The Field Guide To The North American Teenager, A Multicultural Children's Book Day Read

Today is Multicultural Children's Book Day, and to support the program I'm writing about The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe. On Monday, Field Guide won the ALA's William C. Morris Award for best debut book. It is very rare for me to be right on top of events like this. I am feeling good.

I haven't read any of Field Guide's competition for the award, but it certainly seems like worthy winner. It does two things really well:

1. It takes a traditional teen story and tweaks it on many levels.
2. It is truly funny. 

 

Teen Story

The Field Guide to the North American Teenager is about Norris Kaplan, a Haitian Canadian teenager, who moves from Montreal, Quebec to Austin, Texas. It is a new kid story. It is a fish out-of-water story, or, in this case, out of snow. Will he make a life for himself there? Or will he head back north, as his mother promises he can  if he makes a sincere effort in the Lone Star State and just can't make a go of it?

Philippe's handling of traditional/cliched YA elements:

• The blonde cheerleader is not stupid. Or a mean girl.
• The arty girl, who is usually portrayed in these books as the outsider who is the emotional savior for the main character, is kind of a bitch. In my humble opinion.
• The cheerleader who is kind of a mean girl is redeemed by her support for a friend. (Except for stealing her boyfriend. But other than that.)
• There is your torn-between-two-lovers scenario that you often find in teen books, but here a boy is torn between two girls instead of the other way around.
• Just what is a jock? Is it only the people who are on the football team? Or...you might be a jock if you play ice hockey and ski?
• Norris gets along with his mother!
• Norris is at least a decent student, if not even better!
• Norris is singled out for being Canadian more often than he is for being Black.
• There is the teen journal we see so often in YA books, but it isn't quoted much. Norris uses it, instead, to make comments about the people around him. Most of it we don't see. But when we do...
• Norris is a child of divorce. Dad's not that attentive, distracted, as he is, by a second family. But Norris's main problem in life is that he has a mouth on him and a cynical eye. And that is, indeed, a problem. As author Ben Philippe says of his creation in a CBC article, "Norris says and does whatever he thinks."
• Oh, and this book is written in the third person. The first-person narrator has a stranglehold on YA and even middle grade books. Kudos just for getting away from that.

 

Humor

The Field Guide to the North American Teenagers is a truly funny book. This is notable because many books (TV shows, movies, everything) are described as funny but just aren't. Timing is off or the humor is not organic to the situation or somehow we get the impression that this is supposed to be a joke but it's just not working. Perhaps humor writers need a way to try out material the way stand-up comics can try out material at small clubs where they can bomb in comfort and figure out what works and what doesn't.

Maybe Philippe does that with some of his other writing. Especially the stuff described as humor.

Not Heavy On Race

As I said above, in Field Guide Norris is identified more for being Canadian than he is for being Black. His original big, big issue with Austin is the heat. (This book killed what little desire I had to go there.)  According to Philippe, that was intentional. In Why Ben Philippe Wrote a YA Novel About Being a Black French Canadian Kid in Texas at CBC Book he says he believes there is an expectation, "especially in the American narrative," that YA books about Black characters will be about race. He wanted to write about a teenager "more concerned with being a hormonal kid than necessarily the sociopolitical ramifications of being black."

I'd also like to note that the book is called The Field Guide to the North American Teenager and not the "American teenager," suggesting it's pulling together Canada and the U.S. Which sort of makes #ReadYourWorld more world-like.

An Ethnic Quibble

This is a terrific book. But a question did arise for me. Forgive me if I'm being nitpicky.

In marketing and articles about The Field Guide to the North American Teenager, main character Norris is frequently described as a Black French Canadian teenager. That was what attracted me to it when I first heard about it last fall, what with me being Franco American and all. Plus, we have an expectation that French Canadians are White, because they are descended from a relatively small group of French people who settled in Canada in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and who were White. Thus the idea of a Black French Canadian creates incongruity, and I am one of those people who finds incongruity funny.

But I was reading the climax of the book, and I suddenly thought, Wait. Is this kid French Canadian? Both his parents are Haitian immigrants to Canada. He was raised in a French Canadian culture, but he has no genetic connection to French Canadians as a group. Wouldn't one of his parents need to be French Canadian in order for him to be considered French Canadian? Isn't he a Haitian Canadian or a bilingual Black Canadian?

Granted, Haitian Canadian and bilingual Black Canadian are nowhere near as incongruous, and thus funny, as Black French Canadian. But the Black French Canadian thing is no longer funny for me, because, as we've discussed here before, I think too much.

Philippe is quoted as describing himself as a Black French Canadian at the Canadian site I quoted above. Clearly those people had no issue with it. And Philippe also has knowledge of his background, while I'm two generations removed from the whole French Canadian thing.

Still, I'm e-mailing my cousin Micheline in Ottawa this weekend to get her take on this. Because, of course, anyone who has a French Canadian cousin has a connection to the source of all French Canadian knowledge. If nothing else, I'll be telling Micheline about a book she might want to read.

Enjoy the book whether Norris is French Canadian or not. And follow Multicultural Children's Book Day on Twitter at #ReadYourWorld

Tales Of Two Vermonts

I don't know if the conventional media picture of Vermont truly reflects the impact on the state of the arrival of new people in the '60s and '70s. While that kind of thing probably happened in many remotish areas starting in the second part of the twentieth century, two books I read during my retreat week in Vermont definitely reflect the two worlds that now exist in that particular place.

Vermont 1. Ruby in the Sky

At an appearance in December, author Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo said that her book Ruby in the Sky is set in Vermont because her family spent vacations there when she was a child. I believe she named a central part of the state, but I can't swear to it. It wasn't an area I connect with the arty, bohemian but comfortable lifestyle I was seeing described in Vermont Life a few years ago. And you don't see arty, bohemian Vermont in her book.

Instead, you see a more hardscrabble life with a mother and daughter moving back to mom's hometown after they've struggled elsewhere. Several elsewheres. They're back in Vermont because young Ruby Moon Hayes' mom has a cousin there who has offered help. But the kind of help she can offer is a house heated with wood and outdoor winter clothes purchased at a store called Family Thrift. Ms. Hayes' options for work are a diner where female employees put up with crap from the owner because they have to have jobs and a small market. When Ruby's mother gets into legal trouble with her boss, she has to rely on a public defender. How small is this town? The mayor hangs at the diner.

This is similar to the Vermont world I knew growing up. I had family members who heated with wood for years. (They didn't have running water for a long time, either.) Isolation. Limited job opportunities. Wandering around outside in the woods after school by yourself. (Though we didn't have neighbors living in sheds, as Ruby does.) The mother moving from place to place in Ruby in the Sky, never settling, never able to make a go of it anywhere, needing to come home to family? Yeah, I've heard of that kind of thing, too.

This is a Vermont I don't recall seeing in children's books. It's a world view that's probably familiar to readers from other rural, less than affluent places, too.

You know what Ferruolo didn't include in her story? Grizzled old farmers saying "ayeah," which I did see in a children's book a few years ago. I really, really appreciated that. Yes, I grew up saying "ayeah," myself, but I got tired of reading and hearing the stereotype fast.

Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo has another book coming out...ah, next week, actually. A Galaxy of Stars.

Vermont 2. The Vanishing Stair

There are also no grizzled old farmers saying "ayeah" in The Vanishing Stair,  Maureen Johnson's sequel to Truly Devious, which I liked when I read it last year. In this case, it's an easy cliche to avoid because Johnson is dealing with a different Vermont. Her characters are almost all nonVermonters, students who have come to a private Vermont school.  These are young people of the arty, bohemian variety I mentioned before: writers, YouTube stars, artists, and musicians. You have the teacher who dresses in "expensive geek chic." None of these people have to shop at  Family Thrift as Ruby's family does. This book also takes readers on a side trip into the academic Burlington to meet with a University of Vermont professor.


This is a real Vermont, too, one I'm familiar with but was less a part of. (Well, I did graduate from UVM. And if memory serves me, I lived on Pearl Street in Burlington, which Johnson mentions, my first year out of school. Burlington was very, very cool then.)  As different as the Truly Devious/Vanishing Stair world is from Ruby in the Sky's, it is still very rooted in reality. How rooted?  The Truly Devious books are set in a remote private school, established in the 1930s by a wealthy New York City resident. I don't know how many private schools were started in Vermont in that era, but I grew up not far from Lake Bomoseen where  some of the Algonquin Round Table hung in the summers in the era Johnson's school began. Decades later, my mother, who I doubt knew who Alexander Woollcott and Dorothy Parker were (I barely know who Woollcott was), spoke of the writers on Lake Bomoseen. People from New York City were coming to Vermont back then and leaving a mark. So even Maureen Johnson's historical setting is believable.

Oh, and in case any readers think the yurt that appears in Truly Devious and The Vanishing Stair is just a little too...I don't know...over the top? Wondering what one of those things is doing in Vermont? I was in one in Vermont just a couple of weeks ago! The place where we go for retreat has had one for several years. I find it very intimidating. I go inside to put on my snowshoes, but I'm always afraid someone is going to throw me out, because maybe snowshoes aren't supposed to be in there. I would never make it in The Vanishing Stair world.

The next book in the Truly Devious serial, The Hand on the Wall, was published last week.

They Are Both Real

So, seriously, I'm telling you, these two very different settings are both the real Vermont these days.

 

February Connecticut Children's Literature Calendar

This month we have a Connecticut author making appearances to support a new book, as well as an author appearance in support of a bio of a Connecticut historical figure. That's Flo Griswold, I'm talking about. 


Sat., Feb. 1, Connie Bombaci, Storyteller's Cottage, Simsbury 1:00 PM   


Fri., Feb. 7, Jason Tharp, That Book Store, Wethersfield 4:30 PM


Sat., Feb. 8, Deb Adamson, Bank Square Books, Mystic 1:00 PM

Sat., Feb. 8 Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo, River Bend Bookshop, Glastonbury 3:00 PM

Tues., Feb. 11, Janae Marks, R. J. Julia Booksellers, Madison 6:30 PM

Wed., Feb. 12, Liz Braswell, Wesleyan R. J. Julia, Middletown 6:00 PM

Sat., Feb. 29, Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo, Tolland Public Library, Tolland 1:00 PM

*Sat., Feb. 29, Susan Hood, Lizzy Rockwell, and Abdul-Razak Zachariah, Picture Book Panel, Pequot Library, 12:00 to 2:00 PM Books available for purchase and signing. 

*Edited to add this event 7:00 PM 1/29/20

Time Management Tuesday: An Ultralearning Case Study, Principle 9, Experimentation

Almost done with this ultralearning arc.

Gail at a Van Gogh Exhibit

This chapter of Ultralearning by Scott Young begins with another lengthy case study, but this one is about Vincent Van Gogh, and I liked it. Van Gogh didn't take the traditional-for-his-time route to becoming an artist, which was to attend art school or apprentice in a studio. According to Young, Van Gogh was not perceived as having much talent and was considered odd. Thus he became a self-educator. Inspiring story.

Young's point with this chapter seems to be that true mastery of a subject comes when you've acquired enough skill that you need to move on from instruction to something else. You need to do something with what you've learned.

He gives examples of types of experimentation and how to experiment.

Our Case Study: The whole point of what I'm trying to do is to learn enough about a subject so I can use it as a jumping off point for fiction, to create a character, to create a plot point or two. So on the one hand, I will be doing something more with what I've learned. On the other, I don't think I can be described as experimenting with the field I've been studying. I'm not trying, for instance, to come up with a new theory of history. (Great Man Theory, Marxist Theory, Feminist Theory, etc.)

Hmm. My historian character is trying to take a nontraditional route to getting into his field. Maybe I should consider this Van Gogh business some more.

Multi-Cultural Children's Book Day This Friday

Multicultural Children's Book Day is this Friday, January 31. Every year on the last Friday in January children’s reading and play advocates Valarie Budayr from Audrey Press and Mia Wenjen from Pragmatic Mom  team up to present MCBD as a way of celebrating diversity in children’s books. It includes book reviews from bloggers all over the world, giveaways and book-related activities for young readers of all ages.

You can follow the action on Twitter by using #ReadYourWorld. I just set up a Tweetdeck column using that hashtag so I can see what's happening this week.

As  it applies to Multicultural Children's Book Day, multicultural children’s books are defined as:

• Books that contain characters of color as well as main characters that represent a minority point of view.
• Books written by an author of diversity or color from their perspective. Search #ownvoices to discover diverse books written by diverse authors.
• Books that share ideas, stories, and information about cultures, race, religion, language, and traditions. These books can be non-fiction, but still written in a way that kids will find entertaining and informative.
• Books that embrace special needs or even “hidden disabilities” like ADHD, ADD, and anxiety.

I hope to be posting on Friday about The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe. 

Come On, Enough With The Eye Rolling.

I'm reading a very good YA novel that is marred with constant eye rolling. From multiple characters. Maybe all of them. Sometimes different characters will roll their eyes on adjacent pages.

I've read YA book after YA book with characters rolling their eyes over this and that. It is so intrusive to the story. It stops the narrative flow while the reader goes, "What? Didn't somebody just do that? Is it this guy, again? Or was it that cheerleader? Or the other cheerleader?"

If a writer is going to use a gesture like eye rolling, it should be defining of a character in some way, the way using obscenity should define a character. But if all the characters roll their eyes or say ##@!, no one is defined. And if one character rolls her eyes and shouts ##@! regularly, it becomes less defining and more annoying.

Seriously, has anyone ever seen someone roll his or her eyes? I can't recall it. I don't think I can physically do it. I'm sure someone will argue it is a teenage thing. I don't remember seeing it from any teenager I've known. Okay, some shifting of eyes back and forth, but a real eye roll? What is that, even?

If characters have good enough dialogue, they don't need to be doing anything with their eyes. And if they don't have good enough dialogue, nothing you can do with any part of their faces will save the situation.

So let's give eye rolling a rest. Please.

Time Management Tuesday: An Ultralearning Case Study, Principle 8 Intuition

This section of Scott Young's Ultralearning was incredibly difficult for me. For one thing, the chapter is an extended case study, and while I'm using my own project as a case study for dealing with this book, evidently I really dislike reading about them. More importantly, Young doesn't formally define intuition, assuming readers will know it, and this one didn't. It's a word I evidently had a connotative understanding of, but not denotative. For instance, I was a great one for saying something was counter-intuitive, seems wrong, without, it appears, really knowing what I was talking about. This comes from learning vocabulary from the context of your reading and not studying vocab. Don't let this happen to you.

Struggling to work out what was going on in this chapter may actually be an example of ultralearning. Another #@!! case study! This one with me.

Thank You Psychology Today

I skimmed big sections of this chapter because, as I said, I didn't like the case study. Then I went back and did a search of the eBook for "intuition." Then I started skimming again. Then I did an online search of "ultralearning" and "intuition." I found some sites where people had done elaborate reviews. Those people used "intuition" without defining it, also. Finally, I just googled "intuition" and found Intuition at good ol' Psych Today.

"Intuition is nonconscious thinking; essentially, the brain on autopilot. Scientists have repeatedly demonstrated how information can register on the brain without conscious awareness and positively influence decision-making."  "The automatic information processing that underlies intuition can be seen in something many people experience daily: the phenomenon known as "highway hypnosis." This occurs when a driver travels for miles without a conscious thought about the activity of driving the car."

So What Does It All Mean?

What I think Young is getting at here (using a long, long case study about Richard Feynman) is that after learners have acquired enough knowledge, they know it without having to think about it a great deal. Young says, "Whereas beginners tended to look at superficial features of the problem--such as whether the problem was about pulleys or inclined planes--experts focused on the deeper principles at work."

Is intuition related to what some of us used to think of as expertise, expert level skill/knowledge?

The amount of work I had to do to decipher this chapter illustrates a couple of things Young has talked about.

1. You can't always stick to the easy learning
2. Testing--I tested myself on intuition, couldn't answer the question, and worked on finding a solution. However, I cannot be sure the answer I came up with is correct.

Our Case Study: Intuition is probably something I want for my character. The question is: how much do I have to have in order to give him some?

Synopsis Building With Tara Sullivan

Original Content friend and fellow writer Nancy Tandon attended a writer event here in Connecticut last week. And she sent pictures.

On Sunday, January 12, Tara Sullivan, author of Golden Boy and The Bitter Side of Sweet, did a presentation at the Westport Public Library on synopsis building. This is a repeat of a well-received workshop Sullivan did at last year's New England Society of Children's Writers and Illustrators regional conference and dealt not just with writing a synopsis but using it  to help with revision. 

This January's event was co-sponsored by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators' Shop Talks and WestportWRITES.

Another Reading Retreat Week In The Rearview Mirror

A very successful retreat week. In addition to the stack of reading you see in the accompanying picture, I knocked off maybe 8 pieces of flash fiction on-line and untold numbers of articles on Meghan Markle, with whom I am growing bored. Additionally, I listened to an hour plus podcast for my history methodology ultralearning project. I did catch up on my Horn Book reading, which you'll be hearing about over the coming months and came up with at least one new flash fiction idea. I'll have to check my notes on that.

Speaking of ultralearning, I thought I posted last Tuesday's Time Management Tuesday post on my Ultralearning read last Tuesday. However, I didn't think to check to see if it went up successfully until I got home yesterday afternoon. So that arc will continue to drag on.

Hey, but whatever. I've had a week-long reading retreat and I'm feeling the calm. I would ask how to make that last, but asking how to make the calm last would wreck the calm.

Retreat Week Begins Tomorrow

Things will become quieter here for the next few days, because we're leaving for our annual retreat week tomorrow. I am going to try to put up the Time Management Tuesday post next week, because I'm desperate to finish the Ultralearning arc and that will bring me one step closer. Otherwise, I don't plan to be here.

I call these annual trips a reading retreat. We do some snowshoeing, go out to eat, maybe spend some time in the fitness center, and hang out in our timeshare unit reading, listening to music, and (someone else) doing jigsaw puzzles.

My reading bag this year contains:

• Two back issues of Writer's Digest
• An entire year's worth of The Horn Book that I haven't read. I realized yesterday that the HB subscription renewal notice came before Christmas, and I found it! Now I should pay it, shouldn't I?
• Two copies of Mindful.
• One copy of Tricyle
• The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson, because it takes place in Vermont, and the first book in the series sounds as if she had the area we're going in mind.
• My Kindle, heavy with eBooks, including The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe, which I hope will be a read for Multicultural Children's Book Day at the end of the month. 
• I also have my iPad loaded with links to flash fiction and historical methodology reads, both this month's professional reading focus.

Retreat Reading 2017

And in spite of all that, I'll make my annual pilgrimage to Bear Pond Books, where I try to find something new for me. That is how I became a Mindy Kaling fan.

My traveling companion has had a mild cold since Wednesday, I am now fighting it off, and there is unseasonably warm weather and rain expected this weekend where we're going. But I'll still have the reading. And eating in restaurants.

First Read Of The Year: "A Monster Calls"

I finished reading my first book of the year a little after midnight on New Year's Day. I stayed up late for the Carnegie Medal winning A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, inspired by an idea from the late Siobhan Dowd. The book is heavily illustrated by Jim Kay, who won the Kate Greenaway Medal for his work on it.

I was under the gun to get the book read, because a family member gave it to me for Christmas, 2018, and I was going to see her on January 4th. Yes, that's January 4th, 2020. I had started the book much earlier in 2019, but felt the sick mom and bullies (who I don't think were necessary to the story, by the way) made it  a "problem book," a genre in children's lit that I don't take to. But at the end of November, I thought, Hey, a college-age family member gave me this. Read it. 

A Monster Calls deals with a boy who is visited by a monster tree in his yard. The kid doesn't find him all that frightening because his mother is dealing with a big set-back in her cancer treatment, and there are those bullies at school. Our protagonist has real-life monsters to deal with. The book is very well written, and in spite of the serious subject matter and tone, I did get to a 'what's going to happen?' point. The monster tells the boy three stories, the first two of which I liked very much.

Another family member has suggested more than once that I think too much. Nonetheless, I am going to report that I did wonder while I was reading A Monster Calls if it is really fantasy or, instead, a story dealing with a psychological issue relating to a child's emotional trauma. (Even though we're told that there is physical evidence that the monster did really call.)  Or is it magical realism, a genre that I find can get very deep and difficult?

I was concerned about how to respond to the young woman who gave me the book. A Monster Calls is extremely painful, not a book I would ever describe as entertaining, and I think an argument could be made that, as well done as it is, it doesn't offer any new insights on grief. (Of course, aren't all insights new to readers twelve and up, the age group the publisher markets the book to?) I knew my dear young girl had dealt with some family losses over the last few years. I needed to be sensitive, in case this book had some profound meaning for her, and she had chosen to share it with me.

So I asked her, "How did you happen upon this book? Was it assigned for a class? Something you heard about?"

"I saw it in a used bookstore and loved the illustrations."

I do, indeed, think too much.

Time Management Tuesday: An Ultralearning Case Study, Principle 7 Retention

I finished reading Ultralearning by Scott Young last month, and, as God is my witness, I'm going to finish blogging about it. Though it's going to take me another month to do it.

We've had a two-week break for goals and objectives, so I guess I'd better remind us all about what we're doing here. Especially since this is a blog post about retaining information.

As I said a few weeks ago,  Ultralearning  describes a method of rapid learning. (Saving time, see?) Research/learning new material is frequently a necessity in all kinds of writing. I use it not only to  provide background info in fiction but to inspire plot and characterization. Saving time doing this could be huge for writers, particularly this one.

Refresher On Our Case Study: I am planning an ultralearning project related to history, because I have a character who is a senior in college with a history major. I want his knowledge of history and, more importantly, how to do research to figure into the plot. The main issue I've decided I need to learn about is historical methodology. This now relates to one of my goals for this year.

Principle 7, Retaining What You've Learned

This chapter of Ultralearning is all about remembering what you're learning. This is interesting on a personal level, because our family members have been dealing with relatives with memory loss for many years. By "interesting" I mean "interesting in a disturbing way." Professionally,  I don't think memory/retention matters as much for writers as it does for those learning other things, like a language or a skill they'll actually be using regularly.

Retaining For The Long-Term

Our Case Study: In my particular case, I'm interested in learning historical methodology that I can use for a character and situation in one book. I don't need to retain a lot of this indefinitely. If I want to use this information another time and no longer have a good grasp of it, I can research it again, using whatever I do recall as a guide/jumping off point. A refresher.

I've done this before. Many years ago, I researched the Puritan era for The Hero of Ticonderoga. This past year, I wrote an adult book in which a contemporary figure is a Puritan fan. I used what I recalled from the original research to "inspire" sections, then quickly researched those points again.

If I learn something in my research/learning of history that I want to use again, after my initial project, I can do the same kind of relearning research.

Retaining For The Short-Term

I believe that retaining for the short-term is more important for writers doing the kind of learning I'm doing. By that I mean, remembering what we've learned during Week 1 while continuing to study into Weeks 5 and 6. Or to remember what we've learned researching prior to starting the writing project while we're into the actual writing.

Young says that procedural skills, which appear to be activities that involve learning a procedure (I had to research this, because Young doesn't actually say), are retained better than declarative knowledge, which is facts or information. So if there's some way we can turn basic facts into a procedure, there's a chance they will be retained longer.

Our Case Study: Ah...not a clue how I could do this. Or if it's even possible at all.

Personal Problem With Retention That I Wish "Ultralearning" Addressed

I have had a lot of trouble in the past organizing research in an easy-to-access-again way. All my notes have gone into a notebook in the past or, more recently, a computer file, where at least, I could use "find" to find something I recalled but would like some support for before using it. Young doesn't cover this aspect of studying.

Our Case Study: I'm thinking that if I use a course syllabus, I can create a notebook or computer file for that course, just as I would if I were taking the actual college course. In fact, I'd have to say my takeaway from Ultralearning so far is to try to treat my professional research the way I would a college major instead of just dumping info into the digital or notebook equivalent of piles.

In this particular case, I may also be more focused in my research. I am not randomly researching history but history methodology. That may help me to organize research.

Since I am actually into the research at this point, I can report that yesterday I carefully created a file for a particular article I was reading instead of just tossing any notes I wanted to make into a "methods" file. I hope that's an improvement.
 

Connecticut Book Awards Submissions Opening Next Monday

2020 Connecticut Book Awards Submissions Open
January 13, 2020

Connecticut Center for the Book will begin accepting submissions for the 2020 Connecticut Book Awards on January 13, 2020; the final deadline for all categories is April 17, 2020. Criteria, guidelines and the online submission form may be found on https://ctcenterforthebook.org. Entry fees start at $40.00. 

Connecticut Book Awards recognize the best books by authors and llustrators from Connecticut or books about Connecticut. Categories include: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Books for Young Readers broken into three subcategories: Picture Books, Fiction, and Nonfiction. The Bruce Fraser ‘Spirit of Connecticut’ Award honors the memory of long-time director Bruce Fraser and celebrates Connecticut’s sense of place.

The awards ceremony will be held in October 2020. Final date is to be determined.*

*Connecticut Center for the Book Press Release. I couldn't find the on-line submission form there, but presumably it will be up next week.

New Year's Poetry

Check out this poetry blog post by author Tanita Davis, because:

1. It includes a definition of the word "nocturne." Come on. I am not the only person who didn't know that.
2. She wrote a New Year's poem that includes the words "bullet journal."

Cybils Finalists Announced

The 2019 Cybils Award finalists were announced yesterday.