National Book Awards

I have become the type of person that, when the National Book Award Finalists are announced, I have to read them all.

OK, not all-all. I mean the Young People’s Literature Finalists.

This year, there are six titles.

Chime by Franny Billingsley (Dial Books, an imprint of Penguin Group USA, Inc. ). My review.

My Name is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson (Marshall Cavendish)

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai (Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers)

Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy by Albert Marrin (Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books)

Shine by Lauren Myracle (Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS)

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt (Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

The Judges: Marc Aronson (Panel Chair), Ann Brashares, Matt de la Peña, Nikki Grimes, Will Weaver.

The plan: read the books I haven’t read yet; review; and write a wrap up post before the winner is announced on November 16.

If you’re familiar with the NBA, you may be saying, “six? I thought there were usually five finalists.” Well, yeah. That’s covered in Oops! National Book Awards Unveil Six YA Finalists at School Library Journal and National Book Award finalists announced – with an extra title at the LA Times.

All I know is six books I’ve heard good things about (or read and liked) are on the finalist list. Six authors got the good news about being finalists. And now the five/six issue is taking away from what would otherwise be an exciting time. So, what I’m going to do is what I usually do when reading for a list like this: read the books I haven’t read yet, thinking, what about this book made it worthy for the list? What are the strengths of this book? Why do I think it appealed to the judges? Then I’ll post my reviews and look forward to see which one gets the nod!

Filed under: Reviews