[Update Jan. 26, 2009: Halse Anderson won the Margaret A. Edwards award for lifetime achievement today, not the Newbery.]
The latest in a series of occasional posts that predict the winners of major awards to books for children or adults
Jan the Hungarian predicts …
Laurie Halse Anderson’s Chains will win the 2009 Newbery Medal, which the American Library Association will award on Monday to “the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.” Why? It’s a good book, but others I haven’t read may be better. So I’m going mostly on instinct honed by years of covering the Newbery and Caldecott medals for the Plain Dealer and this blog. But I’m not alone here: Halse Anderson was a 2008 National Book Award finalist for this historical novel about a 13-year-old slave in New York City who hopes to win her freedom by exposing a plot to kill George Washington on the eve of the American Revolution. A review of and reader’s guide to Chains appeared in separate posts on this site on Dec. 5, 2008.
© 2009 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
One-Minute Book Reviews 