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Over at the YALSA Blog, I've been interviewing the six authors of the five finalists for The Morris Award; winner will be announced at ALA's Youth Media Awards at its Midwinter Meeting in Boston on Monday, January 18 from 8-10 p.m. at the Westin Copley Place Essex Center South.

Here are the interviews, along with links to my reviews of each book.


ASH by Malinda Lo

From my review: "This retelling unfolds slowly, deliciously. It's an internal story; a story about Ash grieving the loss of her parents, shutting down from it, and eventually choosing life and love. This is a tale about recovering from grief and unbearable loss. . . . Take note, librarians and teachers looking for a great book with both literary merit and one that encourages deep discussion; you'll want this one."

From the interview:: "I did outline [Ash], and came up with long character questionnaires. At the same time, I was an anthropology graduate student, so I approached worldbuilding from an anthropologist’s perspective. That means I thought about rituals—cultural practices that can mark major changes in one’s life, like birth, marriage, and death."


BEAUTIFUL CREATURES

From my review: "A lushly written Southern Gothic tale, with family and town secrets, and teens discovering that the world is not what they thought it was. It's not just finding out that the supernatural is real; it's learning that trusted adults have kept secrets. And then trying to figure out what to do about it; and trying to take charge of your future when everyone is telling you that future is set in stone."

From the interview:: Margaret Stohl: "By the time we got to the sequel, we practically had the guillotine of lost ideas set up in our office, and our editor just pointed out that we (meaning she!) cut twenty thousand words off of this last draft." Kami Garcia: "Gatlin reminds me a lot of the small town in North Carolina where my grandmother and great-grandma grew up. But the thing about Gatlin is that it really describes a lot of small towns, all over the country. Because pie baking is pie baking and porch gossip is porch gossip regardless of where you’re baking the pie and dishing the gossip."


THE EVERAFTER by Amy Huntley

From my review: "Maddy, revisiting a physics class: "something can be two things at once, and that observing them influences which of the two they are... Ms. Winters has moved to talking about how everything in the universe is connected in ways that can't always be seen or understood. ...at the subatomic level no time has to pass for one particle to know about and be affected by what's happening to another." Maddy's head is about to explode, and so is mine, but what Huntley has done is taken the fantastical (the afterlife, ghosts, Heaven) and wrapped it in science."

From the interview:"In college I took a class called “Physics for Poets.” I found the class fascinating, but terrifying as well. The thought that there might not be a god, that everything came down to this random event called The Big Bang, fascinated me in a horrifying way. What if I really was nothing more than matter and energy? What if that meant I’d spend eternity floating around in the universe alone? This notion nagged at me for years. Then one day, in the teacher’s lou

Flash Burnout by L.K. Madigan. Houghton Mifflin Books for Children. 2009. Reviewed from ARC borrowed from a friend. Morris Award finalist.

The Plot: Blake, 15, has a GF (girlfriend), Shannon; and a girl who is a friend, Marissa. It seems possible to have two women in his life, despite the jokes his brother makes, until he discovers a secret about Marissa that he promises not to tell anyone.

The Good: A perfect romance, written from a teenage boy's point of view. Blake really likes Shannon, even eventually saying the "l" word. He's trying to figure out how to be a good boyfriend, what to say, what not to say, to ignore the "advice" of his brother and friends that say, don't be so into her, ignore her sometimes.

Blake also really likes Marissa, but just as friend. And that's true; it's Shannon he is in love with, it's Shannon he cannot get enough with, loves her shoulders, the feel of her skin, the way she smiles just for him. Marissa is his buddy in photography class, a friend. Want to know the difference between feeling friendship for a person and something more? It's in the details of Blake's interactions with and thoughts about both Shannon and Marissa.

This is NOT one of those stories where the best-friend-who-is-a-girl becomes something more, or the girlfriend turns out to be a shallow undeserving bitca. It's about three nice, likable, teenagers: Blake, a photographer who is always cracking jokes; Shannon, who plays soccer and plays the piano and is strong and sort of confident but also not quite sure how to handle her first real relationship; Marissa, a photographer, living with her grandmother and haunted by her past.

Blake gets involved with Marissa's heartache inadvertently. He takes a photo of a homeless woman who turns out to be Marissa's meth addicted mother. Her mother, Anne, isn't evil or bad; she is an addict whose addiction and sadness overwhelms her and her family. If someone is drowning, when do you try to save them? When do you concentrate on saving yourself?

Blake promises not to tell anyone about Marissa's family, and this secret becomes a problem with Shannon. He cannot share with Shannon why he is there for Marissa, spending time with Marissa.

Flash Burnout manages to be both hilarious and touching, as Blake figures out his relationships with others and also how his actions have consequences.

Blake's parents are terrific; his mother is a hospital chaplain, his father a medical examiner. They are supportive but not pushovers. In addition to interesting career choices, both jobs add to the plot line. When Blake goes looking for Marissa's mother, his mother turns out to know about the homeless in town and where they may be because of her job. Likewise, his father's job also factors into the search for the missing woman.

I'm adding this to my favorite books read in 2009; and it's easy to see why this made the Morris Award shortlist. Yes, of course it's because of the plot, and the deft handling of serious issues and everyday issues, and supporting characters who are well rounded; but it's also (in my opinion, I have no con

The Everafter by Amy Huntley. HarperCollins. 2009. Review copy supplied by publisher. High school.

The Plot: "I'm dead." There is much she doesn't remember, not even her name. But she knows that once she was alive, with a body, and now she is dead. Objects are floating....keys. Pine cone. Bracelet. Sweatshirt. Touch the sweatshirt, and suddenly she is a place, a time, a when, a where, and finally, a name. Maddy. Madison Stanton. 17. She's dead. But why?

The Good: Each object, bracelet, keys, sweatshirt, is something that, when alive, Maddy lost. Touching the object brings Maddy back to that time, that moment, and she can relive that memory again and again and again. If, in that captured moment, alive-Maddy finds the object, the door is shut and that memory cannot be revisited.

So a ghost story. A dead girl revisiting her life story.

With physics.

Maddy, revisiting a physics class: "something can be two things at once, and that observing them influences which of the two they are... Ms. Winters has moved to talking about how everything in the universe is connected in ways that can't always be seen or understood. ...at the subatomic level no time has to pass for one particle to know about and be affected by what's happening to another." Maddy's head is about to explode, and so is mine, but what Huntley has done is taken the fantastical (the afterlife, ghosts, Heaven) and wrapped it in science.

Touch an object, visit that time, and so alive-Maddy and dead-Maddy are there, both at the same time. At some point Maddy realizes she can influence the past, her life; an object may be found, a bit of reality shifted. But no matter what little difference she makes, which gives her a feeling of disquiet as she erases one memory and creates another, the end remains the same. She is Madison Stanton. She never visits a time later than age seventeen. And the way this works and intertwines, changes, being and observing -- is all explained by physics.

Madison's journey through her life is not offered in a linear fashion; she jumps in time, back and forth, and we get a scattered feel for her life and family. She is in love with Gabe, happy to be wearing his sweatshirt; then she is meeting him at her sister's wedding. Madison plays with her friend Sandra, then she is six and in Disney World, then she is eleven. She is enemies with Tammy, then friends, then the slumber party that ended their friendship. Slowly, for both Madison and the reader, the puzzle of her life, her death, her afterlife is revealed.

Huntley offers a few possibilities as to why, and how, Maddy died. While not a classic whodunit mystery, there is suspense, and Maddy is trying to find out why she lost that which is most important to us all. Life.

Inventive story telling, beautiful language, a book that gets better on rereading, a narrator whose death you mourn and dread even though you know its unavoidable; it's easy to see why this is on the Morris Award shortlist.

As an adult reading this: I

The William C. Morris YA Debut Award "honors a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens and celebrating impressive new voices in young adult literature." The Morris Award Committee announces the shortlist in December; which means we know the five finalists, so have plenty of time to read them all prior to the announcement of the winner on January 18 at the Youth Media Awards press conference.

This is the second year for the Morris Award; last year's winner was A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce.

From the Morris Award webpage: "This supernatural novel retells the story of Rumpelstiltskin, setting it at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and centering it around the life of Charlotte Miller. When the bank wants to repossess her mortgaged mill, Charlotte strikes a bargain with the mysterious Jack Spinner, (a creature who knows the art of turning straw into gold), but then discovers she must free her loved ones from a generations-old curse.

At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, Charlotte Miller strikes a bargain with the malevolent Jack Spinner, who can transform straw into gold, to save her family’s mill. With masterly writing and vivid characterization and setting, Bunce weaves a powerfully seductive tale of triumph over evil.

“Bunce has crafted a story that superbly embodies the criteria for this award. Her work is compelling and has broad teen appeal,” said Chair Bonnie Kunzel. “Thoughtful reflection and spirited discussion characterized this outstanding committee’s work as its members selected a shortlist that honors the influence of William C. Morris on the field of young adult publishing.”"

The five finalists for the Morris Award are:


Ash by Malinda Lo.

From my review:

"This retelling unfolds slowly, deliciously. It's an internal story; a story about Ash grieving the loss of her parents, shutting down from it, and eventually choosing life and love. This is a tale about recovering from grief and unbearable loss. . . . Take note, librarians and teachers looking for a great book with both literary merit and one that encourages deep discussion; you'll want this one."