In addition to the numerous fine things that I learned at this year’s UELMA conference, I had the great luck of receiving copies of the shortlists of the 2011 Beehive Book Award Nominees. These lists were a key acquisition because all of the elementary librarians in my school district need to hurry and order these books with what’s left of their budgets before this year’s budgets are frozen, BUT WE HAVEN’T KNOWN WHICH BOOKS TO BUY.  It was therefore imperative that I obtain this information.  I succeeded, with one exception: I only went to the elementary session of CLAU’s presentation, so I did not get my hands on a copy of the young adult fiction list.

In the hopes of rectifying this oversight, I checked the CLAU web site, the UELMA web site, and the UELMA conference wiki, but none of these sites are yet endowed with such a list.  It turns out that the people of the Children’s Literature Association of Utah, although great at picking out their nominees and booktalking them at the conference, aren’t that quick at updating their web site.  Well, that’s okay, neither am I.  Getting desperate, I then consulted my friends Google, Bing, and Twitter, in the hopes that some insider or fanatic had posted this info on their blog or tweeted about it, but the only semi-relevant hits these engines gave me was someone’s beehive-2011-long-list shelf on Goodreads, and one guy’s tweet from UELMA.  It turns out that Utah’s school librarians aren’t exactly Twitter fanatics.  A true librarian, unlike the wanna-be librarian that I am, may point out that it is less effective to choose these popular search engines when researching information.  However, I stand by my methods, as I have little faith that any database or resource on Pioneer will help with this research problem at this point in time.

It was at that point that I realized something. Because there is apparently nothing out there about these new nominees in the electronic world, if I were to publish the lists here on my blog (purely as an informational/journalistic service, of course), I would possibly become one of the top search results for “2011 beehive nominees,” and also I myself would become that fanatic that I was searching for.  This has proved to be an opportunity I can’t pass up, so, without further ado, here are the 2011 Beehive Book Award Nominees in every category except for young adult fiction. If anyone out there in bloggie land has that young adult list and feels like sharing, holla back in the comments. YA nominees now added! I hope that CLAU doesn’t blacklist me from joining now that I have scooped their own website.

Congratulations to all the nominees!

2011 Beehive Children’s Fiction Award Nominees

• 11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass (Scholastic)
• The Adventurous Deeds of Deadwood Jones by Helen Hemphill (Front Street)
• Binky the Space Cat by Ashley Spires (Kids Can Press)
• The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly (Henry Holt)
• Extra Credit by Andrew Clements (Atheneum/Simon & Shuster)
• The Leanin’ Dog by K. A. Nuzum (Joanna Cotler Books)
• Me and the Pumpkin Queen by Marlane Kennedy (Greenwillow)
• Mudville by Kurtis Scaletta (Alfred A. Knopf/Yearling Books)
• Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin (Little, Brown)
• The Year the Swallows Came Early by Kathryn Fitzmaurice (Bowen Press/HarperCollins)

2011 Young Adult Book Nominees

• Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen (Viking)
• Brooklyn Nine: a Novel in Nine Innings by Alan Gartz (Dial/Puffin)
• The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams (St. Martin’s Griffin)
• Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson (Simon & Schuster / Atheneum)
• The Compound by S.A. Bodeen (Feiwel & Friends / Square Fish)
• *The Devil’s Paintbox by Victoria McKernan (Alfred A. Knopf)
• *Eon: Dragoneye Reborn by Alison Goodman (Viking / Firebird)
• Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith (Putnam / Speak)
• Musician’s Daughter by Susanne Dunlap (Bloomsbury)
• My Fair Godmother by Janette Rallison (Walker & Co.)
• Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George (Bloomsbury)
• Project Sweet Life by Brent Hartinger (HarperTeen)

(* = “mature readers”)

2011 Picture Book Nominees

• The Apple-Pip Princess by Jane Ray (Candlewick Press)
• Birds by Kevin Henkes; illustrated by Laura Dronzek (Greenwillow)
• That Book Woman by Heather Henson; illustrated by David Small (Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
• Chicken Cheeks by Michael Ian Black; illustrated by Kevin Hawkes (Simon & Schuster)
• The Circus Ship by Chris Van Dusen (Candlewick Press)
• Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal; illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld (Chronicle Books)
• Higher! Higher! by Leslie Patricelli (Candlewick Press)
• Just What Mama Needs by Sharlee Glenn (Harcourt)
• Most Loved in All the World by Tonya Hegamin; illustrated by Cozbi A. Cabrera (Houghton Mifflin)
• Tsunami by Kimiko Kajikawa; illustrated by Ed Young (Philomel)

2011 Informational Book Nominees

• 14 Cows for America by Carmen Deedy and Thomas Gonzalez (Peachtree Publishers)
• Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone (Candlewick Press)
• The Boy Who Invented TV: the Story of Philo Farnsworth by Kathleen Krull and Greg Couch (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Darwin by Alice McGinty and Mary Azarian (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children)
• Down, Down, Down: a Journey to the Bottom of the Sea by Steve Jenkins (Houghton Mifflin)
• George Washington Carver by Tonya Bolden (Abrams Books for Young Readers)
• Life in the Wild: George Shaller’s Struggle to Save the Last Great Beasts by Pamela S. Turner (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• Mermaid Queen: the Spectacular True Story of Annette Kellerman, Who Swam Her Way to Fame, Fortune & Swimsuit History by Shana Corey (Scholastic)
• Nic Bishop Frogs by Nic Bishop (Scholastic)
• You Never Heard of Sandy Kofax? by Jonah Winter and Andre Carriho (Schwartz and Wade)

2011 Poetry Nominees

• Be Glad Your Nose Is on Your Face by Jack Prelutsky (Greenwillow)
• The Bill Martin Jr. Big Book of Poetry edited by Bill Martin Jr. (Simon & Schuster)
• Button Up: Wrinkled Rhymes by Alice Schertle (Harcourt)
• Dinothesaurus: Prehistoric Poems and Paintings by Douglas Florian
• Far From You by Lisa Schroeder (Simon Pulse)
• A Fuzzy-Fast Blur: Poems about Pets by Laura Salas (Capstone Press)
• Partly Cloudy: Poems of Love and Longing by Gary Soto (Harcourt)
• Truckery Rhymes by Jon Scieszka (Simon & Schuster)
• The Underwear Salesman: Jobs for Better or Verse by J. Patrick Lewis (Ginee Seo Books)
• Whiff of Pine, Hint of Skunk by Deborah Ruddell (Margaret K. McElderry)

A Book Review

Cameron is an aimless, sarcastic stoner who is alienated from his family and has no real friends of which to speak. When he starts having hallucinations and loses control of his body a couple of times, everyone assumes he must be using hallucinogenic drugs. Not true: after getting fired from Buddha Burger, getting suspended from school, being forced into therapy by his parents, and having a run-in with a flaming toaster oven, he is finally diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob (a.k.a. “Mad Cow”) disease. It will deteriorate his brain and kill him.

It is at this point when things get interesting. A pink-haired punker angel, complete with combat boots, torn fishnets, and actual feather wings spray-painted with graffiti, appears to Cameron in his hospital room. She urges Cameron to escape the hospital and undertake a quest to find the mysterious Dr. X, a traveler through dimensions who has inadvertently brought dark energy back with him to our universe. It is this dark energy that is attacking Cameron’s brain, not Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and if he can find Dr. X and get him to close up the wormhole, he will not only find a cure for himself but save the universe!

What follows is a kaleidoscopic adventure full of quirky characters and a million plot twists and details. The book is stuffed with a mess of references, touching on everything from Norse mythology to Star Wars, quantum mechanics to MTV Spring Break. Best of all, some of the hippest “references,” such as the legendary mystical free jazz trumpet player Junior Webster, are actually entirely made up by the author. While the book at times reads like both a Percy Jackson title for the 17+ crowd and Paper Towns on acid, Don Quixote looms large in the background and the idea of living out one’s life in a week’s time hearkens back to Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Hilarious, weird, life affirming, surreal and ironic, above all Going Bovine is just a whole lot of wacky fun. (four stars)

[Flags: this book depicts drug use, pervasive profanity, and an irresponsible and somewhat ridiculous teenage fantasy sex scene. I hate sex scenes in books in general, and this one specifically knocks a half-point off my rating and makes it a definite “high school only” title. But really, if a dying teenage boy actually is dreaming his way through the end of his life, among other things of course he is going to dream himself up some sex, so maybe it can be forgiven?]

Going Bovine
Written by Libba Bray
Delacorte Books for Young Readers
496 pages
ISBN: 978-0385733977
Release Date: 22 September 2009
GoingBovine.com
Libba Bray – Official Website

A Book Review

I still think about the letter you asked me to write. It nags at me, even though you’re gone and there’s no one to give it to anymore. Sometimes I work on it in my head, trying to map out the story you asked me to tell, about everything that happened this past fall and winter. It’s all still there, like a movie I can watch when I want to. Which is never.

(When You Reach Me, page 2)

Miranda is finding notes addressed to her in the most obscure of places, asking her to write a letter. The note writer says he is coming to save the life of Miranda’s friend, and her letter will help him do it. Stranger still, the cryptic predictions included in the notes are starting to come true. Meanwhile, Miranda is just trying to get through life as a latchkey sixth grader in New York City. Sal, her lifelong best friend and neighbor, gets beat up randomly by a kid neither of them know, and afterward tells her he doesn’t want to be friends with her anymore. Now Miranda must focus on troubles such as trying to make new friends and avoiding the crazy homeless man that hangs out at the mailbox around the corner from her house. Placing the mysterious in the midst of the mundane, Rebecca Stead gives us a down-to-earth story of the home and school life of a twelve-year-old girl, interwoven with intriguing science fiction and mystery elements.

Young readers will immediately identify with the believable voice of Miranda, particularly as she navigates the tough social world of sixth grade. In fact, all of the characters are engaging and fully-realized. The storyline is extremely enveloping. Smart, shifting narrative that jumps forward and back in time keeps the clues and ideas coming without revealing too much. However, what puts this book into the running for greatness is that the day-to-day interactions of Miranda with her friends and her mother are just as captivating as the bizarre happenings with the notes, and often the notes totally escape your mind, just as they do Miranda’s. The realistic and the speculative are on entirely equal terms.

It could be easy to take for granted just how perfectly When You Reach Me fulfills the dictates of a great children’s novel. The book is clever and intricate, but not confusing. It introduces many big ideas and morals, but in small and subtle ways. It’s a relatively high interest read, and yet it also could hold up to the scrutiny of any elementary upper grade language arts curriculum. For the quality of this book and its likely ability to please young people, educators, and parents all at the same time, it seems like a serious contender for the Newbery. Indeed, search the Internet and you will find many people saying so. Unfortunately, it’s possible that such a little book could be smothered by the hype that has preceded it and that this review further promulgates, as new readers may come to it with unreal expectations. Remember, it’s not a book unlike anything you’ve ever read, it’s not a grandiose fantasy, and it’s probably never going to sell five million copies and give rise to a series of blockbuster movies. It’s just a little novel done extremely well, which turns out to be a rare thing. (Five Stars)

When You Reach Me
Written by Rebecca Stead
Wendy Lamb Books / Random House
200 pages
ISBN: 978-0-385-90664-7
Release Date: 14 Jul 2009
www.rebeccasteadbooks.com

A Book Review

Nayeli, a recent high school graduate who works at a taco shop/internet cafe in the tiny tropical town of Tres Camarones in Sinaloa, Mexico, arrives one day at a startling realization: there are no men in Tres Camarones. Her own father, formerly the only cop in town, left several years ago for the fabled United States, and so did all the others. Not only do Nayeli and her girlfriends have no one to date and eventually marry, but now they have no one to protect them from the bottom-feeding narcos and bandidos who, anxious for their own territory, have recently moved in on the remote, defenseless village. Watching The Magnificent Seven at the local movie house, Nayeli is inspired with the solution to the plight of Tres Camerones: she will travel North to “Los Yunaites” and round up her father and other able-bodied men to return to Mexico and save their village.  So, with support from the village, Nayeli and three friends begin their hilarious and harrowing journey through Mexico to Tijuana and eventually, hopefully, to the United States, where they expect to quickly enlist seven Mexican “soldiers and policeman” to repatriate and save their village in short order.

This book is at once a winning comedy and an epic adventure tale of a journey into mysterious, dangerous lands (such as Tijuana, Las Vegas, and the Colorado Rockies).  It is also injected with striking moments of social realism, depicting the poverty and desperation of both those who cross the borders and those who stay behind.  It provides a fascinating outsiders’ perspective on the United States as well as a Mexican perspective on border-crossing and immigration. Having read and loved several instances of Americans on adventures or misadventures in Mexico (e.g. Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses / Border Trilogy and Kerouac’s On the Road), it was refreshing to read of Mexicans on an adventure in the exotic United States.

This story is filled to overflowing with endearing, memorable and quirky characters (examples: Nayeli’s formidable Aunt Irma, nicknamed La Osa (“the she-bear”), in her younger years a Mexican bowling champion, now running for mayor or Tres Camerones; and Atómiko, a self-made samurai warrior and superhero refuse picker of the Tijuana garbage dump who gives new meaning to “trash talk.”  The mood of much of this book is such that Jared Hess (writer/director of Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre) just might be an ideal choice as director of a film version.  Though the characters are amusing and likeable, many of them are a little bit one-dimensional.  The characters’ lack of depth holds the novel back from perfection, but is serviceable enough in a comedic adventure context.

Although marketed as an adult novel, the book might have great appeal to teenage readers because of the age and sentiments of its protagonists, its humorous and exciting storyline, and numerous youth culture references.  Indeed, I almost wonder if, had this been Urrea’s first novel, a publisher might have marketed it as a young adult book. The cover art, though tasteful, does not seem to properly represent the book’s lighthearted tone and contemporary, adventurous story, and was probably designed to visually tie the book to Urrea’s successful adult novel The Hummingbird’s Daughter, which I have not yet read.  It appears as though, in attempting to market this book to Urrea’s existing literary audience, they may have missed out on a potential new and different audience in teenagers.  Furthermore, a quick survey of Internet reviews suggests that, because of this marketing misstep, some readers expecting “serious literature” have been turned off by the comedic elements and simple characterizations, two things that may actually work in its favor as a young adult book.  All in all, I think I would actually recommend this book first and foremost as a book for teenagers; it would be at home in contemporary YA literature.

[Note: the book does contain some explicit language and, of course, an irritating, not-really-necessary and not-entirely-condoned but nonetheless-apparently-obligatory-in-contemporary-literature sex scene. Unfortunately, it's nothing out of the ordinary even for YA literature.]

In her search for heroes, Nayeli becomes the true heroine of the story, her journey rife with ordeals, excitement, distractions, and sorrows. She saves the mission and their lives on numerous occasions, and after trying the hard and dangerous way, always manages to find the help they need in the most unlikely of places and people.  The tragicomic, foreign, and fresh view of both Mexico and the U.S.A. that Urrea portrays through the journey of Nayeli and her companions will stay with the reader for a long time.  Four stars.

Into the Beautiful North: A Novel
written by Luis Alberto Urrea
Little, Brown and Company
342 pages
ISBN: 978-0-316-02527-0
Release Date: May 19, 2009
www.luisurrea.com

A Book Review

Rebelling against the structure and strictures of the traditional coming-of-age novel (with the very first sentence the narrator informs us that he’s not going to go into “all that David Copperfield kind of crap,”) this book instead gives us an unfiltered, uncensored and un-”adult”-erated flash into the life and brain of teenager Holden Caulfield as he wanders around New York City for a couple of days and nights after being kicked out of yet another prep school, not ready to go home and face his parents.  There is no epic adventure or crisis, we are simply pulled in by Holden’s hilarious, confessional narration, which from page to page is obnoxious, insightful, vulgar, sensitive, spazzy, intelligent, depressed, distracted and empathetic. Above all, Holden seems to be in search of integrity both in himself and in the world at large; he constantly rails against “phoniness” wherever he sees it. Salinger captures adolescent confusion and detachment like no one before probably ever had; we are right with Holden as he wrestles with his confusion over love, sex and the hypocrisy and evil of the world. Rather than showing us the boy growing into a man, we are thrust into a very vivid moment right in midst of the “growth,” and are left to conjecture what will ultimately become of our narrator.

Comparing it to my recent reading, it seems that much of contemporary adolescent literature is heavily indebted to this book; everyone from John Green’s narrators in Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns to Neal Shusterman’s Antsy Bonano,  Marcelo of Marcelo in the Real World and the narrator of The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao seem to be taking at least some of their cues from Holden Caulfield.  It may just be that Salinger was so remarkably successful at creating an authentic teenage voice that subsequent teenage voices in more recent works remind one of Holden’s voice.  This preeminence will make Catcher in the Rye feel very familiar to readers of today’s YA fiction, but still occasionally shock in its frankness.

Something must be said in regards to the explicit language in the book; although it certainly is full of it, any reader that becomes fixated on its inappropriateness has completely missed the point.  The narrator simply has the guts to describe real and pervasive dialogue and circumstances that some people would want cut out.  Again, this speaks directly to Holden’s desire for integrity; to censor anything real because it might shock or offend would be supremely phony.  Furthermore, much of the power of the book comes as we recognize how troubled he is by these compromising circumstances and moral quandaries.  His oftentimes empathetic reactions to such situations are extremely insightful.

I’m not exactly sure if this is a book that needs much more hyping.  Almost sixty years after its first publication it is still moving more units than many books ever do at the height of their publicity cycles.  Clearly it is well known, and a lot of the kids are hip to it.  Still, I don’t think this book can be recommended enough.  This is a masterful and influential piece of literature that works as well as a high-interest read for teenagers as it does as a text for serious literary study.  Every high school library should have this book on their shelves, and it should probably be displayed because the students will pick it up; don’t make them go to the public library for it.  This is a tried and true classic that has only increased in relevance since its publication.

A Book Review

Marcelo is looking forward to his coming summer job as caretaker of the therapy ponies at Paterson, a special school for children with disabilities which he himself has attended for years.  He is an intelligent but sheltered teenager with a condition that places him on the Autism spectrum.   However, Marcelo’s father, wanting him to gain experience in the “real world,” pushes him into a job in the mail room of his Boston corporate law firm.  If he isn’t successful at the mailroom job and at following what his father terms “the rules of the real world,” he will be required to go to a regular high school for his senior year rather than his beloved Paterson.  And so the reader is thrust with Marcelo into the competitive, confusing and relativistic world of the law firm, viewing it all through his fresh eyes.

It is absolutely riveting to follow Marcelo’s thoughts as he confronts the politics, deceptions, and evils that surround him in the law firm and begins to wrestle with what is right and wrong and how he should conduct his life.  His observations and occasional misapprehensions of the words and actions of those who surround him are by turns humorous and startlingly insightful.  At times the reader is almost embarrassed at Marcelo’s naivety, only to be dumbfounded seconds later by his deft and logical breakdown of a common perplexity of human behavior.  The reader should not have any problem identifying with this character; his autistic-based obsessions and limitations come to seem not so different from those of anyone else in the story or in real life.  His social shortcomings are countered by great perception and moral aptitude.  A lot of credit should be given to the author for creating such a breathing character.

In a day when many young adult books deal with sex in an extremely casual manner, this book is refreshing and courageous for intelligently suggesting that such casual sex may actually be emotionally and spiritually destructive, and making cogent arguments for sexual morality and high ethics in general.  The book is also courageous for bringing religion to bear in these moral arguments in a sophisticated and respectful way; Marcelo is extremely interested in religion and God, and both leans upon and questions his religious knowledge as he is confronted with moral quandaries at the law firm.

Filled with believable characters, realistic situations, beautiful metaphors and stunning ideas, this is a brave, masterful, coming-of-age novel that is a likely contender for the major young adult awards of the coming year.

Marcelo in the Real World
Written by Francisco X. Stork
Arthur A. Levine / Scholastic
315 pages
ISBN: 978-0-545-05474-4
Release Date: Mar 2009
franciscostork.com

A Book Review

Mary lives in a place simply known as the village. It is surrounded by protective fences which must constantly be patrolled and repaired to keep the village safe from the forest beyond and its threat of the Unconsecrated – shuffling, moaning, infected undead that, for all the villagers know, may have overrun the entire earth, save this last sanctuary of normal human life. All her life Mary has heard the folklore passed down through her family telling of the ocean and a world that existed beyond the village and the forest. As much as the fences keep death out, Mary begins to feel that they are keeping her in as well. Her childhood friendships have matured into a troublesome love triangle which puts her at odds with the will of the Sisterhood who control the village, and breaches soon break out everywhere, not only in the fences, but in her family life, friendships,and what she thought she knew of her village and the world outside.

To a certain extent, Carrie Ryan has done with a post-zombie apocalypse world what Stephenie Meyer did with vampirelore, eschewing some of the horror elements in favor of romance and soap-opera-style melodrama. As a main character, Mary causes quite a bit of consternation. She is often selfish, lustful, whiny, fickle, rash, and illogical. On numerous occasions throughout the book I found myself arguing with her or telling her to shut up. It is not entirely clear whether it was the intention of the author to paint Mary in such a disagreeable, morally ambiguous light, or if it is partly due to a lack of details and characterization. For example, what Mary speaks of incessantly as her “love” for Travis we interpret mostly as lust, simply because for much of the book we are given few details about him beyond his good looks and her physical desire for him. My irritation with Mary is actually what kept me going on this book, as I was hoping to finish it just so I could give it a terrible review. However, she did grow on me as the book progressed. She eventually does come to question some of her own actions, asking herself the same questions the reader has wanted to ask her throughout the first part of the book. At one point even she becomes cognizant of the fact that, much like the Unconsecrated that surround her, she is on an inexorable path, ever hungry but never filled. Her selfish flaws and inconsistencies make her a frustrating, but nonetheless real and complex character.

Key questions never answered, too much “telling” of melodramatic feelings and thoughts, and a lazy lack of details keep this from being the book it could have been, but the events are so compelling and Mary’s erratic, destructive behaviors become so fun to follow that it is still an entertaining read. And of course a sequel, The Dead-Tossed Waves, is coming out next year. For the quality of the book itself I would generously give three stars, but for a teen audience four stars because it is a high interest read that may pull in reluctant readers. Thus, 3.5 stars all around.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth
Written by Carrie Ryan
Delacorte / Random House
310 pages
ISBN: 978-0-385-90631-9
Release Date: March 2009
carrieryan.com

The Order of Odd-Fish * Written by James Kennedy

After a mysterious absence of forty years, aged Hollywood starlet Lily Larouche suddenly finds herself back in the Ruby Palace, her old mansion in the California Desert, with no memory of where she has been all this time.  At the same time, she finds a crying baby girl in her washing machine, with a note: “This is Jo. Please take care of her. But beware. This is a DANGEROUS baby.”  As the novel begins, Jo, now 13, is trying to stay out of the way at one of her “Aunt” Lily’s out-of-control Hollywood costume parties at the Ruby Palace, when a strange, old Russian colonel sneaks in and informs her that he has come to protect her because his intestines told him to do so.  Soon, the Russian has taken a bullet for her, a package with her name on it has fallen out of the sky, the Russian’s ascot-wearing, talking cockroach sidekick has shown up on the scene, and a Chinese billionaire who is an aspiring diabolical villain is after all of them.   And that’s only a taste of all that happens in just the first few pages.  Every time I thought the story had settled into its comfort spot and would just flow along, Kennedy turned everything on its head and upped the absurdity ante again, and again, and again.  And, amazingly, every time it works splendidly.  Overflowing with laugh-out-loud moments, totally unexpected plot twists, and off-the-wall fantastical details, this is the most fun I’ve had with a book in a long time.  Highly recommended, particularly to anyone who gets bored easily, and anyone who has ever wondered what a novel written by Dr. Seuss might be like.

Delacorte Books
416 pages
ISBN: 978-0-385-73543-8
Release Date: August 2008

The Kingdom on the Waves  *  Written by M.T. Anderson

Kingdom on the Waves continues the fascinating narrative of the young man Octavian, describing his time in the royally controlled and besieged city of Boston, as well as his subsequent adventures in seeking out and joining the Royal Ethiopian Regiment of Lord Dunmore, exiled governor of the colony of Virginia.  Dunmore has issued a proclamation promising freedom to all slaves who will escape from their rebel masters and join the King’s Army in suppressing the rebellion of the American colonists.  Much of the volume recounts the battles, trials and tragic circumstances of these African-American soldiers devoted to the cause of liberty, fighting others also devoted to the cause of liberty, albeit a different liberty.   This book brings back to light the real moral ambiguities of the American Revolution by presenting the circumstances from the often-ignored perspectives of royalists and slaves in the American colonies.  As in the first Octavian Nothing volume, Anderson reveals himself as a master at re-creating authentic 18th Century language and tone, having immersed himself for six years exclusively in writings of or about this historical period.  These are smart, challenging books that illustrate that books with the “Young Adult” label do not necessarily have to be patronizing or insulting to the intelligence and capacity of teenage readers.

Candlewick Press
561 pages
ISBN: 978-0-7636-2950-2
Release Date: October 2008

The Pox Party * Written by M.T. Anderson

In the Novanglian College of Lucidity in Boston, the young boy Octavian is raised as the noble son of an African princess.  He is waited upon and receives an education in science, history and philosophy, has become proficient in Latin and Greek, as well as a virtuoso of the violin.  And yet, his every action and bodily function is observed and recorded, and his mother, though a personage of royalty, is sometimes constrained from her own will by the men of the college.  In actuality, Octavian is a slave and the subject of a scientific experiment.  The philosophers of the college wish to ascertain whether, given the same opportunities, an African has the same capacities as a European.  When the college’s longstanding patronage falls through and the slave-owning funders of the college make it clear that they want the “experimental” education of the boy to fail, Octavian becomes personally aware of and subjected to the true horrors and rigors of slavery in the American colonies.  In the midst of the turmoil of the Revolutionary War, Octavian makes his escape, but has nowhere to turn in a land where people are crying out for liberty, and yet would hold him captive.  Written as a first-person manuscript that incredibly recreates the diction and writing style of the late 18th century, as well as incorporating actual letters and documents from historical figures of the period, this is a fascinating, harrowing book with a hint of hope, as the story of Octavian continues in a companion volume, Kingdom on the Waves.

Candlewick Press
351 pages
ISBN: 978-0-7636-2402-6 (hardcover) / 978-0-7636-3679-1 (paperback)
Release Date: September 2006