Expert reporting by Jessica Zellers
Each year I make a point to see the Alex Awards. Last year, for instance, I got to sit directly in front of Neil Gaiman. Afterwards I got to shake his hand.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the same hand that is typing this post has touched the living flesh of Neil Gaiman. The man is beyond hot.
But I digress.
The reason I make a special point of going to the Alex Awards is because the books are always awesome. Ten Alex Awards are given each year to adult books that have appeal for teens.
The great thing about teens is that they’re impatient. They’re not going to slog through sleepers. They want books paced at a good clip; they want dialogue to spice things up; they want everything in the plot to be on point.
That’s a bit of a generalization, but generally it’s true. Teens won’t put up with the same crap adults do. That’s why I love the Alex Award winners.
The Alex Awards are named in honor of Margaret “Alex� Alexander Edwards, who believed that teens should have complete access to adult books, back when that was a radical idea. The Alex committee takes it mission seriously. These folks read 17,000 pages last year in their quest to pick out the best adult books for teens.
The committee members booktalked the ten winners, which I have briefly (and probably ineffectively, but bear with me) summarized below:
Book of Lost Things, by John Connelly. If Stephen King and the Brothers Grimm had a love child (biologically impossible, but humor me, okay?), the son would be John Connelly. A 12-year-old boy in World War II slips into an alternate world and then tries to find his way back in this very twisted fairy tale.
The Whistling Season, by Ivan Doig. Who knew homesteaders could be so interesting? Set in the early twentieth century, this book is about history, change, and community.
Eagle Blue: A Team, a Tribe, and a High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska, by Michael D’Orso. This is the true story of basketball, community, and growing up in frosty Alaska. You don’t have to like basketball to like the book. No, really.
Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen. A 93-year-old man tells his story in flashbacks. Immerse yourself in the life of a circus worker, the animals he cares for, the forbidden love he can’t deny.
Color of the Sea, by John Hamamura. You’ve got samurais, you’ve got Japan, and you’ve got honor in this vivid historical epic novel of loyalty, courage, and war. Samurai warriors! How can you go wrong?
Floor of the Sky, by Pamela Carter Joern. It’s the middle of nowhere in Nebraska, Grandmother Toby is about to lose her land to the bank, and 16-year-old Lila is preggers. Doesn’t sound like things are going so hot, but Lila slowly learns to love Nebraska as she begins to uncover the tragic story of her grandmother’s past.
The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, by Michael Lewis. Don’t like football? Doesn’t matter. You’ll still like this book, the compelling personal story of a football player and the development of the left tackle position.
Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell. This is a fresh take on a coming-of-age story. Meet Jason, a 13-year-old in Britain in 1982, as he learns about pain, life, and new beginnings.
The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield. You’re probably already familiar with this book, after all the buzz it got last year. It’s a creepy gothic ghost story of secrets, betrayal, and cruelty.
The World Made Straight, by Ron Rash. Drugs, violence, and remarkably unpleasant people populate this tale of hard knocks in down-and-out Appalachia. The question is whether Travis will be able to overcome the odds against him.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the Alex winner I want to read most, because Ron Rash hails from my neck of the woods in Western North Carolina, the place I grew up.
How do I know this? Because he said so himself. As soon as the booktalks were finished, Ron Rash stood up and talked about his books and about reading. He started with a story about his childhood, when his grandfather would read The Cat in the Hat aloud. Pretty impressive, considering that the grandfather was illiterate. He invented a story to go along with the pictures, and changed it each time he “read� it aloud. It took Ron a few years to realize that most books have a fixed story.
The best regional writers tend to be the most universal, says Ron. Faulkner’s Missippippi and Marquez’s Colombia are exotic and yet compellingly familiar. All good literature has universal appeal, and that’s what Ron strives to do with his Appalachian mountains. He avoids sentimentalizing the region, though he confesses that he loves to evoke the language of Appalachia.
(Allow me to point out that he says it the right way. It’s App-uh-latch-uh. Maybe they say it differently up North, but from our part of the country, “app-uh-lay-shuh� just doesn’t cut it.)
Ron recalled a time he was in a convenience store in Boone, North Carolina. A young woman wearing a nice smile and not too much else walked in.
“Girl doesn’t have enough clothes on to wad a shotgun,� somebody remarked. This is the sort of evocative regionalism that Rash tries to include in his writing.
Ron then proceeded to regale us with an excerpt from his first novel. It was enough to make a girl homesick.
Aside: afterwards, I walked up to introduce myself, though I wasn’t one of the lucky ones who got a free copy of his book. I just wanted to say hi.
“Where are you from?� he asked.
“Weaverville,� I said.
His eyes got wide. “Are you really?�
So then we had a great little chat about Western North Carolina and how great it is. Then he tried to talk me into giving him my hat.
“Trade you a copy of my book for it,� he said. Sorry, pal. You’ll have to pry my fedora from my cold dead fingers.
After Ron read from his book, Jeanette Walls talked to the audience, giving us the perspective of an Alex winner one year after the fact. Her memoir The Glass Castle won an Alex last year.
Jeanette started by letting everyone know that the award means a lot to her, coming from librarians. It also means a lot to her that teens read it. She hadn’t wanted to write her life story. She was afraid she’d lose her job if people knew the truth about her past.
But then she wondered to herself, What if a privileged teen read the book and learned what it was like to grow up poor?
Even better, what if an underprivileged teen read the book and took hope from it?
This is exactly the sort of thing that’s happened. Teens going through a rough time have read Jeanette’s book and realized that they’re not alone. And some funny stories have come out of it. For instance, there was the eleventh grader who had never read a book in his life, but who read Jeanette’s book cover to cover. Why? “This here is a fine white trash story.�
And then there was the time an African-American woman came up to her. “Thank you for writing this book,� she said. “Until I read this, I thought only black families acted this crazy.�
This blogger freely confesses that she got teary-eyed a few times, listening to Jeanette talk. Jeanette’s had a difficult life, but her story has helped a lot of other folks get through their own problems.
I’ll conclude with a bit of advice that has served me well. The Alex winners are great for teens, obviously; that’s the whole point of them. But don’t forget to recommend them to your adult readers. They’re great choices for adults who want fast-paced, compelling, entertaining reads.
