Do you remember the first poem you ever memorized?
“Hold fast to dreams/ For if dreams die/ Life is a broken-winged bird/ That cannot fly.” It’s just that verse and that’s why that’s in the very beginning of the book. I know it like I know my name.
(via Author Jacqueline Woodson On Memories, Verse and the National Book Award - Speakeasy - WSJ)
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#lit #books #poetry #memoir #YA #African American Literature #Jacequeline Woodson #Brown Girl Dreaming #NBAwardsIn the process of writing your book, what did you discover, what, if anything, surprised you?
Steve Sheinkin (Young People’s Literature): In researching the Vietnam War and the Pentagon Papers I learned about an incident I think is truly shocking, even in the context of a story full of secrets and lies. With the 1968 election approaching, Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee, successfully undermined peace talks aimed at ending the war. Just days before the election, the talks were finally making progress, and Nixon feared a peace deal would rob him of his best issue – the Democrats’ failure in Vietnam. So Nixon secretly urged the president of South Vietnam to refuse to go to Paris for talks, promising that, if elected, he’d be a better friend to the South than Democrats had been. It worked – and the talks stalled again. And the most incredible part was that Lyndon Johnson knew all about it, thanks to wiretaps and intercepted cables! He privately (and, I’d argue, accurately) called it “treason,” but wasn’t sure he wanted to shock the world days before an election. So it was just one more secret from the American people.
I Am Malala– for Young Readers
Malala Yousafzai’s famed memoir has been adapted for readers 10 and up by our 2012 National Book Award YPL Finalist Patricia McCormick
Tweet @lbkids with the hashtag #ISupportMalala and a book will be donated to FirstBook, which places new books in the hands of children in need.
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Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
Our 2014 WInner of the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Congratulations Jacqueline Woodson and Nancy Paulsen Books!
In the process of writing your book, what did you discover, what, if anything, surprised you?
Hanya Yanagihara (Fiction): One of the less-discussed perks (if one could call it that) of writing fiction is that affords you a perfectly good excuse to ask people all sorts of nosy questions about their jobs. Work – how it gives us an identity, how it gives our lives shape, how it can offer us a different way of seeing ourselves, and others to see us – is an important part of A LITTLE LIFE, and interviewing people (friends and friends of friends) about their careers in architecture, film, and the law was one of the book’s great pleasures. I was surprised, again and again, by my interviewees’ passion and eloquence and generosity, and fascinated by their descriptions of the various micro-societies in which they spent their working lives.
“Only 2% of high school seniors in 2010 could answer a simple question about the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.”
Here are some resources to help us move beyond tokens and icons to a deeper understanding of our history and its legacy, toward our own marches for liberty and justice for all.
The 2014 Young People’s Literature Longlist for the National Book Award was announced this morning. Congratulations to all these fine authors!
Laurie Halse Anderson, The Impossible Knife of Memory
Gail Giles, Girls Like Us
Carl Hiaasen, Skink— No Surrender
Kate Milford, Greenglass House
Eliot Schrefer, Threatened
Steve Sheinkin, The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights
Andrew Smith, 100 Sideways Miles
John Corey Whaley, Noggin
Deborah Wiles, Revolution: The Sixties Trilogy, Book Two
Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming
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Join us for the Teen Press Conference on November 17th!
Find links to the live stream on the National Book Foundation’s website, www.nationalbook.org, or at https://livestream.com/92Y/readaloud from 10:30 am to 11:30 am EST.
Image: John Ashbery, The Painter, 2014, detail. Collage. 15 x 20.5 inches. Collection of John Koethe. Courtesy of the artist and Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York. Photo by Alan Wiener. © John Ashbery
This week, we were thrilled to announce the Longlists for the 2019 National Book Awards. These titles in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature represent some of the best writing of the year. The Finalists will be announced October 8, all in the lead up to the 70th National Book Awards on November 20.
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Barnes and Nobles is gonna start serving food and alcohol.
Everybody’s cracking jokes about how it’s a desperate attempt to stay relevant in the age of Amazon.
But you know what? Props to them. This is exactly what Blockbuster didn’t do. At no point was Blockbuster like “Hey, movie rentals aren’t the lucrative enterprise they once were. Perhaps it’s time we become known for our cheesy garlic bread.”
that’s a fantastic plan, honestly? i would 100% go sit at a bookshop, buy a glass of wine, and pick up the newest biography. 50/50 i’d decide to buy it after a couple chapters, and even if i don’t, that’s still money i spent at B&N!
They could host book clubs with food and drinks where one of the employees shares their experiences with a book of their choice and tries to convince the guests to buy it.
Barnes and noble realizing the only reason people go to brick and mortar stores is for the experience and access to an enjoyable physical space they can socialize in (sure isnt for the price) and capitalizing on that is a stroke of genius and a really refreshing approach to the dilemma of competing with online stores
