Bulletin Blue Ribbons 2013
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Bulletin Blue Ribbons 2013
Congratulations, authors and publishers: you presented us with one of the strongest fiction categories in years; tough work for us, but in a gratifying way, and it’s left us with one of our longer fiction lists. On the nonfiction front, we saw a particular focus on American history, while picture books were a wonderfully motley crew, ranging from the moving to the mooing. So pass these around and read up, and find your downloadable PDF in trifold format (and any reviewer championing of books that didn’t quite make the list) at http://bccb.lis.illinois.edu.
Fiction
Dowell continues her nuanced and honest exploration of middle-school dynamics in this third installment of the series that follows friends Kate and Marylin (The Secret Language of Girls, BCCB 7/04, The Kind of Friends We Used to Be, BCCB 5/09) as the now seventh-graders negotiate new and changing relationships.
The voice of Steve Crashinsky, aka Crash, an ADD, hard-partying teen who’s surprisingly become a hero, is chillingly authentic as he relays his high school experiences complete with sex, pot, and apathetic adults in this provocative indictment of contemporary cultural values.
Witty, endearing, and as the title suggests, a bit compulsive, narrator Bea finds herself falling for a similarly obsessive guy in her therapy group in this compassionate but optimistic examination of neuroses.
This utterly unconventional supernatural romance features Sam, a jaded seventeen-year-old boy whose summer fling with an otherworldly girl forces him to his reconsider his ideas of love and adulthood.
Brutally honest but ultimately hopeful, this examination of bullying follows highschooler Piddy, whose torment at the hands of another girl leaves wounds both physical and emotional. [End Page 292]
Love, loyalty, and sacrifice are deftly explored in this ungothic gothic novel that depicts the plight of Teeth, a defiant human/fish hybrid, and his growing and complicated friendship with a human teen.
A perceptive young girl on a road trip with her father is torn between her desire to learn her father’s secrets and her wish to remain protected in this elegantly written coming-of-age tale.
Nuanced characterization of Cath, an introverted freshman more comfortable in the world of fan fiction than her in her new college dorm, lends complexity and warmth to this humorous romcom.
Deftly sidestepping cloying lessons about individuality and resourcefulness, Sloan presents a sensitive look at a quirky girl who has always been unconditionally accepted by her parents, and who must adjust to how to live without them after their unexpected deaths.
In a futuristic and fever-ridden New Orleans flooded by hurricanes and walled off from the rest of the country, a girl struggles not only to survive but to save her beloved friend’s baby.
Homebodies in particularly will enjoy this compassionate but pragmatic story that follows young Eleanor as she endures a trip to summer camp.
Sharpshooting, counterfeiting, a smart protagonist, and a compelling mystery—what more could you ask out of a book about a nineteenth century Wisconsin girl out to find her missing sister, and discovering herself along the way?
The complexities of political and religious conflict are made...
