All you need is a computer with a camera (many computers come embedded with this now), a microphone and speakers (also built in to most computers), and an account with iChat or Skype. Directions for how to get set up on iChat and Skype can be found at balkinbuddies.com/onlineauthorsavailable.html.

To be eligible for the raffle, you must:

(a) have an audience of at least 10 or more students (school children or university students studying to be teachers or librarians). Please note that for larger audiences, you would need an activboard or some other means to enlarge the chat onto a larger screen;

(b) send the following information to catherine@balkinbuddies.com or balkinbuddies@aol.com by no later than February 15, 2010:

- your name
- your school or library affiliation
- your email
- your telephone number
- the grade levels which you serve.

Winners will be picked from a hat within a day or two after that and will be notified within a week.

Several winners will be chosen and may pick the author of their choice. However, an author will not serve as a prize more than once, and each author will go to whoever contacts us first. So if you are named a winner and are anxious to have one author over another, you would have to contact us as soon as possible upon notification of being a winner. This information will be repeated should you be named a winner.

Balkin Buddies’ authors & artists participating in the raffle are: Ann Angel, Jennifer Armstrong, Tom Birdseye, Vicki Cobb, Dorothy Donohue, Paul Fleisher, Jan Spivey Gilchrist, Jake Halpern, Gerald and Loretta Hausman, Patricia Hermes, Alison Jackson, Frané Lessac, Elizabeth Levy, Robert Lipsyte, Emily Arnold McCully, Wendell Minor, Carol Nevius, Lesléa Newman, Matt Novak, Darcy Pattison, Joanne Rocklin, Dave Ross, Elaine Scott, Kim Siegelson, Dashka Slater, Edward T. Sullivan, Arthur Yorinks, Lara M. Zeises, and Lizabeth Zindel.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Catherine Balkin

Balkin Buddies

Brooklyn, NY

Tel 718 857 7605

BalkinBuddies@aol.com

Two students at Montgomery County High School, Diana Banderas and Stephanie Bellot, have organized a free speech rally in Mount Sterling, Kentucky to protest the challenge by parents and school board superintendent Daniel Freeman of several YA novels, including DEADLINE by Chris Crutcher and TWISTED by Laurie Halse Anderson.  College prep English teacher Risha Mullins used the books with classics in reading circles — voluntary options.  A parent or two complained, the review committee voted to retain the books and support Mullins.  Superintendent Daniel Freeman overturned the vote when the parents appealed and removed the books from the classroom  and instructed the teacher to discontinue her reading circles.  He insisted the books were not helpful in terms of college prep.

Diana and Stephanie asked Chris Crutcher to attend the rally, and he agreed.  So he’ll be there to speak along with other students from MCHS.  If any of you are in Kentucky or Southern Ohio or other regions near Mount Sterling, please consider attending to support these courageous young people and their teachers and librarians.  We’ll post notes and photos on Chris’s website and Facebook as soon as possible, for those who can’t attend.  And you can find background information about the challenge here, on Chris’s site (http://www.chriscrutcher.com) and on Laurie’s blog (http://halseanderson.livejournal.com/265078.html).

RALLY DETAILS:

WHEN: Friday, December 18, 2009 at 6:00 pm
WHERE: Gateway Regional Center for the Arts

101 E. Main Street

Mount Sterling, KY 40353

Congratulations to this year’s finalists:

• “Ash” by Malinda Lo, by published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
• “Beautiful Creatures” by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
• “The Everafter” by Amy Huntley, published by Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
• “Flash Burnout” by L.K. Madigan, published by Houghton Mifflin/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• “hold still” by Nina LaCour, published by Dutton Children’s Books, a Division of Penguin Young Readers Group

The William C. Morris YA Debut Award, first awarded in 2009, honors a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens and celebrating impressive new voices in young adult literature.

The award’s namesake is William C. Morris, an influential innovator in the publishing world and an advocate for marketing books for children and young adults. Bill Morris left an impressive mark on the field of children’s and young adult literature. He was beloved in the publishing field and the library profession for his generosity and marvelous enthusiasm for promoting literature for children and teens.

The William C. Morris YA Debut Award celebrates the achievement of a previously unpublished author, or authors, who have made a strong literary debut in writing for young adult readers. The work cited will illuminate the teen experience and enrich the lives of its readers through its excellence, demonstrated by:

• Compelling, high quality writing and/or illustration
• The integrity of the work as a whole
• Its proven or potential appeal to a wide range of teen readers

The Morris Award will be awarded annually at ALA’s Midwinter Youth Media Awards. A shortlist of up to five titles will be announced the second Monday of December. In 2010, the winner and finalists will be honored at a reception at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in Boston on Monday, Jan. 18 from 8-10 p.m. at the Westin Copley Place Essex Center South, along with the winner and finalists for YALSA’s Nonfiction Award.

Members of the 2010 William C. Morris Award are: Chair Judy Nelson, Pierce County Library System, Tacoma, Wash.; Jeana Actkinson, Bridgeport (Texas) High School; Dr. Joni Richards Bodart, School of Library and Information Science-San Jose (Calif.) State University; Susan Fichtelberg, Public Library of Woodbridge, N.J.; Angela Frederick, Nashville (Tenn.) Public Library; Clio Hathaway, Martin Memorial Library, York, Pa.; Melanie Koss, Northern Illinois University DeKalb, Ill.; Anne Leon, Alvin Sherman Library-Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Gail Zachariah, Keene (N.H.) Public Library; David Durante, administrative assistant, Pierce County Library System, Graham, Wash.; and Booklist Consultant, Ilene Cooper, Chicago.21

The winner of the 2009 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award is:

My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins & Fenway Park

by Steve Kluger (Dial)

2009 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award finalists are:

After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson (Putnam)

Graceling by Kristin Cashore (Harcourt)

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins)

Me, The Missing, and the Dead by Jenny Valentine (HarperCollins)

All Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award titles will be identified by an award sticker—gold for the winner and silver for the four finalists.

This year’s winning title was announced at an open reception and reading on Monday, November 23 during the 2009 ALAN Workshop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Finalists Steve Kluger (My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins & Fenway Park) and Jacqueline Woodson (After Tupac and D Foster) were present to read from and sign their nominated titles.  Members of the 2009 committee, Jennifer Buehler, Erica Berg, and Mary Arnold, read from the remaining nominated titles.

The 2009 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Committee would like to thank: NCTE and the ALAN Board of Directors; all of the publishers who nominated books for consideration; Scottie Bowditch and Kimberly Lauber from Penguin Group for making arrangements for their authors to attend the reception and for supplying books for the signing; Daniel Gill for designing the beautiful award seal; Gerard Mendoza, event planner for the Philadelphia Downtown Marriot, for his assistance in planning the reception; and Don Gallo for photographing the reception.

The 2009 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Committee was comprised of ten members representing the university, K-12 school, and library communities who considered 232 young adult titles over the duration of the process:

Dr. Wendy Glenn, Chair
Associate Professor, University of Connecticut, Storrs

Willington, CT

Mary Arnold
Teen Services Manager, Cuyahoga County Public Library

Cleveland, OH

Erica Berg
Classroom Teacher, Rockville High School

Vernon, CT

Dr. Jean Boreen
Professor, Northern Arizona University

Flagstaff, AZ

C.J. Bott
Retired Classroom Teacher and Educational Consultant
Solon, OH

Dr. Jennifer Buehler
Assistant Professor, Saint Louis University

Saint Louis, MO

Bonnie Kunzel
Youth Services and Adolescent Literacy Consultant
Germantown, TN

Dr. Teri Lesesne
Professor, Sam Houston State University

Huntsville, TX

Daria Plumb
Classroom Teacher, Dundee Alternative High School

Dundee, MI

Dr. Barbara Ward
Assistant Professor, Washington State University, Tri-Cities

Richland, WA

For more information on the award, please visit ALAN Online: The Official Site of the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents http://www.alan-ya.org/ .

The weekend will be jam-packed (where did they get the jam? The TSA won’t let you carry-on jam, for goodness sake) with YA authors, including LJ friends sarazarr , joknowles , marypearson, professornana , pambachorz , elockhar and writerjenn(If I missed a LJ author, please feel free to let me know in the comments).

I’ll be speaking at a number of events and signing in the hall, promoting both Soul Enchilada and the forthcoming future dystopia Black Hole Sun,  which will be out May, 2010 and was described on Fuse #8 as “Aliens meets Seven Samurai”!

Here’s my official schedule (don’t be shy about saying hi!):

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21

• 7:00 am – 9:15 am ALAN Breakfast
• 10:00 am – 11:00 am HarperCollins Booth Signing: David Macinnis Gill and Kathryn Lasky. Booth #213
• 2:45 pm – 5:30 pm Session: “Middle Level Mosaic Workshop: BE the Book!” Marriott/Grand Ballroom Salon E, 5th Floor YA AUTHOR SPEED DATING!

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22

5:30 pm – 7:00 pm ALAN Reception. Marriott Philadelphia/Grand Ballroom C, D, E  1201 Market St.

ALAN WORKSHOP

12:00 pm – 12:25 pm Session: “Soul and Substance in YA Literature.” Speakers: David Macinnis Gill (Greenwillow); Jen Bryant (Random House); Chris Crowe

We’re so excited about this year’s NCTE Convention, which will be held in Philadelphia, November 20–22, 2009, with the ALAN Workshop following on November 23–24. Come visit us at booth #213 to check out our newest books, collect galleys and other giveaways, and meet our amazing authors. The NCTE signing schedule is as follows (subject to change):

Friday, November 20

Diane Zahler, 1:00-1:30 p.m.
Eileen and Jerry Spinelli, 4:00-5:00 p.m.
Gordon Korman, 5:00-6:00 p.m.

Saturday, November 21

Naomi Shihab Nye, 9:00-10:00 a.m.
David Macinnis Gill & Kathryn Lasky, 10:00-11:00 a.m.
Peter McCarty, 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Elizabeth Scott, 12:30-1:00 p.m.
Patricia McCormick, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Walter Dean Myers, 2:30-3:30 p.m.
Allan Stratton, 3:30-4:00 p.m.
Deborah Hopkinson, 4:00-4:30 p.m.

Sunday, November 22

Chris Crutcher, 10:00-11:00 a.m.

The ALAN Workshop schedule is as follows (subject to change):

Monday, November 23

Chris Crutcher, 9:20 a.m. Keynote Address, signing to follow
Patricia McCormick, 11:00 a.m. panel discussion, signing to follow
Elizabeth Scott, 2:30 p.m. panel discussion, signing to follow
L.M. Elliott, 2:00 p.m. breakout session, signing to follow
David Macinnis Gill, 2:00 p.m. breakout session, signing to follow

Tuesday, November 24

Michael Cart, 11:35 a.m. panel discussion, signing to follow
David Macinnis Gill, 12:00-12:25 p.m. panel discussion, signing to follow
L.M. Elliott, 12:30-12:55 p.m. panel discussion, signing to follow

Last summer, I discovered a letter on librarian James LaRue’s blog. Mr. LaRue had written the letter in response to a challenge of one of the books in the library’s collection. It is masterful, the perfect example of how to respond to a challenge in a reasoned and compassionate way, while remaining firm to the principles that guide both his library and this nation.

If you are thinking of responding to a challenge or are just curious about what all this Banned Books stuff is about, please take a moment to read: http://jaslarue.blogspot.com/2008/07/uncle-bobbys-wedding.html

Laurie Halse Anderson’s 1999 young adult novel, “Speak,” which was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Award and the National Book Award, was selected as School Library Journal’s Best Book of the Year and received numerous other honors, was the focus of controversy in Temecula this week. The school board’s trustees were deciding whether or not to add “Speak” to the list of books that may be taught in high school English classes, and were concerned that it deals with the topic of rape and its aftermath. more at http://bit.ly/2bjyqT

Which leads me to wonder: Why is it that students can be opted out of readings so easily? At what point did we decide that teens were too fragile to face difficult subjects in the English classroom but strong enough to learn about them in math, science, history, etc.? Is it because we fear genuine stories more than we fear textbooks? Or is it because we understand intuitively how powerful the written word is and know that the most important thing that a teacher can do is connect a student with story? If so, why aren’t teens reading more books and taking fewer tests?