A Huge Slice of My Life-Reading!

       I'm slicing with the Two Writing Teachers community today. It's always a pleasure to read what everyone writes about their lives.

          A huge part (slice) of my life, all my life, is reading. I know that I read early, and in my earliest life I lived with my mother and her parents for a few years. There, being the only young one in the family, everyone read to me, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and my mother. I've written about that, and about my love for the bookmobile and the librarian who brought special books to me. And I collected books to read to my students, then my children, then students again. I am a reader! 

         In the past week especially many of the bloggers I read are writing about returning to work, or writing about their children going back to school, or both. They are gathering ideas for-first of-the-year books, to read aloud, to share, to hook students immediately. Perhaps another time I'll share a list of the read alouds I've used in the past. But today, I've been asked to share a press release, the announcement of the 2016 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award finalists. This release explains the award and shares the books. I've read the first three and you can find my reviews of them on Goodreads; each is wonderful! The other two will certainly go on my TBR list. If you are someone who needs great YA books to read or to recommend to students, take a look at these finalists!

2016 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award Finalists Announced

The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is pleased and proud to announce the finalists for the 2016 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award for Young Adult Fiction.  Established in 2008 to honor the wishes of young adult author Amelia Elizabeth Walden, the award allows for the sum of $5,000 to be presented annually to the author of a young adult title selected by the ALAN Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award Committee as demonstrating a positive approach to life, widespread teen appeal, and literary merit.  

The 2016 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award finalists are:

All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

(Atheneum Books for Young Readers / Caitlyn Dlouhy Books)

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

(Penguin Random House / Knopf Books for Young Readers)

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

(HarperCollins / HarperTeen)

Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez

(Lerner / Carolrhoda Lab)

Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin

(Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

All Walden Award titles will be identified by an award sticker—gold for the winner and silver for the four finalists.  The winner will be announced on Monday, August 8th.  The winning title and finalists will be honored at the 2016 ALAN Workshop on Monday, November 21st at 4:30pm in Atlanta, GA, and the authors will be invited to participate in a panel discussion.

The 2016 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Committee would like to thank: the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Foundation, the ALAN Executive Council, the ALAN Board of Directors, NCTE, and the many publishers who submitted titles for consideration.

The 2016 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Committee considered over 350 young adult titles throughout the process.  The committee was comprised of eleven members representing the university, K-12 school, and library communities.  They are:

       Mark Letcher, Committee Chair

Assistant Professor of English Education

Lewis University, Romeoville, IL

Lois Stover, Past Committee Chair

Dean – School of Education and Human Services
Marymount University, Arlington, VA

    Cathy Blackler

 ELA Teacher

Santana Alternative High School, La Puente, CA

       Nancy Johnson

Professor of Children’s/YA Literature and English/Language Arts Education

Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA

Sara Kajder

Assistant Professor of English Education
University of Georgia, Athens, GA

Joellen Maples

Associate Professor, Graduate Literacy Program

St.  John Fisher College, Rochester, NY

       Lisa Morris-Wilkey

Librarian

Casa Grande Union High School, Casa Grande, AZ

Beth Scanlon

ELA Teacher, Literacy Coach

Cypress Creek High School, Orlando, FL

Lisa Scherff

ELA Teacher

Estero High School, Fort Myers, FL

Jessica Lorentz Smith

Teacher-Librarian

Bend Senior High School, Bend, OR

Wendy Stephens

Library Media Specialist

Cullman High School, Cullman, AL

For more information on the award, please visit ALAN Online: The Official Site of the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents http://www.alan-ya.org/awards/walden-award/

There have been numerous middle grade and books for younger readers published this year, many wonderful, many I would love to use in the classroom. I hope you are finding them, too.

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