National Book Foundation

[National Book Foundation]

Announcing the Longlist for the 2018 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature! Congrats to all, and welcome to the #NBAwards family!

[National Book Foundation]

Announcing the Longlist for Young People’s Literature!

The New Yorker just announced the first Longlist of the 2016 National Book Awards!

[National Book Foundation]

The 2016 National Book Awards nominations are open! Publishers: submissions are due May 16th. 

For guidelines, deadlines + other information, go to http://www.nbaentry.org/

[National Book Foundation]

Meet the Judges for the 2016 National Book Awards

Fiction: James English (Chair), Karen Joy Fowler, T. Geronimo Johnson, Julie Otsuka & Jesmyn Ward

Nonfiction: Cynthia Barnett, Masha Gessen, Greg Grandin, Melissa Harris-Perry (Chair) & Ronald Rosbottom

Poetry: Mark Bibbins, Jericho Brown, Katie Ford, Joy Harjo (Chair) & Tree Swenson

Young People’s Literature: Will Alexander, Valerie Lewis, Ellen Oh, Katherine Paterson (Chair) & Laura Ruby

[National Book Foundation]

‘THE THING ABOUT JELLYFISH’ MEET ‘THE SOUL OF AN OCTOPUS’

Among the 2015 #NBAward Finalists are authors who wrote about creatures that live in the sea: Ali Benjamin (author of The Thing About Jellyfish, in the Young People’s Literature category) and Sy Montgomery (author of The Soul of an Octopus, in the Nonfiction category).

Judges’ Citation for The Thing About Jellyfish

The Thing About Jellyfish manages that rarest trick of great literature: It is both simple and huge. Ali Benjamin captures the delicate intimacies of envy and grief, while simultaneously exploring the grandest implications of what it means to be alive. Told in prose that is both elegant and gutfelt, Suzy’s desperate search for a structuring principle to her world leads to poignant self-discovery and a big-eyed look at the meaning of existence itself.

Judges’ Citation for The Soul of an Octopus

In this luminous nature saga, Montgomery immerses herself in the mysterious world of octopuses, unveiling their alien senses, varied personalities, rambunctious emotions, and startling feats of intelligence and self-awareness. As animal adventure, it’s wonderfully vivid, with a surprise on every page, but it’s also an inquiry into the fabric of consciousness, weaving together a tapestry that’s both human and animal, whose threads unite us in little-known yet spellbinding ways.

[National Book Foundation]

A Recap of 2015 National Book Award Winner in Young People’s Literature

Neal Shusterman won the #NBAward in Young People’s Literature for Challenger Deep. In his acceptance speech Shusterman stated, “Wow I have finally achieved my father’s dream for me - to be an NBA star”.

Challenger Deep tells the story about a teen boy suffering with mental illness, which was inspired by Shusterman’s son, Brendan.  Shusterman shared the stage with Brendan.

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[National Book Foundation]

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 

[National Book Foundation]

What surprised our Longlisters during their writing process?

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. 

[National Book Foundation]

What did the NBA Longlisters learn while writing their books?

In 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. 

[National Book Foundation]

readbrightly.com

Books to Help Kids Understand the Fight for Racial Equality | Brightly

Here are some resources to help us move beyond tokens and icons to a deeper understanding of our history and its legacy, toward liberty and justice for all.

[weneeddiversebooks]

“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.

[National Book Foundation]

[weneeddiversebooks]

The Work To Be Done event, a celebration of literary icon Walter Dean Myers, was organized by his son Christopher Myers and held at Symphony Space in uptown Manhattan on March 8th. Not only were kind words said about Walter and the inspiration he had on others but how his work extends to a whole community that didn’t see themselves. 

"My father told me his voice saved him, that his writing saved him," said Christopher. And in many ways his work has saved many others. Thank you Walter Dean Myers for all you’ve done and contributed through your writing and presence. And thanks to Christopher and everyone who participated and attended for a wonderful day to remember Walter.

(photos from top to bottom: Photo of Walter Dean Myers; Christopher Myers; Jason Reynolds; Eisa Davis; Jacqueline Woodson; Helga Davis; Brian Selznick; WNDB team member Jennifer Baker, Christopher Myers, and WNDB team member Dhonielle Clayton.)

[nationalbook]

Congratulations on a wonderful evening!

[National Book Foundation]

Watch “A Brief History of YA” and learn how we got from The Outsiders to The Hunger Games.

[National Book Foundation]

NBF CELEBRATES MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. DAY!

With a look back at some of the National Book Award Honored books that celebrate the heroes and heroines of the Civil Rights movement. 

(From top, left to right)

1. Ralph Ellison, Arnold Rampersad (2007 National Book Award Finalist, Nonfiction)

2. Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, Phillip Hoose (2009, National Book Award Winner, Young People’s Literature)

3. Head Off & Split, Nikki Finney (2011 National Book Award Winner, Poetry)

4. Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin, John D'Emilio (2003 National Book Award Finalist, Nonfiction)

5.  W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race: 1868-1919, David Levering Lewis (1993 National Book Award Finalist, Nonfiction)

6. One with Others, C.D. Wright (2010 National Book Award Finalist, Poetry)

7. Malcom X: A Life of Reinvention, Manning Marable (2011 National Book Award Finalist, Nonfiction)

8. Carver: A Life in Poems, Marilyn Nelson (2001 National Book Award Finalist, Young People’s Literature)

9. The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights, Steve Sheinkin (2014 National Book Award Finalist, Young People’s Literature)

10. At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968, Taylor Branch (2006 National Book Award Finalist, Nonfiction)

[National Book Foundation]

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[National Book Foundation]

I’m not afraid of silence.

National Book Award Winner Jacqueline Woodson speaking to Terry Gross, host of NPR’s Fresh Air. Hear more of Woodson’s interview here.