From: Dean Schneider <schneiderd>
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 14:55:40 -0600

I thought all five of the National Book Award finalists were excellent - a varied selection of fine works representing young adult literature. I thought Octavian Nothing was absolutely compelling. The challenging prose - the Gothic and fantastic tones, included - drew me into Octavian's world. It's certainly one of my favorite books of recent years. I teach 7th and 8th grades, and I see Octavian Nothing as a work more for older YA, so I don't know the reception it's getting from readers, though I have had a couple of eighth graders read and like it.

 

Sold is one work that has stayed with me. When verse novels work well, as this one does, the poems can be hotlines to the voice and souls of characters. McCormick's juxtaposition of the natural beauty of Lakshmi's Himalayan home and the sordidness of the circumstances she is forced into are beautifully crafted. Lakshmi's voice will stay with readers for a long time, and readers may well note in her experience echoes of voices of other survivors in other places and times.

 

I had an 8th-grade student last year - a big reader - who thought The Rules of Survival was the best book he had ever read. In fact, he read it two or three times, and I believe he wrote to Nancy Werlin to say just how much he liked it. It's a thriller, a survival story, and family story all mixed into one. Very powerful.

 

These are the three that I found most memorable. I don't have the books in front of me here at school, but I may write more later when I can be more specific.

 

Dean Schneider

Ensworth School

Nashville, Tennessee

schneiderd at ensworth.com

 

 
Received on Fri 05 Jan 2007 02:55:40 PM CST