The William C. Morris Award honors a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens. The 2011 finalists for the award have just been announced, so you can check them out and make your bets for who will be the winner.
Hush by Eishes Chayil
After remembering the cause of her best friend Devory’s suicide at age nine, Gittel is determined to raise awareness of sexual abuse in her Borough Park, New York, community, despite the rules of Chassidim that require her to be silent.
Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey
Eighteen-year-old New Zealand boarding school student Ellie Spencer must use her rusty tae kwon do skills and new-found magic to try to stop a fairy-like race of creatures from Maori myth and legend that is plotting to kill millions of humans in order to regain their lost immortality.
Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride
Sam thinks his life working in a fast food restaurant is awful. But when he’s confronted by a powerful necromancer, he learns that everything he thought was true about his life — isn’t.
Crossing the Tracks by Barbara Stuber
Fifteen-year-old Iris Baldwin is stuck in the middle of 1920s rural Missouri, where she discovers that hobo is short for homeward bound, and cultivates an eccentric cast of folks into family, creating the home she’s never had.
The Freak Observer by Blythe Woolston
Suffering from a crippling case of post-traumatic stress disorder, sixteen-year-old Loa Lindgren tries to use her problem solving skills, sharpened in physics and computer programming, to cure herself.