Looking Back on 50 Years of Tennessee Books
Abundant Goodness
A Committed Conservative
She’s on the Bird
Good Sport
Chapter 16
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Children & YA

No Sophomore Slump

With an international prize and a new six-figure book deal, the good news just keeps coming for Ruta Sepetys

By Fernanda Moore |

November 30, 2011 Published in twenty-nine countries to rave reviews around the world, Between Shades of Gray, the bestselling debut novel by Ruta Sepetys, is a writer’s wildest dream come true. Now the Nashville author has signed a six-figure book deal and become the first American to win the prestigious Prix RTL-Lire, a French prize for the best novel for young people published in the last year. Fresh from the gala at the Petit Palais in Paris, Sepetys answered questions from Chapter 16 about her literary influences, the connections she’s forged with the descendants of Baltic refugees or deportees, and the much-discussed “darkness” of literature pitched to an adolescent audience.

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Family is Forever

Patricia’s McKissack’s Never Forgotten offers children an honest yet gentle introduction to the painful subject of slavery

By Tina LoTufo |

October 18, 2011 Author Patricia McKissack and illustrators Leo and Diane Dillon have created a children’s picture book about slavery that is neither maudlin nor depressing. Instead it is brave, heart-rending, visually breathtaking, truly magical, and filled with a deep wisdom that will resonate with anyone who has wrestled with pain and grief. Never Forgotten is an exquisitely hopeful, healing gift.

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The True Costs of Amazon's Savings

According to a new analysis of a study by UT, it’s even worse than we thought

By Margaret Renkl |

September 22, 2011 Liz Garrigan’s Dear John letter to Amazon in today’s edition of Chapter 16 is an unvarnished call for book lovers to put their money where their mouths are and support their local bookstores instead of buying books online. Garrigan argues that Amazon’s refusal to collect the state and local sales taxes that other bricks-and-mortar stores collect–taxes that support local schools, police and fire departments, and other civic necessities–amounts to a “powerful incentive for customers to let their fingers do the clicking.”

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Spinning Ariadne

Tracy Barrett’s retelling of the Theseus myth subverts ancient tradition—and will delight young readers

By Fernanda Moore |

September 12, 2011 Tracy Barrett has a way with classical myth. Her last young-adult novel, the brilliant King of Ithaka, is an astonishingly original and surefooted reworking of Homer’s Odyssey, in which she somehow discovered new paths on what must be the Western canon’s most heavily trodden ground. Her newest book, Dark of the Moon, takes another famous Greek legend—the story of Theseus and the Minotaur—and makes it fresh and fascinating, even as it honors the foundations of the original tale.

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The Healer

By Tristan Hickey |

The Healer

The Healer Book 1: The Phantom Limb

Ja Man
Mutant Horse LLC
288 pages
$13.95

For years he wandered alone in search of work, digging in the dark corners of the galaxy for pain and suffering ignored by the Healing Order. Then the terraformers hired him. Sure, their reputation as brutal fringe dwellers recommended against it, but the work was easy and the pay outstanding. So he was told. Soon enough, he realized that he had hired onto a dirty mission and he’d be lucky to get out alive. But death wasn’t the worst outcome. The secret power of healers had awoken in him, and now he faced the struggle against his phantom limb of power––a forbidden power that threatened to destroy him.

–From the Publisher

Timeless

In Myra McEntire’s YA thriller, Hourglass, two young sweethearts travel into the past to prevent a murder

By Tina LoTufo |

August 8, 2011 When Emerson Cole discovers that she may have the ability to travel through time, she’s not particularly thrilled. As a high-school senior with exactly one friend, she’s actually far less interested in time travel than in avoiding the label of total freak. In Hourglass, Myra McEntire takes a twisting, turning journey through the physics of time, but the most important journey is Emerson’s discovery of her own surprising reserves of courage, love, and loyalty. Timeless qualities indeed. On August 8 at 6:30 p.m, McEntire will read at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Brentwood as a part of the Ash2Nash Tour of YA authors.

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