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We Need Diverse Books Announces The 2016 Winners of the Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature – Young Adult Category
The We Need Diverse Books™ Walter Award Judges Committee has confirmed selections for the inaugural Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature – Young Adult Category. One winner and two honors have been named.
The Walter Dean Myers Award, also known as “The Walter,” is named for prolific children’s and young adult author Walter Dean Myers (1937 – 2014). Myers was a National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature as well as a champion of diversity in children’s and YA books.
The winner of the first annual Walter award (2016) is the young adult novel All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. The judges also selected two Walter honor books: Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings by Margarita Engle and X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon.
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL!!
We Need Diverse Books Announces The 2016 Winners of the Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature – Young Adult Category
January 20, 2016 (New York) – The We Need Diverse Books(TM) Walter Award Judges Committee has confirmed selections for the inaugural Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literat…
Congrats to Jason Reynolds & Brendan Kiely for All American Boys as well as honor books by Kekla Magoon & Ilyasah Shabazz and Margarita Engle!
"As a writer of color, I feel a certain pressure to write characters of color, and to write the stories that the world “needs.” This can be burdensome at times. I want to write characters of color, for sure, but I’m not convinced that all these books need to deal with Race with a capital R, as if the only purpose black characters serve in literature is to enlighten readers about our complicated racial history."- Kekla Magoon, on her diversity, being a writer of color, and her new middle grade novel Shadows of Sherwood
(Source: bookishbloomsbury)
Title: X
Author: Ilyasah Shabazz with Kekla Magoon
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Pages: 384
Genre: Historical Fiction
Review Copy: ARC via NetgalleyAvailability: On shelves now
Summary: Cowritten by Malcolm X’s daughter, this riveting and revealing novel follows the formative years of the man whose words and actions shook the world.
I am Malcolm. I am my father’s son. But to be my father’s son means that they will always come for me. They will always come for me, and I will always succumb.
Malcolm Little’s parents have always told him that he can achieve anything, but from what he can tell, that’s nothing but a pack of lies—after all, his father’s been murdered, his mother’s been taken away, and his dreams of becoming a lawyer have gotten him laughed out of school. There’s no point in trying, he figures, and lured by the nightlife of Boston and New York, he escapes into a world of fancy suits, jazz, girls, and reefer.
But Malcolm’s efforts to leave the past behind lead him into increasingly dangerous territory when what starts as some small-time hustling quickly spins out of control. Deep down, he knows that the freedom he’s found is only an illusion—and that he can’t run forever.
X follows Malcolm from his childhood to his imprisonment for theft at age twenty, when he found the faith that would lead him to forge a new path and command a voice that still resonates today. – Cover image and summary via Goodreads
Review: How did Malcolm Little become Malcolm X? Who and what shaped him? These are some of the questions explored within these pages.
The novel starts out in 1945 with Malcolm running from trouble and in fear for his life. It then backtracks to show how he got to that point. The story moves back and forth in time to share the circumstances and influences that led Malcolm to such a situation.
Malcolm demonstrates time and time again that he is intelligent, but as a young man, frustration and desperation often lead to impulsive and risky choices with serious consequences. What is hard for him is that the consequences of some of his actions affect his entire family.
Through all kinds of conflict though, Malcolm hears the voices of his parents, especially his father, echoing in his heart and mind. They say that he can do anything, be anything. His parents had laid a foundation. They shared their love and wisdom. “Words have power, Papa used to say. Speak what you want to be true.” Even when Malcolm had doubts about what his parents had believed, their words still rumbled through his mind.
Malcolm runs from one situation to the next trying to find himself and trying to live free from rules that were defined by his skin color. One line that stood out to me in the ARC was, “There are so many rules for how to be a black person, things you cannot say and places you cannot go.” In Boston he thought he had found a place free of those rules, while he dated a beautiful white woman. Over time though, he found that the rules were unspoken, but were definitely still present.
Read the full review at Rich in Color.
A fantastic and wonderful book, necessary to readers about history and also being a young person who doesn’t know who they are, yet.
This week’s diverse new releases are:
The Law of Loving Others by Kate Axelrod (Razorbill)
“Seventeen-year-old Emma returns home from boarding school for winter break to find that her mother is having a psychotic break—her parents never told her that her mother was diagnosed as schizophrenic years ago and has been taking medication for the condition since college. Emma’s mother’s subsequent institutionalization is like an earthquake in Emma’s life. … her actions never feel anything but realistic in this reflective and incisive exploration of the far-reaching effects of mental illness.” — Publishers Weekly
Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the Selma Voting Rights March by Lynda Blackmon Lowery as told to Elspeth Leacock and Susan Buckley] (Dial)
“In 1965, Lynda Blackmon Lowery turned 15 during the three-day voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery. In this vibrant memoir, Lowery’s conversational voice effectively relates her experiences in the civil rights movement on and before that march. The youngest person on the march, she’d already been jailed nine times as a protester. … Vivid details and the immediacy of Lowery’s voice make this a valuable primary document as well as a pleasure to read.” — Kirkus, starred review
X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz with Kekla Magoon (Candlewick)
“This fictionalized account of the boy who became Malcolm X maintains a suspenseful, poetic grip as it shifts among moments in his life between the years 1930 and 1948. … Shabazz (Growing Up X), one of Malcolm X’s daughters, and Magoon (How It Went Down) capture Malcolm’s passion for new experiences, the defeatism that plagued him, and the long-buried hope that eventually reclaimed him.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds (Atheneum)
“With his mother newly dead, a job in a funeral home somehow becomes the perfect way for Matthew to deal with his crushing grief. … Reynolds writes with a gritty realism that beautifully captures the challenges—and rewards—of growing up in the inner city. A vivid, satisfying and ultimately upbeat tale of grief, redemption and grace.” — Kirkus
Hold Tight, Don’t Let Go by Laura Rose Wagner (Amulet Books)
“In this formidable first novel, 15-year-old narrator Magdalie loses everything after the Haitian earthquake of 2010 and is forced to rebuild along with her country. … Wagner’s portrait of Haitian culture is particularly compelling, and her descriptions of the settings of the city and Tonton Élie’s country hometown are lush.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
First book releases of 2015! How exciting! Wonderful covers.
X: A Conversation
Ilyasah Shabazz’s X: A Novel, written with Kekla Magoon, is the story of young Malcolm X. Before he became the legendary leader the world remembers, Malcolm was a young teen trying to find his way.
By Ilyasah Shabazz with Kekla Magoon
What it is like to work on a book…
Here’s an interview diversityinya did with authors Kekla Magoon and Ilyasah Shabazz. They will also be at the 92nd Street Y tonight for the official launch of X, A Novel. We’ll be there and hope to see you as well.
Tickets are still available at: http://www.92y.org/Event/X-A-Novel.aspx