Morris Award Week

January 25, 2015 Heidi etc, Morris Award Week 1

It’s that time of year!!! Time for the American Library Association’s Midwinter meeting. Do you know what this means?!?! It means it’s book award season!! Being the certified book nerd (and librarian!) that I am, I get super excited about this time of year.

One of the awards that is announced is the William C. Morris YA Debut Award. As the award title indicates, this award is given to a debut novel. Specifically, it is given to, “a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens and celebrating impressive new voices in young adult literature.” (http://www.ala.org/yalsa/morris)

The 2015 finalists are:

“The Carnival at Bray” written by Jessie Ann Foley, published by Elephant Rock Books.
“The Story of Owen: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim” written by E.K. Johnston, published by Carolrhoda Lab™, an imprint of Carolrhoda Books, a division of Lerner Publishing Group.
“Gabi, a Girl in Pieces” written by Isabel Quintero, published by Cinco Puntos Press.
“The Scar Boys” written by Len Vlahos, published by Egmont Publishing.
“The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender” written by Leslye Walton, published by Candlewick Press.

The winner will be announced on February 2nd. In honor of this award and these fabulous books (I’ve read them all!) I’m dedicating this week to the Morris Award finalists! I’ll feature a different book each day. I’m doing this as part of the Cinco Puntos Press Morris Finalist blog tour. The schedule for my blog is as follows:

Monday: Review – The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton
Tuesday: Review – The Story of Owen: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim by E.K. Johnston
Wednesday: Guest Post – Len Vlahos, author of The Scar Boys
Thursday: Guest Post – Isabel Quintero, author of Gabi, a Girl in Pieces
Friday: Guest Post – Jessie Ann Foley, author of The Carnival at Bray

So keep checking back to learn more about the Morris Award finalists!