Alex Awards 2009
Awards
Alex Awards 2009
The Alex Awards are given to 10 books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18. The winning titles are selected from the previous year’s publishing. The award is sponsored by the Margaret Alexander Edwards Trust and Booklist. Edwards was a young adult specialist for many years at the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore. Her work is described in her book FAIR GARDEN AND THE SWARM OF BEASTS, and over the years she has served as an inspiration to librarians who serve young adults. The Alex Awards are named after Edwards, who was called “Alex” by her friends.
2009
CITY OF THIEVES
Viking Adult
ISBN: 9780670018703
May 2008
Set in Leningrad in the depths of the German siege of 1941-42, David Benioff’s second novel (following THE 25th HOUR) is a moving exploration of the power of friendship, played out against a backdrop of both the best and worst qualities war reveals of human behavior.
THE DRAGONS OF BABEL
Tor Books
ISBN: 9780765319500
January 2008
A war-dragon of Babel crashes in the idyllic fields of a post-industrialized Faerie and, dragging himself into the nearest village, declares himself king and makes young Will his lieutenant. Nightly, he crawls inside the young fey’s brain to get a measure of what his subjects think. Forced out of his village, Will travels with female centaur soldiers, witnesses the violent clash of giants, and acquires a surrogate daughter, Esme, who has no knowledge of the past and may be immortal.
FINDING NOUF
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618873883
June 2008
Life in Saudi Arabia is notoriously opaque. Closed to most outsiders and with women covered and often kept isolated, it is hard to imagine, much less penetrate, the social and personal customs and daily lives of the people who live there. First-time author Zoë Ferraris takes readers inside Saudi society with her exciting novel. It is a tale of secrets and sensuality, propriety and identity --- and it is a good mystery as well.
THE GOOD THIEF
The Dial Press
ISBN: 9780385337458
August 2008
Twelve year-old Ren is missing his left hand. How it was lost is a mystery that Ren has been trying to solve for his entire life, as well as who his parents are, and why he was abandoned as an infant at Saint Anthony’s Orphanage for boys. He longs for a family to call his own. But then a young man named Benjamin Nab appears, and he may hold the key to not only Ren’s future, but to his past as well.
JUST AFTER SUNSET: Stories
Scribner
ISBN: 9781416584087
November 2008
Gather around the campfire and prepare to lose all track of time and place, as you become immersed in these 13 gripping tales from Stephen King, who has published his first short story collection since EVERYTHING’S EVENTUAL six years ago. With this winning combination of suspense, horror, magical realism, ghost stories and more, “13” appears to be our lucky number.
MUDBOUND
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
ISBN: 9781565125698
March 2008
It is 1946, and city-bred Laura McAllan is trying to raise her children on her husband’s Mississippi Delta farm --- a place she finds foreign and frightening. In the midst of the family’s struggles, two young men return from the war to work the land. Jamie McAllan, Laura’s brother-in-law, is everything her husband is not --- charming, handsome and haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm, has come home with the shine of a war hero. But no matter his bravery in defense of his country, he is still considered less than a man in the Jim Crow South. It is the unlikely friendship of these brothers-in-arms that drives this powerful novel to its inexorable conclusion.
OVER AND UNDER
Thomas Dunne Books
ISBN: 9780312379902
July 2008
In the summer of 1979, Andy and Tom are two 14-year-old boys --- best friends, expert cave explorers and crack shots with their Springfield M-6 Scout rifles. In rural southern Indiana they are blissfully unaware of the local labor strife surrounding the Borden Casket Company. The fact that Andy’s dad is a manager and Tom’s dad is a union laborer has no bearing on their fun and adventure.
But in the building summer heat, violence quickly erupts --- including an explosion, a murder and the escape of two fugitives --- and the young boys can no longer ignore that the world around them has forever changed. Through their secret observations of labor meetings, both boys feel the effect of the dissolution, and it tests their loyalty and friendship, as well as the town’s spirit.
THE OXFORD PROJECT
Welcome Books
ISBN: 9781599620480
September 2008
In 1984, photographer Peter Feldstein set out to photograph every single resident of his town, Oxford, Iowa (pop. 676). He converted an abandoned storefront on Main Street into a makeshift studio and posted fliers inviting people to stop by. At first they trickled in slowly, but in the end, nearly all of Oxford stood before Feldstein’s lens. Twenty years later, Feldstein decided to do it again. Only this time he invited writer Stephen G. Bloom to join him, and together they went in search of the same Oxford residents Feldstein had originally shot two decades earlier. Some had moved. Most had stayed. Others had passed away. All were marked by the passage of time.
SHARP TEETH
Harper
ISBN: 9780061430220
January 2008
In Los Angeles, gangs of lycanthropes can become vicious dogs at will. As Anthony, a young man down on his luck, finds himself entangled with a renegade wolf and her warring pack, a drama of identity, belonging and explosive violence unfolds at breakneck speed.
THREE GIRLS AND THEIR BROTHER
Shaye Areheart Books
ISBN: 9780307394149
April 2008
In her fiction debut, playwright Theresa Rebeck turns her sharp eye on the fickle nature of fame and how it affects three sisters, who skyrocket to overnight success, and their fragile brother, who is left behind in their wake.
