Colorado Blue Spruce Award 2013

Last week I  presented a workshop at the 2013 CCIRA conference announcing the winner of the Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award for 2013 and the nominees for 2014. The first book in Rick Riordan's Heroes of Olympus series, The Lost Hero, is this year's winner. This new series introduces three of the demigods mentioned in the prophecy in the Percy Jackson series, which says 7 demigods will bear arms at the Doors of Death.  Their nemesis is Gaea who aims to defeat the Olympians and take over the world. A list of the  2014 nominees and book talks for each are available on the Blue Spruce website at http://www.coloradobluespruceaward.org.  In addition to promoting the new nominees, I was also excited to announce that the Blue Spruce Award won an honorable mention for the Intellectual Freedom Award from the NCTE. It was commended for providing young readers an opportunity to communicate about books without adult censorship and promoting books that might not have otherwise come to the attention of young readers. Over half the books that have won the award during the last 27 years have been challenged by one entity or another.

Although I have read many of the nominees, one book that I was prompted to read through its nomination is I'll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan, who is a film writer and director. This book, which is a riveting combination of the romance and survival genres, introduces Emily Bell who believes in destiny. When she is forced to sing "I'll Be There" as a church solo, despite her mediocre voice, she decides its fate because during her humiliation she locks eyes with Sam Border who is sitting in the back of the church. At first sight, they are connected. Sam and his little brother, Riddle have spent their entire lives being constantly uprooted by their mentally unstable father. Sam takes solace in attending random churches, where for a few moments he can escape his life. When he falls for Emily and she introduces him to her family, everything changes. As Sam and Riddle are welcomed into the Bells' lives, they witness the warmth and protection of a family for the first time. Then tragedy strikes, and they are once again on the run with their evil father.  When they escape from him, they're left fighting for survival in the desolate wilderness, and wondering if they'll ever get back to the family they have learned to love.

Ruta Sepetys, acclaimed author of Between Shades of Gray, has a new book out called Out of the Easy, about a prostitute's daughter in 1950s New Orleans, who is trying to escape from her mother's fate and attend college. 17-year-old Josie Moraine dreams of going to Smith College, but then a mysterious death in the French Quarter derails her plans.  Working in a book store owned by the father of her best friend Patrick, Josie meets Forrest Hearne, a wealthy man from Tennessee who turns up dead soon thereafter.  Josie is sure her mother and her gangster boyfriend are somehow involved. She turns to Willie Woodley, the madam of Conti Street, for advice on avoiding getting embroiled in the investigation and escaping to the East Coast. Although Willie has sincere affection for Josie, she has other plans for her future. No matter how hard Josie tries to get away from the Big Easy, the clandestine world of New Orleans throws up road blocks at every turn.

Finally, the 2013 Alex Awards (adult books with special appeal to teens) include Where'd You Go Bernadette: A Novel by Maria Semple and The Round House, the National Book Award winner by Louise Erdrich. While reading both of these books, I thought about the possible appeal for young adult readers. In the first book Bernadette Fox, a revolutionary architect, disappears and her teenage daughter Bee follows her to Antarctica in hopes of finding her mother, whom everyone else assumes is dead.  In The Round House the rape of a Native American woman is seen through the eyes of her 13-year-old son, who is also trying to get to the bottom of what happened to his mother.  I can recommend both of these books for mature readers.

 

Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Awards

Last month Sarah Pauly and I presented a workshop at the CCIRA convention about the Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Awards.  We did book talks on the 2013 nominees and announced this year's winner, which is Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw by Jeff Kinney.  Book talks for the 2013 nominees are now available on the website at http://www.coloradobluespruceaward.org/. Several books that are the first in series were nominated, including The Comet's Curse (Galahad series by Dom Testa), Fallen (Fallen series by Lauren Kate), The Lost Hero (Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan), Matched (Matched series by Allie Condie, Mission Unstoppable (Genius Files by Dan Gutman), Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life (Dork Diaries series by Rachel Renee Russell) and Witch and Wizard (Witch and Wizard series by James Patterson.) Two sequels, Crescendo (Hush Hush series by Becca Fitzpatrick) and The Scorch Trials (The Maze Runner series by James Dashner) were also nominated. I always find those nominations interesting, because so many sequels are dissastisfying bridges to the final novel in the series.

I have recently read Goddess Interrupted by Aimee Carter, A Million Suns by Beth Revis and Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver, which are all second books in series.  Goddess Interrupted continues the saga of Kate Winters, who married Henry, the god of the underworld in The Goddess Test.  Just as she is about to be crowned Queen, Henry is abducted by the King of the Titans. Kate must enlist the help of Henry's ex-wife Persephone to help save him.  In A Million Suns the crew from Across the Universe continues to hurtle into outer space. Elder is now in control of the ship, but when he takes the inhabitants off Phydus, the mind controlling drug that makes them passive, chaos erupts.  He and Amy have to work together to discover the truth about life on the Godspeed. Both of these sequels basically end on a "to be continued" note.

However, Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver is one of the most satisfying sequels I've read in a long time. Although the story could almost stand alone, I would recommend first reading Delirium, the introductory book in this dystopian romance, which takes place in world where love is a disease and all eighteen-year-olds must undergo a surgery that is considered a cure.  Right before Lena Holloway's procedure, she falls in love with Alex, who is an uncured Invalid living in the Wilds, but passing in the Valid world.  At the end of the book they attempt to escape into the Wilds, to live a vagabond life filled with passion.  As Pandemonium opens Lena is near death and Alex is missing and presumed dead.  She is nursed back to health by a band of rebel Invalids and decides to join their resistance movement.  The story is told through a series of flashbacks to her convalescence and present-day accounts that chronicle her undercover work in the Valid world.  There she is abducted from a rally along with Julian, the uncured son of the DFA (a movement supporting the cure) leader, by a group of Scavengers hoping to get a ransom.  During their incarceration, they fall in love.  Their escape and subsequent adventures are action packed and lead to a rewarding conclusion. The sequel's success can be attributed to perfect blend of action and suspense, paired with Lena's equally compelling evolution from a wounded bird into a courageous resitance fighter. The startling revelation at the end of the story, which sets up Requiem, the final book in the trilogy (due out February 2013), is icing on the cake.  The series has also been optioned by Fox 2000 to become a movie.

The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials

In additon to presenting at the CCIRA convention in February, I attended several terrific workshops, one of which was the Colorado Blue Spruce YA Book Award Session. The Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award recognizes the most popular books among middle and high school students in the State of Colorado. Teens nominate their favorite titles and select the winner - adults do not vote. At the workshop the 2011 winner of the Blue Spruce Award, Rick Riordan's The Last Olympian, was announced, as well as the list of 2012 nominees. I am now on the Blue Spruce Award Committee and will be writing book talks for the nominees which can be found on their website at http://www.cal-webs.org/bluespruce/ later this spring. One of the nominees is The Maze Runner by James Dasher. Coincidentally, I have just finished its sequel The Scorch Trials.

The Maze Runner is the first book in a new dystopian trilogy. It introduces Thomas, who is an amnesiac thrust into the center of an enormous maze name the Glade where other teenage boys are struggling to survive. The boys arrive at the Glade through an empty freight elevator and have no memory of who they are or how they got there. Outside the Glade technological monsters called Grievers are lurking. Each day the boys send out Runners who are looking for a way out through the maze that surrounds their oasis of safety. Each night they must lock themselves into the Glade so that the marauding Grievers can’t kill them. As Thomas, who becomes a maze runner, struggles to adjust to this foreign world, the group’s leader tells him, "Old life's over, new life's begun. Learn the rules quick.” Then the elevator delivers Teresa, a comatose girl who triggers something in Thomas’s memory. Attached to her is a message which says no more food or supplies will be delivered and she will be the last teen sent. The boys realize that it’s now or never. The Maze must be solved before supplies run out and the Grievers attack. When readers finish this exciting dystopian thriller, they can dive right into the sequel, The Scorch Trials.

In The Scorch Trials Thomas and Teresa find their problems are not over. After one day of rest, they are tasked to cross an expanse of earth, which was scorched by sun flares. The Scorch is teeming with Cranks, people inflected with an insanity inducing disease known as the Flare. The teens are told that they are infected with the Flare, but if they make it across the desert, they will receive a cure and their problems will be over. This action packed adventure tests the teens surival skills as well as their loyalty to each other. Readers will be clamoring for the final book in the triology.