The Book Search

I've finally had a chance to double back and look at some of the lists people have been generating for other book awards.  Reading for CYBILS was awesome and I hope I get a chance to do it again next year.  I was a little surprised that this title didn't make it onto our middle grade fiction list.  It's been coming up as a short list possibility for the Newbery and I can see why.  It's called "Full Cicada Moon" by Marilyn Hilton.  It's written in free verse, which makes you think of previous year's great books "Brown Girl Dreaming" by Jacqueline Woodson or "In and Out and Back Again" by Thanhha Lai.  This one also has a terrifically interesting storyteller-Mimi.  Mimi's mom is Japanese and her dad is African American and so Mimi is herself and not like everyone else.  People are constantly asking her, especially since her family just moved to Vermont from Berkley, CA and in 1969, being bi-racial was a pretty big deal.  Mimi miss...

This week I've been reading some of the young people's books that are on the list for possibilities for the National Book Award.  I find that I'm not such a good judge of great literature because I sometimes don't care for the award winners (like last year's pick-That Thing About Luck by Cynthia Kadohata, which I didn't really like) but I like to read (a lot) and so when someone smarts says "Wow, that's a really great book" it feels like I OUGHT to pay attention. Of the five that are on the short list for the book award, I've read three of them and believe it or not, I really liked all three.  The other two I've never heard of so I guess I need to get to the library (or more likely, to Amazon!).  Even more surprising, two of the selections this year are non fiction and one of the non fiction one is also poetry.  Holy cow, what diversity!  So here are the three I've read. "Revolution" by Debroah Wiles is a story about three...