The Printz Award Winners: 2009

How nice to have a little break for the holidays. I got quite a bit of reading done, so I'm ready to give you my latest report on the books the American Library Association deemed "exemplify literary excellence in young adult literature" in 2009.

Winner:
Melina Marchetta, Jellicoe Road
Honor books:
M. T. Anderson, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 2: The Kingdom on the Waves
Margo Lanagan, Tender Morsels
E. Lockhart, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
Terry Pratchett, Nation

Anderson's Octavian Nothing, Vol. 2: The first volume in this historical pair was an honor book in 2007, and was one of my favorites that year for its unique perspective on the American Revolution. The first book recounted Octavian's journey from coddled experimental subject to escaped slave, and in this book he decides the road to freedom is best achieved by joining Loyalist naval forces. His experiences are sometimes harrowing and always interesting, as he develops into a young man and tries to decide what freedom means to him. The "discovered journal" format continues to serve the story well, giving us a somewhat ambiguous ending that seems true to history. Together these two books were one of my favorites I read last year.

Lanagan's Tender Morsels: I'd really enjoyed Lanagan's Printz-honor collection from 2006, so I was looking forward to see what she'd do with the novel form. She started with the Snow White-Rose Red fairy tale, sprinkled in a strange mountain ritual involving bearskins, and came up with this astonishing fantasy in which an abused girl is transported into her "heaven" with her two baby daughters. As the two girls grow up, they get glimpses of the real world they left behind; when one accidentally returns to the real world, her mother and sister are forced to follow. They must leave "heaven" behind, and the three women's differing reactions to a world that—unlike their heaven—contains danger and violence along with opportunity and real love is fascinating to read. This is fantasy with real depth, but it's for more mature readers; the abuse the two girls' mother suffers is heart-wrenching to read.

Lockhart's Disreputable History: This book was a lot of fun, falling into the boarding-school genre established in that first YA, Catcher in the Rye, complete with a pranks and a secret society. What I loved about this book, though, was that Frankie's involvement with school pranks was more about her exploring her role as friend/girlfriend/clique member and what it means to try to fit in. So yes, this was a fun story about boarding school life among the rich people, but it had a real depth to it that would appeal to any teen (or older reader struggling with identity issues. (Disreputable History was also a National Book Award nominee in 2008.)

Pratchett's Nation: I've enjoyed several of Pratchett's works for adults, including his "Discworld" fantasies and the apocalypse satire Good Omens; he has that British flair for wordplay and dry humor I enjoy so much. This book seemed very different to me; not only was it "alternate history" rather than fantasy, it had a sincerity and earnestness I don't really see in his satires. There's still the same sense of wordplay, though, as the young island boy Mau struggles to unite the survivors that arrive on his island Nation in the South Pacific. The first survivor he meets is Daphne, who doesn't know that a plague has made her father the King of Great Britain instead of a very distant relative. (This is where the "alternate" part of the history comes in; Queen Victoria and most of her brood were still alive and kicking around 1860, when the novel takes place.) Although Mau's struggles for survival are engaging, as is his resourcefulness, the novel is really considering bigger issues, like are there gods? What is our duty to them, to ourselves, and to each other? What makes a nation? Although these are huge themes, they never overwhelm the book, owing to Pratchett's lively humor and intricate plot. Another book with an inner depth underlying an entertaining surface.

Marchetta's Jellicoe Road: And another Australian storms the Printz Awards! Although this is another book set inside a boarding school (this one in the Australian countryside) with its own rituals and battles, it is more of a family mystery—and what a mystery Taylor Markham has facing her. Abandoned by her mother at age 11, Taylor has grown up at the school, semi-adopted by Hannah, a young woman who lives on the school grounds. When Hannah disappears with no word, Taylor uses the manuscript Hannah left behind to try and decipher what has happened to her. She is aided by school chums and by the leaders of the townies and cadets who battle for territory around the school every year. As the story shifts between present, Taylor's shared past with the cadet leader Griggs, and Hannah's story of her own tragic youth, Taylor learns to open up emotionally even as the puzzle facing her becomes more complex. (Sorry, not going to be more specific and ruin the mystery for you.) This book was a little confusing to get into, what with all the shifting accounts, but it was worth it to get involved in an intricate mystery with a very satisfying resolution. It's nice when an author can take multiple threads and tie them up neatly at the end—good plotting is tough and it's fun to see it done well.

So all in all, another extremely good year for Printz books, maybe one of the best. And when I look at some of the books that didn't make it onto this list but onto the National Book Award list—like Laurie Halse Anderson's Chains, another wonderful historical novel set during the Revolution—you'd be safe to say it was a great year overall for YA books.

Photo of the Week--1/17/11

This was just too cool not to feature on the blog: the Prague Orloj, or Astronomical Clock. First of all, it's scientific, with one dial showing the position of the sun and the moon in the sky, along with other astronomical details. Second, it's historic: the first part built around 1410, with a calendar dial added around 1490 and moving statues of the Apostles sometime in the 17th century. Third, it's shiny! Beautiful design, gold details, just pretty to look at. And it managed to survive Nazi shelling during the Prague Uprising of 1945, although several portions had to be repaired. And last, of course, we saw it and took pictures! It's part of Prague's Old Town City Hall and by visiting in January low season, we got a shot without tons of tourists in it. Hope you enjoy it too.

This brain is offline...

... because I am busy stuffing it full of 19th-century American history. I might have said that this year I'm devoting my professional writing to an entire book, not just a series of essays. You may wonder, how different is it to write a whole book from writing a 3000-word essay? When you're writing nonfiction, it's really not that different, and I can break it down into four simple* steps:

1. Research your subject. This means read, read, read, read. 
2. Take good notes. While you read, highlight significant facts and especially quotes that you might like to reproduce in your piece. A juicy quote from a subject can liven up a piece, or give your argument more weight.
3. Make an outline. This starts by reviewing your notes (or in the case of smaller pieces, re-reading your research). Certain important points will usually jump out at you, either because they're repeated frequently or they're interesting. When outlining, start broadly and then get more specific.
4. Write it together. Once you've got an outline, you can fill it in with those interesting facts and quotes, connecting them all with good transitions and observations. Before you know it, you have a finished essay, or even a finished book! 

Of course, writing a book means each step is more intensive and takes longer, and the outlining step is crucial to keep you organized. Right now, however, I'm on step one: READ READ READ READ. I have a stack of history books over a foot high, and I've only gotten through about 3.5 inches of them. So I have little more for anything else in my head; the hamsters are racing on their wheels as fast as they can, chasing facts about robber barons and greenbacks and the Grange and strikes and all sorts of fun stuff. They would have to slow down to create something for this blog, so you may not see much from me for a while ... although I am still slogging away at the Printz books, and they just announced this year's winners, so I'll get a few more of those in this winter. In the meantime, you can look at the pretty pictures every week.

*simple to describe, not necessarily to do...

Photo of the Week--1/10/11

I know my theme this go-round was "interesting architecture," so why am I including this picture of a snow field? Well, if you look closely along the horizon of the snow, you'll see some glowing runway lights: this is not just a snow field, it's an airport runway! When we took our little jaunt up to the Arctic Circle at Christmas 1999, this was where we landed in Ivalo, Finland. The terminal was a small, stone building with two gates, and the runways were really snowways. Now, that's how to make your architecture fit in with the landscape!

2010 Final Book Report

Here's where I break down the 104 books I read last year (104!), and look at totals and trends.

In 2010 I read:

104 books total (exactly 2 per week)
80 books for the first time
59 books for children or young adults
19 fantasies
14 science fiction
12 Austen related
10 were nonfiction/memoir (5 for work)
4 classics for first time

These are good numbers compared to 2009; not only did I read 12 more books over the year, more of them were books I was reading for the first time. While last year 71% of my reading was new books, this year I reached 77%. A majority this year were for young audiences, and it was great to see the quality of writing in the genre. Not that there was ever any doubt in my mind about that, but now if anyone ever pooh-poohs YA books to me, I can say, "Yeah? Have you read X? or Y? Z? or the whole alphabet, for that matter?"

I'm not sure I'll be able to get to 100 books in 2011, although I'd like to. I'm going to be working on writing a reference book, and that means I'll be doing a lot of reading for research. So you're going to see a lot of nonfiction on my lists ... hopefully the fun stuff won't get squeezed out. In any case, here's my summary of 2010:

Favorite book of the 1st quarter: Empire of Ivory, by Naomi Novik, a dragon fantasy set during the Napoleonic Wars that does a great job of world-building and thinking of alternate cultures. 

Favorite book of the 2nd quarter: Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson, a compelling portrait of a teenage girl battling anorexia.

Favorite book of the 3rd quarter: Freewill, by Chris Lynch, an amazing experiment in second-person narration that makes the plot's central mystery even more compelling.

Favorite book of the 4th quarter:
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, by M. T. Anderson, a fresh historical approach to the American Revolution.

Favorite book of 2010: Revolution, by Jennifer Donnelly, a seamless weaving of contemporary teen trauma and fascinating historical fiction, set in modern-day New York/Paris and Revolution-era France.

Again, the majority of my best books were written for young adults. You're only young once, but you can read YAs forever—and with more people using e-readers (making it easy to hide what you're reading on the bus), I predict a continuing rise in popularity for the genre.

2010 Book Report: Fourth Quarter

So did I manage 100 books in 2010, or did my extremely busy fall defeat my best intentions? Check out my reading list from the last quarter.

Key: C: Children's; F: Fantasy; H: Historical; Hr: Horror; M: Mystery; MG: Middle Grade (ages 8-12); NF: Nonfiction; P: Poetry; SF: Science Fiction; SS: Short Stories; V: Verse novel; YA: Young Adult (age 13+); *not in the last ten years at least; ^for work; #e-book.

10/05/10: Gary Schmidt, Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (YA, H, 1)
10/14/10: Kenneth Oppel, Airborn (YA, F, 1)
10/18/10: Meg Rosoff, How I Live Now (YA, 2)
10/24/10: Lois McMaster Bujold, Cryoburn (SF, 1)
10/26/10: Margo Lanagan, Black Juice (YA, F, SS, 1)
10/31/10: Marilyn Nelson, A Wreath for Emmett Till (P, 1)
11/05/10: Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger (YA, 1)
11/10/10: Elizabeth Partridge,  John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth (YA, NF, 1)
11/18/10: Sonya Hartnett, Surrender (YA, 1)
11/26/10: Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese (YA, graphic novel, 1)
12/05/10: M.T. Anderson, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Vol. 1 (YA, H, 1)
12/11/10: Anderson, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Vol. 2 (YA, H, 1)
12/13/10: Justine Larbalestier, Liar (YA, 1)
12/16/10: A.M. Jenkins, Repossessed (YA, F, 1)
12/18/10: Judith Clarke, One Whole and Perfect Day (YA, 1)
12/22/10: Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (SF, 3)
12/24/10: Stephanie Hemphill, You Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath (YA, V, 1)
12/26/10: Geraldine McCaughrean, The White Darkness (YA, 1)
12/28/10: Emma Donoghue, Room (1)
12/29/10: David Weber, On Basilisk Station (SF, 4 or 5#)
12/31/10: Weber, The Honor of the Queen (SF, 4 or 5#)

Total for the quarter: 21 books, giving me a grand total for 2010 of 104 books! I feel very pleased to have made my 100-book goal, despite a very busy fall. Again, most of these books were young adult books I read for my Printz Award project, which means not only did I read a lot of quality books, I got a lot of market research done.

So what was my favorite book of the quarter? I think it would have to be M. T. Anderson's two-part historical novel, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing. Not only is the historical aspect really interesting—it's set in Boston during the American Revolution and told from the point of view of a slave—but so is the form, which is full of re-created "journals," letters, and articles. I love a good historical, especially one that can bring a fresh perspective to a familiar era.

Check back in a couple of days for my final accounting of my year in books, as I break down what kinds of books I read and look forward to 2011.

Photo of the Week--1/3/11

We found this interesting site on a weekend excursion to Jersey, in the Channel Islands. La Hougue Bie has cool buildings from different eras in one place. Atop the "hougue" (mound, in Norman) is a medieval chapel. At the bottom of the picture, where Boy is standing, we have a Neolithic ritual site that is about 5500 years old. Although this type of site is called a "passage grave," its primary function was ceremonial, not for burials. When they excavated and restored the entrance to this site, they discovered that on the equinox, the sun's rays would shine all the way into the back of the chamber at sunrise. Proving once again that an interest in astronomy isn't geeky, it's historical.