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Someday My Printz Will Come
Inside Someday My Printz Will Come

Threatened

November 14, 2014 By 2 Comments

Threatened by Eliot Schrefer
Scholastic, February 2014
Reviewed from an ARC

The art of reading for Printz is an interesting one; the pile adds and drops titles throughout the course of the year. With two stars and some buzz, Threatened was a back-and-forther for me — sometimes in the pile, sometimes to the side, sometimes near the top, sometimes moved to the bottom. But when it got shortlisted for the NBA, it came back to the top of the pile with a vengeance. We wondered if anyone would speak up for it…no one had much to say then. Maybe you’ve been saving your comments for a longer post? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books to look for, Fiction Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Boxers & Saints — Or, What Defines “Book” Anyway?

November 25, 2013 By 5 Comments

I had hoped to post this before the NBA was announced, but fate (and also one very lively 6-year-old) intervened, and then intervened some more.

Regardless, here’s a verbatim transcript of my thinking when I finished Boxers & Saints:

Wow.

Also, hmmm.

I read the two volumes back to back in the intended order, and I’m looking at them together in this post — but of course, that’s the crux of the question: I can go ahead and tell you all the reasons Boxers & Saints, as a single entity, deserves recognition as one of the year’s absolute bests, and I might be 100% right — but those arguments mean nothing if the RealCommittee considers them as two individual texts.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Best Books, Books to look for, Contenders, Fiction Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Does Never Fall Down Stand Up to the Hype?

October 31, 2012 By 15 Comments

Never Fall Down, Patricia McCormick
Balzer + Bray, May 2012
Reviewed from ARC

National Book Award Finalist. Three stars. Patricia McCormick. Never Fall Down is a critical and popular darling, and there is absolutely no question about the emotional impact of the story. You would need to be a stone to stay dry-eyed reading about the atrocities Arn sees and endures under the Khmer Rouge.

So let’s cut to the chase. There’s really only one conversation anyone is having about Never Fall Down, and it’s all about the voice.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Books to look for, Contenders, Fiction Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,