NYC Teens Schmooze with National Book Award Finalists
By Rocco Staino -- School Library Journal, 11/18/2008 9:05:00 PM
Some 200 student reporters from the New York City area yesterday grilled five of this year’s National Book Award finalists at the 11th annual Teen Press Conference .
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NBA finalists, from left, Lockhart, Anderson, Blundell, Appelt, Tharp. |
Those gathered in the auditorium of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture were regaled by Lockhart as she described a boarding school prank in her book that involved students adding bras to all the schools portraits and statues. At another point during the two hour event, the audience began to hoot and howl following Tharp’s rendition of the “gangster rap” that the main character in his book, Sutter Keely, uses to attract girls. Two time nominee. Anderson described herself as the “Queen of Talking about Awkward Things.”
At a reception following the press conference, students spoke face-to-face with the finalists and had their books autographed. Sutter Keely, the continually drunk main character in The Spectacular Now, drew many comments from those attending the event, including Dennis Ramos, an 11th grader at Seward Park, who found him a likeable character because he was funny and “really cared for people.” On the other hand, Jasani Jacobs, an 11th grader from Brooklyn’s Erasmus Hall High School, felt peer pressure played a huge role in Keely’s drinking problem.
“It was amazing,” says Monica O’Neill an 11th grader from Seward Park High School in Manhattan, describing the protagonist in Lockhart’s Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. David White, an eighth grader at the Little Red School House in the West Village and another fan of the book, says he enjoyed its ambiguous ending.
The Teen Press Conference is a key part of the celebrations that lead up to the National Book Awards, which takes place this year on November 19th. The winner receives a $10,000 prize.
