YALSA Names First 2010 Nonfiction Award Finalists
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By Rocco Staino -- School Library Journal, 12/14/2009
Deborah Heiligman and Phillip Hoose are competing head-to-head again—this time for the first Young Adult Library Services Association’s (YALSA) Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults.
Heiligman’s Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith (Holt) and Hoose’s Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (Farrar, both 2009) were National Book Award finalists in Young People’s Literature, with Hoose taking home the prize on November 18.
Now the two books are part of a five-title shortlist recently announced by a nine-person YALSA award selection committee, which has spent the year reviewing nonfiction books for young adults, ages 12–18, published between November 1, 2008 and October 31, 2009.
Angela Carstensen, chair of the committee and head librarian at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in New York City, says the committee requested more than 140 books from publishers, and others were submitted unsolicited.
The complete list and numbers will be made public after the winner is announced on January 18, 2010 at the American Library Association’s midwinter meeting in Boston, MA. “The world will see how many of those we nominated for the award and discussed in-depth,” Carstensen says. “This will be so helpful to librarians as a collection development tool.”
YALSA Past President Paula Brehm-Heeger says the award fills a void, since, until now, there was no national award to recognize nonfiction books for teens. "With the growing number of outstanding nonfiction works being published for young adults, the time is certainly right to establish an award that will highlight the best in this expanding field of titles,” she says.
To help promote the new award, bookmarks of the finalists are available for download and YALSA is also sponsoring a contest for teens to create a book trailer for the finalists. Entrants must post their videos to YouTube between December 10, 2009 and January 17, 2010. Additional information about the contest can be found at http://yalsa.ala.org/BookTrailerContest.pdf.
The finalists are:
Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream (Candlewick, 2009) by Tanya Lee Stone. In the early 1960s, the doctor in charge of testing NASA’s astronauts decided to find out if female pilots were capable of passing the grueling qualification tests required of male pilots. Feasible? Yes. Allowed? No. All testing of women’s potential for the Mercury program was done outside NASA’s purview and without their permission. The reasons why will stun readers.
Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith (Holt, 2008) by Deborah Heiligman. After creating a list of the pros and cons of marriage, science-minded Charles Darwin chose to marry his strictly religious first cousin. Little did he know that he was about to embark upon the most loving, creative, and intellectually important relationship of his life.
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (Farrar, Straus, 2009) by Phillip Hoose. The author recounts the largely untold story of Claudette Colvin, who was arrested and jailed at the age of 15 after refusing to relinquish her seat on a bus to a white woman. Interviews with Colvin create a vivid picture not only of the Montgomery bus boycott but also the Browder v. Gayle case, in which she was a key defendant.
The Great and Only Barnum: The Tremendous, Stupendous Life of Showman P. T. Barnum (Random, 2009) by Candace Fleming, illustrated by Ray Fenwick. Thrill to the audacity! Gasp at the hucksterism! Come one, come all to the jaw-dropping, larger-than-life biography of expert humbugger, relentless curiosity seeker, and unparalleled showman P. T. Barnum.
Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland (Carolrhoda, 2009) by Sally M. Walker. A detailed examination into the different types of forensic archaeology at excavations in both Jamestown, VA, and colonial Maryland, rewards readers with a picture of this fascinating work and an appreciation for what it contributes to our knowledge of history.
