National Book Awards Longlist For Young People's Literature

The National Book Foundation has announced the longlist for the 2021 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. The finalists will be announced on October 5.

I like longlists. They provide an opportunity to call attention to a number of books.

Safia Elhillo, Home Is Not a Country

Shing Yin Khor, The Legend of Auntie Po

Darcie Little Badger, A Snake Falls to Earth

Malinda Lo, Last Night at the Telegraph Club

Kyle Lukoff, Too Bright to See

Kekla Magoon, Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People

Amber McBride, Me (Moth)

Anna-Marie McLemore, The Mirror Season

Carole Boston Weatherford; illustrations by Floyd Cooper, Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre

Paula Yoo, From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trail that Galvanized the Asian American Movement

Neal Shusterman Takes The Prize

This year I paid a little more attention to what was going on with the National Book Award than I usually do, posting the longlist and finalists for young people's literature.  Last night Neal Shusterman won in that category for Challenger Deep.

The news broke on Twitter as it was happening.

National Book Award For Young People: Longlist And Finalists For 2015

I'm not a big fan of book awards. While journalists and bloggers are rushing to pay attention to one winner, thousands of books go undiscovered. Oh, what I could have read, if I'd only known about it.

Well, while I was on vacation, the National Book Award longlist was announced. A longlist for each category, including Young People's Literature. The longlists were made of ten books. Yes. Ten. And here they all are, because we should be exposed to all of them, not just the eventual winner. 

• Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
• Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad by M. T. Anderson 
• The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin 
• Walk on Earth a Stranger by Rae Carson 
• This Side of Wild: Mutts, Mares, and Laughing Dinosaurs by Gary Paulsen 
•  Bone Gap by Laura Ruby 
• X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz with Kekla Magoon 
• Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War by Steve Sheinkin 
• Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman
• Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

Some of these books I hadn't heard of. The NBA (yeah, that's National Book Award) longlist has brought them to my attention. Well done.

As it turns out, yesterday the finalists were announced. The list of ten was cut down to five. 

• The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjami
• Bone Gap by Laura Ruby
• Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War by Steve Sheinkin
• Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman
• Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm psyched for Nimona. It was reviewed in the July/August Horn Book. I've heard about it a number of times now. Whether it wins or not, I want to read it.