The winners for the Quill awards have been announced and Lemony Snicket’s The Penultimate Peril won in the middle grade category. I enjoy the Series of Unfortunate Events, but I have to confess that I was hoping for Jonathan Stroud’s Ptolemy’s Gate to win. It was a tough category, because I also liked Inkspell, which was also a finalist. Christopher Paolini’s Eldest won for young adult.
Also, the finalists for the National Book Awards (U.S.) have been announced. In the “Young People’s Literature” category, the following books are finalists:
M.T. Anderson, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party (Candlewick Press)
Martine Leavitt, Keturah and Lord Death (Front Street Books/Boyds Mills Press)
Patricia McCormick, Sold (Hyperion Books for Children)
Nancy Werlin, The Rules of Survival (Dial/Penguin)
Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese (First Second/Roaring Brook Press/Holtzbrinck)
I haven’t read any of these, but one of them, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, is on my list of books I want to read.
Here’s the list of all the finalists for the National Book Awards