any kind of plot summary.

So I have to tell you that there are no real zombies. Real inside of the book, I mean. They're imaginary, both outside and inside the story. If you're looking for a good zombie story, this isn't it.

But it's definitely worth reading anyway. Here's what really happens: Cullen Witter's younger (and not so little) brother disappears around the same time that a college professor arrives in his small Arkansas town to search for signs of a rare woodpecker that is believed to be extinct. The whole town goes gaga over the possibility of the woodpecker being found there, and while they do care about the Witters and search for Gabriel (the brother), Cullen often feels like the stupid and probably non-existent woodpecker is getting too much attention.

Meanwhile, in alternate chapters, we hear about failed teenage missionary Benton Sage, and his college roommate Cabot Searcy. This is confusing, because there is NO explanation in the beginning for how this fits in with the Cullen Witter story. Rest assured, it does tie in eventually.

The story as a whole seems a bit haphazard at first, but things are revealed at a good pace, which frequently had me thinking "What the HECK?!" (in a good way). And at a couple of points, "OMG, I'm going to be sick." Again, in a good way.

The Cullen Witter portions of the book are told in first person, while the other portions are in third person. I enjoyed Cullen both as a character and as a voice; he seemed like an authentic teenager. Whaley has him simultaneously dealing with his brother's disappearance and dating and worrying about girls and sex, which sounds ridiculous, but it works.

Overall, this is a well-written and engaging novel. It's complex enough to be interesting, but easy enough to read in a day or so. I look forward to seeing more from John Corey Whaley.

Mock Newbery in Oregon

I just came across this in my local newspaper -- a group of kids at Boones Ferry Primary in Wilsonville, OR (near Portland), have chosen Out of My Mind as their Mock Newbery winner. There's also a nice picture in which they're all holding up books (presumably their individual favorites?).

I haven't read Out of My Mind. What say you?

Reflections on the 2010 National Book Awards (YPL)

I've finally finished reviewing all five of the 2010 National Book Award finalists in Young People's Literature. Yes, I did read them all before the award ceremony! But I didn't get my review of Ship Breaker posted until yesterday.

Naturally, I'm thrilled that Mockingbird won. Of the five books, the two I rated most highly were Mockingbird and Lockdown (both got five of five stars on Goodreads). I gave four stars to both One Crazy Summer and Ship Breaker, and three stars to Dark Water.

Mockingbird is still my favorite, mainly because I think Kathy Erskine nailed the voice of Caitlin, an eleven-year-old with Asperger's Syndrome, as well as the reactions of the people around her.

One Crazy Summer and Mockingbird are both being discussed as Newbery contenders on Heavy Medal. However, the guidelines and criteria for the National Book Award are very different from those for the Newbery Medal. The NBA is awarded by a panel of authors, who are allowed to make up their own criteria, while the Newbery Medal is decided by a committee of librarians, who are given very strict criteria. So winning the NBA doesn't make Mockingbird a favorite for the Newbery; in fact, One Crazy Summer seems to be holding that position.

So what's next? I may read a few other Newbery contenders, but as we're heading into the holiday season, I have no formal plans.

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

This is the fifth and final installment of Kathleen's reviews of the 2010 National Book Award finalists in Young People's Literature.

Ship Breaker is a dystopian novel, set in a post-oil future. Oil is scarce, and the earth is showing the effects of climate change (New Orleans is all or mostly underwater). The rich have developed alternative travel technology in the form of fast-moving clipper ships, but naturally these are only available to the rich.

The poor, like Nailer, live in squats, camps and shacks, and earn a bare living doing salvage work or working in shipyards. And the workers aren't much better off than slaves. Nailer's job is to scavenge copper wire from wrecked and abandoned oil tankers in the Gulf of Mexico. But a "city-killer" hurricane leads him to a clipper ship, a girl, and adventure.

The book is fast-moving and cinematic. Bacigalupi's descriptions of Nailer's adventures would fit right into an action movie. It's also suspenseful and kept me reading.

Bacigalupi has a sequel on the way, titled The Drowned Cities. It's due out in 2011.

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

This is the fourth of Kathleen's reviews of the 2010 National Book Award finalists in Young People's Literature.

As you may have heard, One Crazy Summer is the story of three sisters who are sent to spend a month with their mother, in Oakland, California, in 1968. Their mother doesn't seem to particularly want them there, so she has them spend their days at a Black Panther day camp. In day camp, the children learn "Power to the people"-style slogans, make "Free Huey" posters, and post flyers for a big Black Panther rally, which is the climax of the book.

The story is told through the older sister, Delphine, who is the only one old enough to remember their mother at all (she was four or five when her mother left them). She's eleven in the book.

It was a quick read for me; I think it's well-paced for middle grade children. The period details are good, but not overwhelming -- the focus is really on the story, and the mother and children finally coming to terms with each other. Delphine's voice is well done; she's an eleven-year-old who's had to grow up too quickly and help take care of her sisters, but she still has the emotional maturity of an eleven-year-old.

I also thought the development of Cecile/Nzila was well done. She's totally off-putting at first. I wondered what in the world their father was thinking, sending them out there. And she doesn't change that much during the book. But there are little things along the way. She starts accommodating the children in small ways: giving them a radio, letting Fern into the kitchen to cook, and getting a stool for Fern to sit on in the kitchen. And more. It's subtle, and gradual, and she's not a completely different person at the end of the book. But she has made a little bit of room for the children in her heart, and (one hopes) in her life.

I've noticed elsewhere that people have nitpicked on the geographical details. I've lived in Oakland, and felt like the atmosphere described in the book fit. The geographical details are fairly vague (or renamed, or made up; I'm not sure), and this was well before I lived there, so I never placed the story in any particular location in my head.

Overall: excellent story and writing. I can see why it's in the award-watch category.

Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers

This is the third of Kathleen's reviews of the 2010 National Book Award finalists in Young People's Literature.

I had never read anything by Walter Dean Myers before, despite his award-winning status, so I really had no idea what to expect from Lockdown.

This book took me into another world, but not a fantasy, sci-fi, or dystopian post-apocalyptic world. It's the world of a juvenile detention center, and a world where violence, drug use and drug-dealing are common. And yes, it is also a world of mostly non-white people.

The blurb says "Lockdown explores an unlikely friendship between fourteen-year-old Progress inmate Reese and a man he meets through his work program at a local senior citizens’ home. " However, this is only part of the story. Myers shows us the violence inside the detention center, the cluelessness, cynicism, and cruelty of several adults there, and the cycle that keeps so many detainees coming back into the prison system.

Reese matures in this book, but at a reasonable pace. He starts figuring out what he needs to do to stay straight on the outside, but he doesn't have it all together by the end of the book. And he makes plenty of mistakes throughout.

Interestingly, the adults in the book grow, too. Mr. Hooft at the senior citizens' home at first fears Reese, because he is African American and an inmate, but learns to accept him and perhaps call him friend. Mr. Pugh, a guard, is a bully at first, but becomes friendlier later. And other adults who seem to think there's no hope for Reese begin to come around, too. I think this adds a lot to the book.

Lockdown is rich with detail and action. When I finished reading it, I actually went straight back to the beginning and read the first few chapters over again, because I felt like I hadn't gotten everything out of them the first time. If I didn't have several more books to read, I might have read it straight through again!

I think this book might be a keeper -- I'd like to read it again and get to know it better. Definitely award-worthy.

Dark Water by Laura McNeal

This is the second of Kathleen's reviews of the 2010 National Book Award finalists in Young People's Literature.

Fifteen-year-old Pearl is the child of recently divorced parents, pretty much abandoned by her father. She and her mother are economically destitute, living in a cottage on her uncle's avocado ranch in southern California while her mom earns money as a substitute teacher.

Pearl falls in luuuuuuv with an undocumented immigrant ranch worker and starts making all the wrong choices, one of which leads to someone's death.

The book is well-written, and there are some gems, like this:

I've always been suspicious of those who say, Things happen for a reason and What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. things happen all the time for no reason at all, and what doesn't kill you scares you witless.

But Pearl drove me nuts a lot of the time. She's selfish and petulant. Like a teenager, which she is. But her realisticness was annoying rather than endearing. Maybe a teenager reading this would see it differently?

I can see that Dark Water is well done. I just didn't enjoy it enough to say "Yes, this is one of the best books of the year."

National Book Award Finalists, 2010

Back in March, I reviewed a new book called Mockingbird, by Kathryn Erskine. I loved it, and my 10-year-old daughter loved it, and I said

I'm predicting that MOCKINGBIRD will be one of the best middle-grade/YA novels of the year.

So I'm very excited to share that Mockingbird is now a finalist for the National Book Award in Young People's Literature!

The other finalists include:

• Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi
• Dark Water, Laura McNeal
• Lockdown, Walter Dean Myers
• One Crazy Summer, Rita Williams-Garcia

I haven't read any of the others. I've heard a lot of buzz about One Crazy Summer, and I do have it on my to-read list. I think I'll add the others, read 'em, and report back. The National Book Awards Dinner and Ceremony is on November 17, so I've got a month!

Has anyone else read any of these books? Do you have a favorite in this race?

The Frog Scientist by Pamela S. Turner

Back in January, as Wendy was in the throes of Cybils judging, she emailed me, "You should read The Frog Scientist. You will really dig the protagonist."

I was delighted to hear that The Frog Scientist won the Cybils Award for Middle Grade/Young Adult nonfiction, even though I hadn't read it yet; I had faith in my sister's good judgment. I read The Frog Scientist, written by Pamela S. Turner, photographed by Andy Comins, this past week and oh, I loved it!

Part of the Scientists in the Field series from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, The Frog Scientist gives a close-up (very froggy) view into the life of biologist Tyrone Hayes. Hayes and his students at Berkeley move between pond and lab as they study the effects of atrazine (a pesticide commonly used in the U.S.) on frogs.

"Watch out, they kill some frogs," my daughter solemnly warned her father when he picked up this book. While readers don't actually see the dissection, Turner describes in fascinating detail how the experiments are set up and conducted, including the removal of tiny, tiny kidneys and testes from young frogs in the lab.

Science teachers will rejoice in the clear, concise explanations of how a hypothesis, manipulated variable, responding variable, and control group are used in the real world.

Students will be fascinated by the photographs and descriptions of unusual, sometimes endangered or extinct, amphibians.

And everyone who loves books, like me, will thrill to the sight of Tyrone Hayes reading his children the book that started it all, a gift from his own mother when he was a little boy.



Thanks, Cybils panelists and judges, for sharing The Frog Scientist with all of us.

Cybils finalists for Non-Fiction Middle Grade & Young Adult Books

Complete list of Cybils winners

The 100 Best Kids' Books EVAR

Blogger Betsy Bird is running a poll: What are the top 100 middle grade novels of all time?

Readers are invited to submit their top ten, ranked. There are some limitations and suggestions for determining age level; read the post, vote.

I've been working on my list all month. Well, not really. On the first day I brainstormed titles; on the second day I ranked and revised. I haven't looked at my list in weeks, and am amused to see how my list that I thought was totally objective was influenced by what I was reading and what people were talking about on Goodreads. I made some last minute changes.

My biggest problem was in sorting out what was young adult and what was middle grade. My standards for this are stricter than Betsy's, but I'm going to go by them, anyway. I went back and forth on The Witch of Blackbird Pond--then glanced at the comments just now and saw that others have the same question. Ultimately, I decided it was a young adult book and didn't include it. I disagree with a commenter who says it's not YA just because the characters are older and it really has a middle grade treatment; that's probably the kind of person who thinks there wasn't any YA until the 1970s. Or the 1990s.

I'm not going to tell you my list, but I'll tell you the following things:

1. One author is male, and nine are female.
2. All of the authors are white, which is sad, but reflects my childhood reading (that will come in a new post soon)
3. Two of the authors are Jewish; the rest are Protestants.
4. Bizarrely, eight of the ten are part of a series. I wonder what this says about me and my reading? I selected the books individually, not as "I love this series and I'm going to pick a book to represent it".
5. The oldest book was published in 1940. (Actually, two of them were.)
6. The newest book was published in 1978. Despite all the great books published during my lifetime, I believe in this list and would like to think nostalgia is only a small part of it. That was a Golden Age.
7. Three of the books won the Newbery Medal.
8. Eight of them should have. (Two of my choices I acknowledge as being not quite right for the Newbery.)
9. One of the books won a Newbery Honor.
10. The one book that is possibly, POSSIBLY a pure nostalgia pick is All-of-a-Kind Family.

Now, submit your own lists! Or just tell me in the comments what a couple of your choices would have been. Or both. Or speculate on what my list includes. (I think the clues above could make it pretty easy to figure out at least six, if you were dedicated.)

Reactions As They Happen

6:43 Ignoring everyone on twitter except @ALAYMA for the mo--don’t want to miss anything, plus don’t want to affect my own thoughts.
6:45 Alex--have heard of more of these books this year; I wonder why?
6:47 Everyone cheers because they know what’s COMING…
6:50 Schneider, no surprises there… I read one person who detested the way Marcelo “portrayed the disability experience”, but only one. Congrats, Cheryl Klein!
6:54 CSK! I’m going to read all of these this year.
6:58 Curious how many illustrator awards have been for photography.
7:00 Isn’t that a surprise for the author award? Can’t remember hearing about that. Sounds interesting, though.
7:01 Sigh. Laurie sleeping through the YALSA awards. It’s 5:01 in Seattle AND it’s a holiday, why aren’t you AWAAAAKE?
7:02 Ooh, nonfiction author for Margaret Edwards, that should please a lot of people (I like his books too)
7:05 Flash Burnout, the one that takes place in Portland, right? Will definitely be reading.
7:08 Charles and Emma! Fascinating. Not on my Cybils shortlist. Enjoyed very much.
7:09 Printzy printzy printzy!
7:10 Charles and Emma again! A surprise, for me…
7:11 YEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAH! I was fairly crazy about Going Bovine. Already mourning Lips Touch and surprised about Marcelo, BUT.
7:12 (Laurie awake, yay)
7:15 Pura Belpre--will be reading all of these, too… Return to Sender, maybe? Though I didn’t like it much.
7:16 am a big Yuyi Morales fan, but who isn’t?
7:20 Two Diego books, nice (for me, I mean)
7:20 Return to Sender, yup yup
7:26 Um, Laurie says the publisher of the Newbery book just tweeted it. What up with that?
7:26 I have A Faraway Island in my TBR…
7:27 stupid social media, ruining everything.
7:28 Moonshot, one of my favorite books of the year!
7:28 if Claudette Colvin got an honor, then…
7:29 WHAAAAAT?
7:34 Knowing that Laurie knows who won the Newbery is SPOILING EVERYTHING. How many people in the audience are following twitter and already know?
7:35 Last year I had read more than three picture books. But I’ve heard of some…
7:36 at least one thing isn’t a surprise… clearly a VERY popular choice! Think that was the biggest cheer of the evening.
7:38 THANK GOODNESS. I WAS GOING TO SWEAR.
7:39 Hmm. Have read everything but Homer P. Figg. How is it I did better this year than last year? Last year I’d read, like, 40+ possibilities… maybe everyone did better at predicting this year.
7:40 STILL HOPE RANDOM HOUSE GETS IN TROUBLE FOR PRE-TWEETING.

HalfPintIngalls for a Shorty!

It's no secret that we at Six Boxes of Books love @HalfPintIngalls from Twitter. Wendy has already interviewed Half Pint (and the interview was even linked on the Christian Science Monitor). And I've been plugging her over on Twitter itself ever since I discovered her. After all, who can resist gems like these?

"You really should follow @clothesline if you don't want to get lost out on the prairie in this blizzard. #FollowFriday"

"Just walked 160 acres for this stupid piece of candy. 160 acres until the next one. HATE trick-or-treating on the prairie."

And don't miss her Christmas wishing-list from Mr. Amazon's Mercantile.

Anyway, if you like @HalfPintIngalls too, here's something you can do: help nominate her for a Shorty Award!

No, it's not an award for short people (although our Half Pint would certainly qualify). The Shorty Awards honor "the best producers of short, real-time content" on Twitter. There are 27 official categories, such as Celebrity, Customer Service, Education, Food, Government, etc.

@HalfPintIngalls has been nominated for the Humor category, but she needs more nominations! This is how it works: Twitter users send nominations via Twitter. Sometime in February, the Shorty Awards people will determine the top five nomination-getters in each category, and these will be the finalists. The winners will then be chosen by a combination of popular vote and the choices of the Real-Time Academy of Short Form Arts and Sciences. Yes, there is such an academy. I did not make that up.

So, if you are a Twitter user and would like to nominate @HalfPintIngalls, just visit her Shorty Awards page. You can either tweet your nomination directly from that page, or copy and paste the text to your own Twitter client or web page. Be sure to include a reason after the "because..."; otherwise, your nomination won't count.

The competition is stiff, but as Half Pint herself said, "Out of all the folks up for 'Shorty Awards,' only ONE is as small as a half-pint of cider half-drunk up. I'M JUST SAYING."

Cybils Shortlists: I Am Grumpy

I can't help it, I'm grumpy about the number of my favorite books that didn't make the Cybils shortlists. I'm anticipatorily grumpy about the favorites that won't make the Newbery and Printz lists. It makes me want to make up my own thing where I choose my favorite books in each genre and tell you why they're so good...

...oh, right. That's my blog.

So while I'm very excited about starting the process of Cybils judging (I'm a judge for middle-grade/YA non-fiction, which is why you won't hear a word about that category here), I'm going to go ahead and write one-sentence reviews for the nominated books that I really, really wish had been in some of the categories.

Middle Grade Science Fiction/Fantasy
When You Reach Me, a time-travel-involving novel set beautifully in the New York of 1978-1979 that is probably one of the best books I've read in years.

Any Which Wall, a delightfully playful book about old-fashioned magic--what do YOU picture when I say someone is "the worst pirate in the world"?

The Magician's Elephant, a slight and fascinating dream-like novel that made me feel like I was back in Paris; "I intended only lilies" is one of my favorite lines of the year.

Young Adult Science Fiction/Fantasy
Shadowed Summer, which I would not have called SF/F at all because I pretty much believe in ghosts, and is a must-read for people who know middle-schoolers.

Fiction Picture Books
I don't really know the field that well this year, but I'm saddened by the absence of

Princess Hyacinth (The Surprising Tale of a Girl Who Floated), which is an impeccably written and illustrated funny fairy tale, even if it isn't quite right for either Newbery or Caldecott.

Middle-Grade Fiction
The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z, a satisfyingly rich school story.

Young Adult Fiction
Going Bovine: trying to make sense of this entertaining road-trip story made me feel smarter than I am.

What I Saw and How I Lied: this absolutely splendid noir coming-of-age book was one of my favorites of "last" year, and I would recommend it unhesitatingly to everyone from my mom to my hipster friends.

I really, really pared that list down, and didn't include books that I thought were really good if I could maybe see how they didn't quite make the cut. And especially in the YA Fiction category, there were many books that I'm pretty sure I would have included in this list if I'd actually, you know, gotten around to reading them yet.

I never know quite what I want the Cybils books to be. I mean, on the one hand, I look to them to maybe recognize some books that aren't going to win the Newbery for one reason or another but "what they do, they do perfectly". On the other hand, if they DON'T include what is clearly... to me... the best book of the year, even if it probably WILL get other recognition--well, I wonder.

Now, I don't mean to criticize the first-round Cybils judges, even when I don't quite understand, but in the spirit of We Love Books, let's recognize the ones that aren't there. What books were you hoping to see on the list? What is, perhaps, a surprise omission--even if it isn't your favorite?

Battle of the Kids' Books

School Library Journal's Battle of the Kids' Books is making me about crazy, and I get the feeling it's happening to other bloggers, too; the tone around the kidlitosphere is reaching frenetic. I have a bracket all made out, but every time I try to predict what's going to win, or what I want to win, I get jumbled. I've made markings on the bracket as to what I think will win, and separate markings for what I want to win, and I'm thinking about making a third set of markings for "what I think should win even though I don't really want it to". The matches are all difficult, and some are impossible.

Take, for instance, The Hunger Games vs. The Porcupine Year. It was my fervent wish that The Porcupine Year win the 2009 Newbery; it didn't even get an honor. On the other hand, any time I talk about The Hunger Games, I use the word "awesome" more times than is probably allowable by law. I had no doubt in my mind that The Hunger Games did not fit the Newbery criteria. But we aren't talking about the Newbery anymore. We can throw aside those constraints. So I don't know what to do. The Porcupine Year is a better book in so many ways, but... it isn't as awesome. What will win? What should win? What are the biases of the celebrity judge?

To my surprise, when I marked that match, I marked Porcupine to win and Hunger Games for my choice. I feel like I pushed my own sister off a cliff.

It's also humbling to find that I haven't read all the books, despite all the Newbery and Printz preparation I did last year. I read dozens upon dozens of books, but I still didn't read Ways to Live Forever, Washington at Valley Forge, Kingdom on the Waves, or Here Lies Arthur. (I haven't really read Graceling, but I read part of it and could see it Wasn't For Me, so when it didn't win any awards I put it aside; but I feel familiar with it enough to judge.)

Here are my picks at this point for what I think WILL win, except that I already know The Graveyard Book lost so even though I had that winning, I'm cheating and taking it out of the running.

Round 1: Kingdom on the Waves, Trouble Begins at Eight, Chains, Tender Morsels, Frankie Landau-Banks, The Porcupine Year, The Underneath, Nation.

Round 2: Kingdom on the Waves, Tender Morsels, Frankie Landau-Banks, Nation.

Round 3: Kingdom on the Waves, Nation.

Ultimate Winner: Nation.

What I WANT to win:

Round 1: Kingdom on the Waves, [Trouble Begins at 8], Washington at Valley Forge, Tender Morsels, We Are the Ship, The Hunger Games, The Underneath, Nation.

Round 2: Kingdom on the Waves, Tender Morsels, The Hunger Games, Nation.

Round 3: Tender Morsels, Nation.

Ultimate Winner: yeah, that's asking too much of me. Probably Nation. Yes, Nation. I think. Except I sort of want The Hunger Games to win it all. And I sort of think it will.

If you'd asked me what I thought would win and what I wanted to win, before I went through that process of considering match-by-match, I think I would have chosen The Hunger Games in both cases.

Abby has a great analysis of the first two contests.