Thursday, January 29, 2009

YALSA Love!

Wonderful news: YALSA has named Ten Cents a Dance one of the 2009 Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults!

Fabulous!! you exclaim. Um...what's YALSA?







Clever, clever minxes! YALSA is the Young Adult Library Services Association, and YA librarians, I can tell you from experience, are the most enthusiastic promoters of literature and reading you'll ever meet. When my editor told me that Ten Cents a Dance had been nominated for their annual list of Best Books for Young Adults, I was thrilled. When I learned they'd chosen Ten Cents as one of their Top Ten, I wasn't just over the moon--I'm pretty sure I sailed out past Saturn somewhere. I'm only just now starting to feel the ground under my feet. There were so many incredible YA books published last year; I can't tell you how honored I am to be included.

Congratulations to Portland's own Lisa Schroeder; her novel I Heart You, You Haunt Me was named a 2009 Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers. You rock, Lisa (and the fact that you've written three books in three years makes me feel like an absolute slacker!)

Check out the YALSA awards site for all the winners, honor books, and lists: the Caldecott, the Printz, the Newbury (yay, Neil Gaiman!)

And to all you fabulous YA librarians...Thank you! I think you just made my year. Woot!

10 comments:

Melissa Amateis said...

Woo hoo! Congrats, Chris! How awesome!

Lisa Schroeder said...

Yay - congrats again! So excited for you!

Uh, does that say 4:34 am? Sleep much?

As for 3 books in 3 years, it helps my books are short. Really short. And no research to speak of.

I think if I tried historical fiction, it'd be 1 book every 10 years!! :)

lkmadigan said...

We Portlanders and readers are SO PROUD!

:-)

Lisa

Laini Taylor said...

Yay Christine -- and Lisa! Yay Portlanders!

Christine Fletcher said...

Thanks, everyone!

Lisa, yeah, I was up. Wide awake at 3:30 AM, couldn't get back to sleep. What else to do but catch up on email and blog? :)

And Portland--especially Portland Kidlit--rocks. Y'all are fabulous (she says with her acquired Tennessee accent).

Anonymous said...

WOW!!
WOWEST!!
*hugs*

Anonymous said...

Big congrats - you need an "all of the above" vote on your poll, though - the fakes are oh-so good. Giving you a shout out on my blog today.

Christine Fletcher said...

Thanks, Walter! *hugs back*

Sally, ten years of teaching got me pretty good at concocting fake test answers. (Just ask my former students) :) Thanks for the shoutout!

Anonymous said...

That's awesome news, Chris! I'm really happy for you. And I'm impressed that you actually get up and do something when you can't sleep. I just lay there thinking how miserable I am. :)

Christine Fletcher said...

Oh, I lie there for a while. But then the dogs somehow figure out I'm awake, and it's game over. Three in the morning, four in the morning--for a dog, anytime is the right time for breakfast! And then I'm up, and as long as I'm up...