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[CCBC-Net] Favorites of the Year
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From: BudNotBuddy at aol.com <BudNotBuddy>
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 10:43:41 EST
Richie's Picks: THE BEST OF 2005
"If I love you too, oh please Don't hurt my pride like her.
'Cause I couldn't stand the pain. And I would be sad if our new love was in vain."
-- The Beatles, If I Fell
Last month, at the age of fifty, I finally got to see a Beatle in person. Escorted into the HP Pavillion in San Jose by a complement of police cars, Paul McCartney waved to us, smiled, and flashed a peace sign. Scoring a cheap ticket out front for a decent seat inside, I proceeded to fulfill one of my most significant unmet childhood dreams. Paul's voice was still so right there, and he played and sang--mostly Beatles songs--one after another after another for nearly three hours.
"Driving down to Fiddler's Green to hear a tune or two I thought I saw John Lennon there, he was looking kind of blue I sat down beside him, said 'I thought you bought the store' He said 'I heard that rumour, what can I do you for?'
'Have you written anything I might have never heard?' He picked up his guitar and strummed a minor third All I can recall of what he sang, for what it's worth
'Long as songs of mine are sung I'm with you on this earth.' "
-- Robert Hunter, Down the Road Again
I know from experience what it's like to look up on a stage and see Garcia's ghost. And so, I couldn't help but look at Sir Paul and imagine what it would have been like to see the two of them--John and Paul--up there together, in their Sixties, bantering and taking turns choosing which song to play next.
I don't know how many of you got to see author Betsy Partridge talking about Lennon on Nightline, but it was another important instance of YA literature finally taking its rightful and well-deserved spot in the world. As I've been saying all year, the creation of the American Library Association's Sibert Medal was a landmark step in recognizing all of the well-written, important, and enjoyable new nonfiction for younger children, and Partridge's YA biography, JOHN LENNON: ALL I WANT IS THE TRUTH, is the perfect example of why YALSA, the young adult division of ALA, should get to work on creating a similar award to call attention to all the exceptionally well-written YA nonfiction being published today.
And with all that has, in fact, been published in 2005, it sure is difficult to limit myself to just a few pieces of nonfiction on this Best of 2005 list. In addition to JOHN LENNON, a best of 2005 list simply must include LET ME PLAY: THE STORY OF TITLE IX, THE LAW THAT CHANGED THE FUTURE OF GIRLS IN AMERICA by Karen Blumenthal, HITLER YOUTH: GROWING UP IN HITLER'S SHADOW by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, and MICHAEL ROSEN'S SAD BOOK, whose author (Rosen) and illustrator (Quentin Blake) are British and, thus, sadly ineligible for most awards in this country.
In addition to Michael Rosen's book, the picture books that are real stand-outs for 2005 include SUMMERTIME WALTZ, which is my easy pick for the Caldecott Medal, and SHOW WAY, which deserves Caldecott recognition in addition to the writing and illustrating recognition that it would be expected to merit from the Coretta Scott King committee.
And then there is the laugh-out-loud humor of Mini Grey's TRACTION MAN IS HERE! The expressions on the faces of the two slices of toast as they are being guarded by Traction Man, and on Traction Man's face when he is fitted into the all-in-one green romper suit and matching bonnet that Granny has knitted for him are truly priceless.
The best piece of fiction for younger readers in 2005, my choice for the next Newbery Medal is HARRY SUE by Sue Stauffacher in which eleven year-old Harry Sue seeks to overcome her softheartedness, begin a life of crime, and get herself incarcerated, all in the hopes of locating the imprisoned mother she hasn't seen since she was a preschooler. Preceeding the narration of her tale, Harry Sue provides us a hundred-term "joint jive" glossary, and then she proceeds to employ this colorful prison slang in telling us her unusual story.
Finally, it's been another golden year for YA fiction. Once again I've had to leave far more great books off my "best of" list than I include on it. But the two most exeptional pieces of young adult fiction published in 2005 are A ROOM ON LORELEI STREET by Mary E. Pearson, and BALL DON'T LIE by Matt de la Pena.
In A ROOM ON LORELEI STREET, Zoe's determined and rational quest for independence turns into a tense horror story as she encounters a series of realistic money-related obstacles and is ultimately forced into deciding what price she is willing to pay for the autonomy she so badly desires. In BALL DON'T LIE readers can hear the boom box and smell the sweat in Lincoln Rec as Sticky steadily employs his disability, his Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, to mold himself into a better basketball player as he struggles to escape his life of foster care in Los Angeles.
The complete list:
Richie's Picks: THE BEST OF 2005:
HITLER YOUTH: GROWING UP IN HITLER'S SHADOW by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Scholastic Nonfiction, February 2005, ISBN: 0-439-35379-3 SPACER AND RAT by Margaret Bechard, Roaring Brook, October 2005, ISBN: 1-59643-058-3 LET ME PLAY: THE STORY OF TITLE IX, THE LAW THAT CHANGED THE FUTURE OF GIRLS IN AMERICA by Karen Blumenthal, Simon & Schuster/Atheneum, June 2005, ISBN: 0-689-85957-0 TRACTION MAN IS HERE! by Mini Grey, Random House/ Knopf, April 2005, ISBN: 0-375-83191-6 INVISIBLE by Pete Hautman, Simon & Schuster, June 2005, ISBN: 0-689-86800-6 THE TROUBLE BEGINS by Linda Himelblau, Random House/Delacorte, November 2005, ISBN: 0-385-73273-2, Lib ISBN: 0-385-90288-3 AN INNOCENT SOLDIER by Josef Holub, translated by Michael Hofmann, Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Books, October 2005, ISBN: 0-439-62771-0 TOTALLY JOE by James Howe, Simon & Schuster/Atheneum/Ginee Seo Books, October 2005, ISBN: 0-689-83957-X DARK ANGEL by David Klass, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Frances Foster Books, October 2005, ISBN: 0-374-39950-6 DAY OF TEARS: A NOVEL IN DIALOGUE by Julius Lester, Hyperion/Jump at the Sun, April, 2005, ISBN: 0-7868-0490-4 THE BOYFRIEND LIST (15 GUYS, 11 SHRINK APPOINTMENTS, 4 CERAMIC FROGS AND ME, RUBY OLIVER) by E. Lockhart, Random House/Delacorte, March 2005, ISBN: 0-385-73206-6; Lib. ISBN: 0-385-90238-7 JOHN LENNON: ALL I WANT IS THE TRUTH by Elizabeth Partridge, Penguin/Viking, October 2005, ISBN: 0-670-05954-4 SUMMERTIME WALTZ by Nina Payne, illustrated by Gabi Swiatkowska, Farrar, Straus, Giroux/Frances Foster Books, May 2005, ISBN: 0-374-37291-8 A ROOM ON LORELEI STREET by Mary E. Pearson, Henry Holt, June 2005, ISBN: 0-8050-7667-0 BALL DON'T LIE by Matt de la Pena, Random House/Delacorte, September 2005 MICHAEL ROSEN'S SAD BOOK by Michael Rosen, Illustrated by Quentin Blake, Candlewick Press, March 2005, ISBN: 0-7636-2597-3 UNDER THE PERSIMMON TREE by Suzanne Fisher Staples, Farrar, Straus & Giroux/Frances Foster Books, August 2005, ISBN: 0-374-38025-2 HARRY SUE by Sue Stauffacher, Random House/Knopf, July 2005, ISBN: 0-375-83274-2, Libr.ISBN: 0-375-932747 BLACK AND WHITE by Paul Volponi, Viking, May 2005, ISBN: 0-670-06006-2 FULL SERVICE by Will Weaver, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, October 2005, ISBN: 0-374-32485-9 A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT by Laura Whitcomb, Houghton Mifflin/Graphia, September 2005, ISBN: 0-618-52552-X SHOW WAY by Jacqueline Woodson, Putnam, September 2005, ISBN: 0-399-23749-6 Richie Partington
_http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/) BudNotBuddy at aol.com
Received on Tue 06 Dec 2005 09:43:41 AM CST
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 10:43:41 EST
Richie's Picks: THE BEST OF 2005
"If I love you too, oh please Don't hurt my pride like her.
'Cause I couldn't stand the pain. And I would be sad if our new love was in vain."
-- The Beatles, If I Fell
Last month, at the age of fifty, I finally got to see a Beatle in person. Escorted into the HP Pavillion in San Jose by a complement of police cars, Paul McCartney waved to us, smiled, and flashed a peace sign. Scoring a cheap ticket out front for a decent seat inside, I proceeded to fulfill one of my most significant unmet childhood dreams. Paul's voice was still so right there, and he played and sang--mostly Beatles songs--one after another after another for nearly three hours.
"Driving down to Fiddler's Green to hear a tune or two I thought I saw John Lennon there, he was looking kind of blue I sat down beside him, said 'I thought you bought the store' He said 'I heard that rumour, what can I do you for?'
'Have you written anything I might have never heard?' He picked up his guitar and strummed a minor third All I can recall of what he sang, for what it's worth
'Long as songs of mine are sung I'm with you on this earth.' "
-- Robert Hunter, Down the Road Again
I know from experience what it's like to look up on a stage and see Garcia's ghost. And so, I couldn't help but look at Sir Paul and imagine what it would have been like to see the two of them--John and Paul--up there together, in their Sixties, bantering and taking turns choosing which song to play next.
I don't know how many of you got to see author Betsy Partridge talking about Lennon on Nightline, but it was another important instance of YA literature finally taking its rightful and well-deserved spot in the world. As I've been saying all year, the creation of the American Library Association's Sibert Medal was a landmark step in recognizing all of the well-written, important, and enjoyable new nonfiction for younger children, and Partridge's YA biography, JOHN LENNON: ALL I WANT IS THE TRUTH, is the perfect example of why YALSA, the young adult division of ALA, should get to work on creating a similar award to call attention to all the exceptionally well-written YA nonfiction being published today.
And with all that has, in fact, been published in 2005, it sure is difficult to limit myself to just a few pieces of nonfiction on this Best of 2005 list. In addition to JOHN LENNON, a best of 2005 list simply must include LET ME PLAY: THE STORY OF TITLE IX, THE LAW THAT CHANGED THE FUTURE OF GIRLS IN AMERICA by Karen Blumenthal, HITLER YOUTH: GROWING UP IN HITLER'S SHADOW by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, and MICHAEL ROSEN'S SAD BOOK, whose author (Rosen) and illustrator (Quentin Blake) are British and, thus, sadly ineligible for most awards in this country.
In addition to Michael Rosen's book, the picture books that are real stand-outs for 2005 include SUMMERTIME WALTZ, which is my easy pick for the Caldecott Medal, and SHOW WAY, which deserves Caldecott recognition in addition to the writing and illustrating recognition that it would be expected to merit from the Coretta Scott King committee.
And then there is the laugh-out-loud humor of Mini Grey's TRACTION MAN IS HERE! The expressions on the faces of the two slices of toast as they are being guarded by Traction Man, and on Traction Man's face when he is fitted into the all-in-one green romper suit and matching bonnet that Granny has knitted for him are truly priceless.
The best piece of fiction for younger readers in 2005, my choice for the next Newbery Medal is HARRY SUE by Sue Stauffacher in which eleven year-old Harry Sue seeks to overcome her softheartedness, begin a life of crime, and get herself incarcerated, all in the hopes of locating the imprisoned mother she hasn't seen since she was a preschooler. Preceeding the narration of her tale, Harry Sue provides us a hundred-term "joint jive" glossary, and then she proceeds to employ this colorful prison slang in telling us her unusual story.
Finally, it's been another golden year for YA fiction. Once again I've had to leave far more great books off my "best of" list than I include on it. But the two most exeptional pieces of young adult fiction published in 2005 are A ROOM ON LORELEI STREET by Mary E. Pearson, and BALL DON'T LIE by Matt de la Pena.
In A ROOM ON LORELEI STREET, Zoe's determined and rational quest for independence turns into a tense horror story as she encounters a series of realistic money-related obstacles and is ultimately forced into deciding what price she is willing to pay for the autonomy she so badly desires. In BALL DON'T LIE readers can hear the boom box and smell the sweat in Lincoln Rec as Sticky steadily employs his disability, his Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, to mold himself into a better basketball player as he struggles to escape his life of foster care in Los Angeles.
The complete list:
Richie's Picks: THE BEST OF 2005:
HITLER YOUTH: GROWING UP IN HITLER'S SHADOW by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Scholastic Nonfiction, February 2005, ISBN: 0-439-35379-3 SPACER AND RAT by Margaret Bechard, Roaring Brook, October 2005, ISBN: 1-59643-058-3 LET ME PLAY: THE STORY OF TITLE IX, THE LAW THAT CHANGED THE FUTURE OF GIRLS IN AMERICA by Karen Blumenthal, Simon & Schuster/Atheneum, June 2005, ISBN: 0-689-85957-0 TRACTION MAN IS HERE! by Mini Grey, Random House/ Knopf, April 2005, ISBN: 0-375-83191-6 INVISIBLE by Pete Hautman, Simon & Schuster, June 2005, ISBN: 0-689-86800-6 THE TROUBLE BEGINS by Linda Himelblau, Random House/Delacorte, November 2005, ISBN: 0-385-73273-2, Lib ISBN: 0-385-90288-3 AN INNOCENT SOLDIER by Josef Holub, translated by Michael Hofmann, Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Books, October 2005, ISBN: 0-439-62771-0 TOTALLY JOE by James Howe, Simon & Schuster/Atheneum/Ginee Seo Books, October 2005, ISBN: 0-689-83957-X DARK ANGEL by David Klass, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Frances Foster Books, October 2005, ISBN: 0-374-39950-6 DAY OF TEARS: A NOVEL IN DIALOGUE by Julius Lester, Hyperion/Jump at the Sun, April, 2005, ISBN: 0-7868-0490-4 THE BOYFRIEND LIST (15 GUYS, 11 SHRINK APPOINTMENTS, 4 CERAMIC FROGS AND ME, RUBY OLIVER) by E. Lockhart, Random House/Delacorte, March 2005, ISBN: 0-385-73206-6; Lib. ISBN: 0-385-90238-7 JOHN LENNON: ALL I WANT IS THE TRUTH by Elizabeth Partridge, Penguin/Viking, October 2005, ISBN: 0-670-05954-4 SUMMERTIME WALTZ by Nina Payne, illustrated by Gabi Swiatkowska, Farrar, Straus, Giroux/Frances Foster Books, May 2005, ISBN: 0-374-37291-8 A ROOM ON LORELEI STREET by Mary E. Pearson, Henry Holt, June 2005, ISBN: 0-8050-7667-0 BALL DON'T LIE by Matt de la Pena, Random House/Delacorte, September 2005 MICHAEL ROSEN'S SAD BOOK by Michael Rosen, Illustrated by Quentin Blake, Candlewick Press, March 2005, ISBN: 0-7636-2597-3 UNDER THE PERSIMMON TREE by Suzanne Fisher Staples, Farrar, Straus & Giroux/Frances Foster Books, August 2005, ISBN: 0-374-38025-2 HARRY SUE by Sue Stauffacher, Random House/Knopf, July 2005, ISBN: 0-375-83274-2, Libr.ISBN: 0-375-932747 BLACK AND WHITE by Paul Volponi, Viking, May 2005, ISBN: 0-670-06006-2 FULL SERVICE by Will Weaver, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, October 2005, ISBN: 0-374-32485-9 A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT by Laura Whitcomb, Houghton Mifflin/Graphia, September 2005, ISBN: 0-618-52552-X SHOW WAY by Jacqueline Woodson, Putnam, September 2005, ISBN: 0-399-23749-6 Richie Partington
_http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/) BudNotBuddy at aol.com
Received on Tue 06 Dec 2005 09:43:41 AM CST
