Alan Gratz talks with Chapter 16 about Fantasy Baseball, his latest novel for children
April 26, 2011 A breathtakingly diverse assortment of characters culled from fairy tales, nursery rhymes, mythology, folktales, children’s literature, and even Manga inhabits Fantasy Baseball by Knoxville children’s author Alan Gratz. It’s a fast-paced adventure, a thrilling come-from-behind sports story, an artistic tour de force, and a heck of a fun read.
Read moreDebut YA novelist Ruta Sepetys wows reviewers all over the country
April 8, 2011 The four starred reviews—one from every pre-publication review site in the industry—for Ruta Sepetys’s Between Shades of Gray was a pretty good clue that this debut YA novel was bound to be a big hit, but now the glowing reviews are really rolling in for the Nashville novelist.
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Robert J. Blake’s new picture book teaches kids how friendship really works
March 22, 2011 Robert J. Blake’s latest picture book features the tale of two best friends who’ll do anything to stay together. The protagonists of Painter and Ugly are a pair of dogs whose love for one another is nearly matched by their love of competing in Alaskan dog-sled races. Blake, who is also the book’s illustrator, immerses readers in the story of a Junior Iditarod race, a grueling test in which a group of competing teenagers push their dog-sled teams on a nearly eighty-mile trek into the Alaskan wilderness, only to complete the return run the very next day, after a night of camping in the cold with their dog teams. He recently answered questions from Chapter 16 via email.
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Ruta Sepetys’s YA debut chronicles Stalin’s murder of millions
March 21, 2011 In 1939, the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were occupied by the Soviet Union. In the years that followed, Joseph Stalin ordered the deportation of millions of Baltic civilians to forced labor camps. More than twenty million people perished in the gulags, but even those who managed to survive and return home were forbidden to reveal the atrocities they’d suffered in the camps. Nashville author Ruta Sepetys, whose stunning debut novel Between Shades of Gray aims, finally, to tell the long-suppressed truth about Stalin’s mass atrocities, grew up in the culture of silence imposed on camp survivors.
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By Patricia C. McKissack
Scholastic Press
240 pages
$12.99
“The Dear America diaries represent the best of historical fiction for any age.”
Chicago Tribune
The buzz is growing for Ruta Sepetys and her debut YA novel
February 14, 2011 Pre-publication attention continues to heat up for debut YA novelist, Ruta Sepetys. Since the last time we checked in on the Countryside, Tennessee, writer, she’s picked up another starred review, this one from School Library Journal, and a blue ribbon from the Book-of-The-Month Club–the first time a young-adult novel has ever made the list.
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