Book News
“Colvin” in the running. A book about civil rights heroine Claudette Colvin that won a National Book Award in November is one of five finalists for a new prize for young adult nonfiction. “Claudette Colvin,” by Phillip Hoose, has been named a nominee for the Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults award. The prize is given out by a division of the American Library Association.
Other finalists include “Almost Astronauts,” by Tanya Lee Stone; “Charles and Emma,” by Deborah Heiligman; “The Great and Only Barnum,” by Candace Fleming; and “Written in Bone,” by Sally M. Walker.
The award, honoring the best nonfiction book for young adults (ages 12-18) that was published between Nov. 1 and Oct. 31, will be announced Jan. 18 at the American Library Association’s winter meeting in Boston.
First Lines
The Red Door, by Charles Todd
November 1918, Hobson, Lancashire.
She stood in front of the cheval glass, the long mirror that Peter had given her on their second anniversary, and considered herself. Her hair had faded from shimmering English fair to almost the color of straw, and her face was lined from working in the vegetable beds throughout the war, though she’d worn a hat and gloves. Her skin, once like silk — he’d always told her that — was showing faint lines, and her eyes, though still very blue, stared back at her from some other woman’s old face.
Four years — have I really aged that much in four years? she asked her image.
With a sigh she accepted the fact that she wouldn’t see forty-four again. But he’d have aged too. Probably more than she had — war was no seaside picnic on a summer’s afternoon.
That thought failed to cheer her. She wanted to see joy and surprise on his face when he came home at last. The war was finally over — the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Yesterday. It wouldn’t be long now before he came striding over the hill and up the lane.
Surely they would send the men in France home quickly. It had been four long lonely unbearable years. Even the Army couldn’t expect families to wait beyond a month — six weeks. It wasn’t as if the Allies must occupy Germany. This was, after all, an armistice, not a surrender. The Germans would be as eager to go home as the British.
Most borrowed
from libraries
1. Finger Lickin’ Fifteen,
by Janet Evanovich
2. Swimsuit, by James Patterson
and Maxine Paetro
3. The Time Traveler’s Wife,
by Audrey Niffenegger
4. The 8th Confession, by James Patterson
5. The Scarecrow, by Michael Connelly
6. Black Hills, by Nora Roberts
7. Knockout, by Catherine Coulter
8. First Family, by David Baldacci
9. Run for Your Life, by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
10. Best Friends Forever,
by Jennifer Weiner
