A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

Children & YA

“Heartbreaking, Searing, and Lyrically Written”

By Fernanda Moore

December 13, 2011 “I felt a weighty responsibility to get this story right—for history, for my heritage, and for these survivors—especially the survivors,” Ruta Sepetys told Publisher’s Weekly before her debut novel was released. “Because this chapter of history remained secret, no one had ever celebrated their bravery or consoled their regrets.” As a raft of awards and stellar notices has since attested, Sepetys’s message has come through loud and clear. Chapter 16 looks back on a year of raves for Between Shades of Gray.

No Sophomore Slump

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.

No Sophomore Slump

Family is Forever

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.

The True Costs of Amazon's Savings

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.”

Spinning Ariadne

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.

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

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