We e-mailed I’ll Give You the Sun author Jandy Nelson to let her know her book is among the Top 10 in this year’s CCRSB Teen Reader’s Choice Award. We were thrilled to receive her  response.

 “Do you know I spent summers in Nova Scotia when I was a teenager? In Smith’s Cove. God, I loved it there! 

 “I’m so excited for you to meet twins Noah and Jude. Noah is this flood in a paper cup. He has a mad desire to draw, to kiss the boy next door, to peel the blue off the sky, to be the blue in the sky. And Jude. She used to surf and cliff-dive and do the talking for both twins, but something happened, and now she’s gone quiet and is living with ghosts and following her grandmother’s bible of superstitions. These twins became so real to me that one time, while in the middle of writing the novel, I went to an art exhibit and my first thought was it’s such a shame Noah and Jude couldn’t come with me today.

“This is a story about love, crazy complicated love of all kinds: between guys and girls, guys and guys, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, artists and their art, but mostly it’s about the fierce, roller-coaster love between the twins themselves.

“Writing Noah and Jude’s story took three and a half years. It was the most exciting, exuberant, and challenging creative experience of my life. These characters shook the ground beneath my feet. There’s a moment in the novel when Jude’s watching her stone-carving mentor Guillermo sculpt and she wonders if he’s making the sculpture or if the sculpture is making him. That’s what writing this novel felt like.

This is wonderful news! I’m so glad SUN was chosen! 

“I so hope you enjoy!”

Best,

Jandy

We wrote author Prudence Shen to let her know the novel she wrote with Faith Erin Hicks is a hit with students participating in the third annual CCRSB Teen Reader’s Choice Book Award.

Here is her encouraging and humorous response:

“I’m so thrilled Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong is on the shortlist for the Chignecto-Central Regional School Board Teen Reader’s Choice Award! Very little warms the cockles of my shriveled writer’s heart like knowing kids who are already too smart for their own good are gobbling up media that depicts deadly robot creation and (sort of) grand theft auto! If you decide to combine these skills sets, please direct your monster robot away from New York City – at least until I move away from here.

“More seriously, like many of you future novelists and storytellers of all types and kinds know, nothing is as wonderful as spinning a yarn and having it connect. Telling a story about someone else or something else is oftentimes the best way to tell your story, the true one that you’re hiding in between the lines of dialogue, high fantasy and shenanigans. It’s a way to kindly, without overstepping, reach out and say, ‘I know exactly how you feel.’ To those of you who love robots, who feel a little trapped, who worry about being a bad friend or doing the right thing? Charlie and Nate and Joanna know exactly how you feel, and so do I.

“Thanks for being good library patrons, and for having the flawless good taste to read this graphic novel that Faith Erin Hicks and I made. I’m so glad you had time to hear my story, and I can’t wait to hear yours one day.”

–Prudence Shen, author of Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong

We e-mailed Bomb author Steve Sheinkin to let him know his book is among the Top 10 in this year’s CCRSB Teen Reader’s Choice Award. We were thrilled to receive his speedy and gracious response:

“Well, you might think I’m saying this just to be nice, but Nova Scotia is absolutely one of my favorite places in the world. When I was 13, I went on a month long bike trip with a bunch of other kids in Nova Scotia, and I’ve been back a couple of times since. I have young kids now, 4 and 7, and I can’t wait to bring them. So for me it’s extra cool that students there are reading Bomb, and, hopefully, enjoying it. Thanks!!”

–Steve Sheinkin, author of Bomb

Thank You, Steve, for such a remarkable and riveting book.