2004 National Book Award News

[sakuraigirl]

And the winners are...
Ficition: The News From Paraguay by Lily Tuck
Nonfiction: Arc of Justice by Kevin Boyle
Poetry: Door in the Mountain by Jean Valentine
Young People's Literature: Godless by Pete Hautman

Related articles...
- Book Award Becomes a Feast of Canapés
- South America Epic Wins the National Book Award

Past posts on subject...
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Comments

[marjoram]

hey since you read so many books....

what, in your opinion, are youth literature books that i should read? recently, i've become very interested YA but am not sure where to begin. I adore francesca lia and melvin burgess but other than that i haven't really read any other youth literature.

[sakuraigirl]

Alice Hoffman's Green Angel reminded me a lot of Francesca Lia Block, you'll probably like that one. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares is really good, one of the better YA books I've read this year. None of the main characters were vapid airheads, they seemed more real and I think it's written with more mature teenagers in mind.

Generally when YA is concerned, I tend to like the more silly, fluffy ones as long as the main character isn't too vain/stupid/annoying... and that's hard to find! Of the better comedic ones I've read there's Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan and Girl, 15, Charming But Insane by Sue Limb. The Georgia Nicolson books by Louise Rennison can be fun, but Georgia can be extremely irritating, so I don't suggest reading all her books in a row, or you'll really start to despise her if you have a low tolerance for that type of girl.

The best YA books by far for me is the first two Adrian Mole books, you can find them in one volume under The Adrian Mole Diaries by Sue Townsend, there is several