Two publishers and five authors are celebrating being named finalists for the L.A. Times Book Award, the winner of which will be announced on April 20, the evening before the kick-off of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, a huge (and by all accounts fantastic) two-day annual event.
Scholastic has three books in the final five: Beauty Queens by Libba Bray, The Big Crunch by Pete Hautman, and The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (which also received a Printz Honor and an Odyssey Audiobook Honor from the ALA in January). Candlewick has two finalists: Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet, and A Monster Calls: Inspired by an Idea from Siobhan Dowd by Patrick Ness (which also just won the U.K.’s child-chosen Red House Children’s Book award).
I hope a newspaper as large as the L.A. Times will decide to recognize excellence in literature for readers younger than a YA audience, as well, since they are not only the nation’s most enthusiastic readers, but also the paper’s future readers. Perhaps next year….
Congratulations to the finalists — this is a terrific list of novels!