Celebrating a 2016 Morris Finalist

I didn’t get to meet Kelly Loy Gilbert in 2016 when my Morris Committee selected her debut novel, Conviction,  as a William C. Morris YA Debut Award finalist. She was pregnant at the time and was unable to travel.I was thrilled to see she had a second novel coming out this year.

Picture Us In the Light  was published April 10th.

Publisher’s Summary: Danny Cheng has always known his parents have secrets. But when he discovers a taped-up box in his father’s closet filled with old letters and a file on a powerful Silicon Valley family, he realizes there’s much more to his family’s past than he ever imagined. Danny has been an artist for as long as he can remember and it seems his path is set, with a scholarship to RISD and his family’s blessing to pursue the career he’s always dreamed of. Still, contemplating a future without his best friend, Harry Wong, by his side makes Danny feel a panic he can barely put into words. Harry and Danny’s lives are deeply intertwined and as they approach the one-year anniversary of a tragedy that shook their friend group to its core, Danny can’t stop asking himself if Harry is truly in love with his girlfriend, Regina Chan. When Danny digs deeper into his parents’ past, he uncovers a secret that disturbs the foundations of his family history and the carefully constructed façade his parents have maintained begins to crumble. With everything he loves in danger of being stripped away, Danny must face the ghosts of the past in order to build a future that belongs to him.

Her website says that Kelly “believes deeply in the power of stories to illuminate a shared humanity and give voice to complex, broken people. “ Conviction did so. I think this one does so even more so.

Just as in Conviction,  things start out slowly. But don’t give up. Also, there are some flashbacks at the beginning and it is important that you pay attention because once everything comes together, you are going to realize the clues she dropped. There are a lot of issues addressed in the book – suicide, illegal immigration, being the child of immigrants – but it doesn’t feel like an issue book because you are so involved in Danny’s story.

 

Happy Book Birthday

On Tuesday, along with other members of the Beaverton Education Association executive board members, I attended a district event for new teachers. We greeted them, provided coffee, snacks and swag, and our president told them about how the union works. While handing out swag, we veteran teachers reminisced about teachers we’d mentored and how we feel like part of their family.

It is not unlike being a member of YALSA’s William C. Morris Committee. I feel as though I have a connection to the five authors we chose as finalists, and that is why I am excited to tell you that it is the book birthday of one of those authors.

Stephanie Oakes’ second novel, The Arsonist,  was released this week!

Publisher’s Summary: Code Name Verity meets I Am the Messenger in this riveting YA novel from Morris Award finalist Stephanie Oakes, in which three points of view are woven together in a story that’s part Cold War mystery, part contemporary coming-of-age, and completely unputdownable.

Molly Mavity is not a normal teenage girl. For one thing, her father is a convicted murderer, and his execution date is fast approaching. For another, Molly refuses to believe that her mother is dead, and she waits for the day when they’ll be reunited . . . despite all evidence that this will never happen.

Pepper Al-Yusef is not your average teenage boy. A Kuwaiti immigrant with epilepsy, serious girl problems, and the most useless seizure dog in existence, he has to write a series of essays over the summer . . . or fail out of school.

And Ava Dreyman—the brave and beautiful East German resistance fighter whose murder at seventeen led to the destruction of the Berlin Wall—is unlike anyone you’ve met before.

When Molly gets a package leading her to Pepper, they’re tasked with solving a decades-old mystery: find out who killed Ava, back in 1989. Using Ava’s diary for clues, Molly and Pepper realize there’s more to her life—and death—than meets the eye. Someone is lying to them. And someone out there is guiding them along, desperate for answers.

At turns heart-racing, hilarious, and heartbreaking, The Arsonist is an intricate tapestry—of love, loss, and the mysterious connections between us all.

This is a complex story. As each character narrates, your mind is trying to figure out how it all works. Oakes is crafty, telling us just enough from one character’s point of view in a chapter, then switching to another – a move that kept me reading.

Like her previous book, The Secret Lies of Minnow Bly,  the ending isn’t necessarily a happy one. But it is maybe the most realistic outcome we can hope for in a work of fiction.

Mid-August Morris Update

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been on a reading blitz to read as many Morris eligible books as I can before school starts. Although school doesn’t begin officially until September 8th, I’ve already been back a few days. This week, I have a 4 day writing workshop with the Teachers College Reading & Writing Project. Staff have to be back on August 30th for Inservice week and I will probably go in to unpack boxes and begin setting up my new classroom the week in between.

So, is my current Morris status.

I have read 50 books. Each eligible book needs two readers, so I haven’t read everything on out master list. My piles have become even more organized!

Here are the stacks of books we have yet to discuss. The tallest pile on the left are the books I have read. The other two piles are books other people have read, or have committed to reading.

 

Th two out from are still in need of at least one more reader. That pile used to be bigger, but we are all hunkering down to get as much read as we can.

In addition to the books on the list, all committee members must read all books, that have been nominated. I have read a number of these but still have a few more to go.

The pile on the left is actually 2 stacks: nominees I’ve read are behind, nominees I still need to read are in front. (I deliberately tried to keep the titles in this photo illegible) The pile to the right are books I’ve signed up to read but haven’t yet. That is down to six. Our next online meeting is scheduled for August 31st and I hope to have most of these six read, especially the ones for which I am the second reader. That will give us more titles to discuss.

The master list is a work in progress. New titles get added as we become aware of them, so my stacks and piles are also in a continuous state of flux. All in all it is rather exciting.

Keeping Secrets #SOL15

I’m pretty good at keeping secrets. But this one is hard.

I am on the 2016 William C. Morris Debut Award Committee, which selects ” a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens and celebrating impressive new voices in young adult literature”. I am honored and thrilled to be doing it. But I can’t share much of my joy.

I can’t tell you what I’ve read, though I can tell you I’ve read 6 books so far.

I can’t tell you what I thought of those books.

I can’t tell you which book I’m reading now.

I can’t tell you the titles of books publishers have sent me.

And I have to keep not telling you until December, when the committee announces the five finalists we’ve selected.

Until January 11, 2016 when the committee’s decision is announced along with the Newbery and Caldecott Awards.

I have to keep it all top secret.

It is hard.