
Conveniently, it looks like we’ve returned just in time to wrap up a ton of major awards! The Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz awards were all announced last week, going to The One And Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, This is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen, and In Darkness by Nick Lake, respectively. Numerous other awards and honors were awarded as well. Publisher’s Weekly has a great review of the major awards given to children’s and young adult literature here. (I was personally very excited to see one of my favorites, Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets of The Universe, win a few awards.) Another of our favorites from 2012, Seraphina by Rachel Hartman, was given the William C. Morris Award last week! Congratulations, Rachel!
YALSA’s 2013 Best Fiction For Young Adults and The Rainbow Book List were also published. And remember when Flannery spent months tirelessly reading young adult sci-fi and fantasy for the Cybils awards? No? Well, she does. The Cybils shortlists were announced earlier this month and the awards will be presented in February.
There was also a lot of talk last week in the book blogger world about plagiarism, with several bloggers reporting personal incidents of being plagiarized and how they dealt with it. We really appreciated Sarah’s very professional and informed advice over at Clear Eyes, Full Shelves.
In book-related movie news, the film version of The Spectacular Now premiered last week at Sundance. (Ha! I almost wrote “debuted.” I fail as a movie blogger.) It also looks like the film version of The Fault in Our Stars may be coming to the big screen sooner than expected. Yesterday, the casting was announced for Rose, Lissa, and Dimitri in Blood Sisters, the movie based on the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead. Mark Waters (of Mean Girls fame) is on board to direct.
We were very excited to read that Amy Poehler will be publishing an “unconventional memoir” next year, which apparently will be “an illustrated, non-linear diary full of humor and honesty and brimming with true stories, fictional anecdotes and life lessons,” according to publisher It Books. I’m intrigued at the possibility of illustrations but I personally am really hoping she’ll narrate an audiobook for it.
Speaking of illustrations, Jezebel did a piece this week on the hideous "makeover" of several covers to classic books. One thing's certain: We won't be buying any of these versions.
Here are some wonderful interviews with some of our favorite authors from last week:
- Margo Lanagan talks with Radio National (a podcast).
- A fantastic interview with Ursula K. Le Guin over at The Millions.
- A Q&A with Rainbow Rowell over at Publisher’s Weekly.
- Melina Marchetta gives us a tidbit from the Jellicoe Road script (eeeeeh!) and posts a Q&A she did for Quintana of Charyn.
And, (saving the best for last) Flannery had the wonderful opportunity to attend ALA Midwinter over last weekend, where she met a few great people and picked up a few great books. She's here to tell you all a bit about it. Take it away, Flannery!
The Lucy Variations by Sara Zarr (May, Little Brown) | Game by Barry Lyga (April, Little Brown) | A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty (Aussie version already released, US version is April, AAL) | Vortex (Insignia, #2) by S.J. Kincaid (July, Katherine Tegan) | Yellowcake by Margo Lanagan (Aussie version already released, US version is May, Knopf) |
It's hard to judge books on their jacket copy, covers, author recognition, etc. I'm equally sure that I should've done a lot more research on publisher Spring/Summer catalogs. Here are just a few books I hadn't heard anything about but that piqued my interest because of publisher pitches (I don't have all of these):
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey (May, Putnam) | Orleans by Sherri L. Smith (March, Putnam) | The Wall by William Sutcliffe (June, Walker) | Wild Awake by Hilary T. Smith (May, Katherine Tegan) | The Rules for Disappearing by Ashley Elston (May, Disney-Hyperion) |
Other fun highlights include meeting and chatting with Kelly from Stacked, Kirsten Hubbard, Sarah Enni, Lenore Appelhans, and Kristen Kittscher, having someone read my name on my badge and realize that we shared a mutual best friend (mine from college, hers from graduate school), and getting blisters on the pads of my feet from walking so much.