TERRIER:
- Six weeks on The New York Times Children's Chapter Books bestseller list
- #2 on 11/12/06, #4 on 11/19/06, #4 on 11/26/06, #10 on 12/03/06, #5 on
12/10/06, #9 on 12/17/06
- Publishers Weekly Children’s Fiction bestseller list, December, 2006
- A YALSA Best Book for Young Adults, American Library Association, 2007
THE WILL OF THE EMPRESS:
- Four weeks on The New York Times Children's Chapter Books bestseller list
- #4 on 10/16/05, #4 on 11/06/05, #9 on 11/20/05, #10 on 12/04/05
-
Publisher’s Weekly
Children's Chapter Books bestseller list, December, 2005
- Starred Review, Booklist, 2005
TRICKSTER'S QUEEN:
Bestseller Lists
- Seven weeks on the New York Times Children's Chapter
Books bestseller list - #1 on 10/17/04, #2 on 10/24/04, #2 on 10/31/04, #4
on 11/7/04, #5 on 11/14/04, #7 on 11/21/04, #5 on 1/16/05,
- Two weeks on
USA Today
bestseller list - 10/21/04, 10/28/04
- Two weeks on
Book Sense National Children's Fiction Bestseller
list - 10/17/04, 10/24/04
- #8 in November, 2004
Australian Bookseller and Publisher Children’s Books bestseller list
Honors and Awards
- Received Edward E. Smith Memorial “Skylark” Award, 2005, Boskone 42
- A VOYA Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Selection, 2004
-
Book Sense
Children's Winter Pick Lists
TRICKSTER'S CHOICE:
- Four weeks on The New York
Times Children's Chapter Books bestseller list - #7 on 10/12/03, #9 on
10/19/03, #10 on 11/2/03, #8 on 12/7/03
- #7, Best Young Adult Book, Locus’s 2003 Recommended Reading List for Young
Adults
- Nominated, ALA Best Books for Young Adults 2003
- VOYA's Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror List, 2003
- A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, 2004
- A Teens' Top Ten, 2004
- A YALSA Best Book for Young Adults, American Library Association, 2004
THE CIRCLE OPENS quartet
MAGIC STEPS:
- VOYA’s 2000 Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror list,
2001
- Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror List, VOYA/Voice
of Youth Advocates, 2000
STREET MAGIC:
- VOYA’s Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, April 2002
- VOYA Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers, 2001
COLD FIRE:
- #8 on Amazon Online Best of 2002 Customers' Favorites: Teens.
- Nominated, ALA Best Books for Young Adults 2003
- VOYA’s 2002 Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror list,
2003
SHATTERGLASS:
- VOYA’s Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, April 2004
THE PROTECTOR OF THE SMALL quartet
FIRST TEST:
- Nominee, Nevada Young Reader's Award 2002
PAGE:
- 2000 Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror List, VOYA/Voice of Youth
Advocates
SQUIRE:
- Two weeks on the New York Times Children's Chapter Books bestseller list
- #6 on June 10, #9 on June 17, 2001
- ALA Best Book for YAs 2002
- Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror List, VOYA/Voice of Youth Advocates,
2001
- A YALSA Best Book for Young Adults, American Library Association, 2002
- New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, 2002
- Evergreen Young Adult Book Award Nominee, 2004
LADY KNIGHT:
Bestseller Lists
- Three weeks on The New York Times Children's Chapter Books
bestseller list - #1 on 9/8/02, #4 on 9/15/02, #7 on 9/22/02
- Two weeks on The Wall Street Journal Fiction Bestseller list - #6
on 9/6/02, #12 on 9/13/02
- Two weeks on the Publishers Weekly Children's Chapter
Book
Bestseller list - #5 on 9/9/02, #6 on 10/14/02
- #3 on 9/12/02 on Book Sense National Children's Fiction Bestseller
list
- #5 on 9/22/02 Amazon.com Teen Bestseller list
- #49 on 9/12/02 USA Today Bestseller list
- #5 on Amazon Online Best of 2002 Customers' Favorites: Teens
Honors and Awards
- Books for the Teen Age list, Office of Young Adult Services of The New York
Public Library, 2002
- Voice of Youth Advocates 2002 Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror list,
2003
The Circle of Magic
quartet
- Finalist, 2000 Mythopoeic Award (Children's Literature)
MAGIC CIRCLE: SANDRY’S BOOK:
- Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror List, VOYA/Voice of Youth Advocates,
1997
-
Booklist’s
Top 10 Fantasy Novels for Young Readers, May 15, 1997 - May 15, 1998
- Honor Book, 1998 Judy Lopez Memorial Award of the Women's National Book
Association
-
Locus
Recommended reading, 1997
MAGIC CIRCLE: TRIS'S BOOK:
- Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers list, YALSA
(Young Adult Library Services
Association), 1999
- Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror List, VOYA/Voice
of Youth Advocates, 1998
MAGIC CIRCLE: DAJA'S BOOK:
- Booklist’s Top 10 Fantasy Audiobooks for Adult and Youth,
April 15, 2004
- Books for the Teen Age list, Office of Young Adult Services
of The New York
Public Library, 1997
- Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror List, VOYA/Voice
of Youth Advocates, 1998
- Top Ten Fantasy Novels for Young Readers, May 15, 1997 -
May 15, 1998
- Booklist Magazine; Kid's Pick: Young Adult, September 21,
1998, BookWeb.org (American Booksellers Association online newsletter)
- Listed in "The Perfect Tens: the Top Forty Books reviewed
in Voice of Youth Advocates 1996 - 2000", VOYA, June 2001
- Booklist's Top 10 Fantasy Novels for Young Readers,
1997-1998
MAGIC CIRCLE: BRIAR'S BOOK:
- Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror List, VOYA/Voice of Youth
Advocates, 1999
- Listed in "The Perfect Tens: the Top Forty Books reviewed in Voice of
Youth Advocates 1996 - 2000", VOYA, June 2001
THE IMMORTALS quartet
WILD MAGIC:
- Nominee, Iowa Teen Award booklist, 1995-1996.
WOLF-SPEAKER:
- Bestseller, Children's Paperbacks, Australian Bookseller &
Publisher, May 1995.
THE EMPEROR MAGE:
- Best Books for Young Adults, Hawaii State Library, 1995
- Best Books for Young Adults List, the American Library
Association, 1996
- Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror List, VOYA/Voice
of Youth Advocates, 1995
THE REALMS OF THE GODS:
- Selection, International Reading Association's Young Adult
Choices project, 1996 booklist
- Books for the Teen Age list, Office of Young Adult Services
of The New York
Public Library, 1997
- Best Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror list, VOYA/Voice of
Youth Advocates, 1996
THE SONG OF THE LIONESS quartet
ALANNA: THE FIRST ADVENTURE:
- Main Selection, Children's Book of the Month Club
- Author's Citation, The Alumni Association, New Jersey Institute of Technology,
17th Annual New Jersey Writers Conference, March 24, 1984
- Recommended Fantasy (list) of "GenreCon" (the Preconference on Genres of the
Young Adult Services Division of the American Librarians Association, June 1991)
- A YALSA Popular Paperback for Young Adults, 2003
IN THE HAND OF THE GODDESS:
- Main Selection, Children's Book of the Month Club
- Winner, ZDF Preis der Lesratten (German fantasy award)
- Nominee, 1985-86 South Carolina Children's Book Award
THE WOMAN WHO RIDES LIKE A MAN:
LIONESS RAMPANT:
- City of Baltimore Enoch Pratt Free Library selection, "Youth-to-Youth Books: A
List for Imagination and Survival."
This year I thought it would be fun to post some of my
favorite things. I say favorite because I certainly don't set myself up as a
judge of what's best in other writers (and I'd upset a lot of my friends if I
tried!), and in the case of songs, some of the ones I only got around to
discovering this year are not new at all. So consider all this my thanks to the
powers-that-be for the good things of the old year, and my hopes I find just as
many good things in the new!
Music (songs):
As always, since I have gotten my iPod Podkayne, I have wondered far and wee
over the world's musical scene. As a result, I have found some truly
interesting things (you'll need
iTunes to listen to the linked samples - it's a free download):
newly discovered artists I like:
- Rachid Tada
- Daddy Yankee
- Little Walter
- Ofra Haza
- Chava Alberstein
- 12 Girls Band
Okay, now I'll stop with the music. I've been told I
frighten people.
Books:
Most of these you'll know already from my recommended books
lists. My novel reading slowed down toward the end of the year: I've been
reading a lot of graphic novels for a major new project, and most of those
aren't new and blend together, so only rarely is there a book-style title I'll
recommend. (Actually, I should do a recommended graphic novel list in the new
year, but don't get your hopes up--I don't read manga, for a good reason. I
don't need a new obsession. I know manga has been supplying my fans with female
heroes for 20 years, but I can't even keep up with books anymore!) I've also
been working on the computer a lot and traveling a lot, which really cuts into
my reading time:
- THE WATERLESS SEA by Kate Constable, sequel to SINGER OF
ALL SONGS (fantasy)
- VALIANT by Holly Black (fantasy)
- THE GODS IN WINTER by Patricia Miles, back in print at long
last! (fantasy)
- THE SHAMER'S SIGNET by Lene Kaaberbol, sequel to THE
SHAMER'S DAUGHTER (fantasy}
- THE ORDER OF THE POISON OAK by Brent Hartinger, sequel to
GEOGRAPHY CLUB (contemporary YA)
- IT'S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD by Geraldine McCaughrean
(Biblical fantasy)
- PRINCESS ACADEMY by Shannon Hale (fantasy)
- GIFTED by Joss Whedon, an X-Man graphic novel
- AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A DEAD BROTHER by Walter Dean Myers
(contemporary YA)
- PROM by Laurie Halse Anderson (contemporary YA)
- ISAAC'S STORM by Erik Larson (non-fiction about the
Galveston Hurricane of 1900)
- NINE PARTS DESIRE by Geraldine Brooks (non-fiction:
reporter Brooks interviews Islamic women throughout the Middle East and
eastern Africa)
- WISDOM'S DAUGHTER by India Edghill (Biblical historical
fiction)
- A.D. 62: POMPEII by Rebecca East (Roman historical fiction)
Cool Things of 2005:
- Getting The New England Science Fiction Association's
Skylark Award for being an author who plays
well with fans, and having Jane Yolen tell me why it's important to put my award
where the sun don't shine
- Going to southeastern Alaska with Tim, which included:
- seeing my first glacier in person, the
Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau
- seeing scores of bald eagles and humongous
ravens
- visiting the Alaskan Raptor Center in Sitka and
being introduced to Volta, the bald eagle
- seeing wild whales
- Having my face snuffled by a month-old baby rhino at the
San Diego Wild Animal Park
- Visiting the Badlands, the Black Hills, Custer National
Park, and the Needles in South Dakota with my sister Kim, which included:
- sitting (quietly) in the car while a herd of
buffalo split and walked around us
- feeding alpine chipmunks at a scenic lookout
- getting wild burro slobber on Kim's car as we
fed them carrots
- visiting Devil's Tower in Wyoming with Kim and her husband
Randy
- Going to my first family reunion in 30 years with Tim, Kim
and Randy
- Meeting Jane Linskold, one of my favorite fantasy writers,
after years of fandom
- Getting to visit again with Charles de Lint, Holly Black,
Deborah Doyle, James MacDonald, and the one and only Bruce Coville in my travels
- Attending the Witching Hour symposium in Salem,
Massachusetts and having a wonderful time with a lot of really smart Harry
Potter fans who are into a million other things
- Shaking the hand of Studs Terkel, who re-made the face of
social history and oral history with his book WORKING
- Discovering rough opals in their native stone: Mexican fire
opals, Honduran (or Andesite) opals, black opals, Koroit opals, and Yowah opals,
much to Tim's dismay! And as for what I've made of all these
discoveries--you'll just have to read the books, won't you?!
Why did you make Alanna pick George and not Jonathan? In the original
manuscript (the quartet started out as a single adult novel), Alanna did marry
Jon. The problem was that the whole final third of the book then felt awkward
and so not-right. When I broke it up into four books for kids, I realized the
problem. Alanna did not want to marry Jon. If I wasn't going to let her have her
way, she was going to make the writing a misery. You may have noticed that with
Alanna, you do things her way or not at all.
She did not want to be Queen; she did not want to have to be nice to people
she didn't like. She also understood that sooner or later she would embarrass
Jon, or that he would want her to start acting like a proper queen and stop
doing the things she loved.
George has always valued her for who she is. He doesn't want to change her;
she doesn't want to change him. He takes pride in who and what she is, just as
she takes pride in what he does. It's hard to describe a relationship like
theirs to people, because most of us were raised to think love is fire, passion,
and prolonged bouts of giddiness and strained emotions. The quieter kind of love
looks kinda boring on the surface, even cool-hearted. Nobody wants that at
first. Some people never learn how wonderful it is to be friends with a lover or
spouse, to know that here is someone you can be yourself around, and they will
love you anyway, sometimes not in spite of your worse characteristics, but
because of them. That kind of lover will stay with you through thick and thin,
will make you feel valued always, and will make any disastrous occasion seem
less so because you are with that person.
That's the best explaining I can do. I don't know if readers will ever agree
with me, but at least now you know why things turned out as they did. Alanna
wanted her friend; she wanted the man who made her laugh and took delight in the
very unfeminine things she did. Her king she can love and respect--most of the
time, anyway. But she goes home to the guy with the sweet smile.
Didn't Princess Kalasin want to be the first girl page? What happened to
her?
Nobody likes this, but I'm going to tell you anyway: Yes, Kally did want to
be a page; no, she isn't one. Jonathan talked her out of it.
He explains that while he married for love, he sees where his parents were
wrong in not arranging a marriage for him: one of the reasons it seems all of
Tortall's neighbors were against her in recent years is because he never married
to form an alliance with one of them. He's trying to make up for that now by
securing alliances with the marriages of his children (and they have been raised
with this plan in mind, so none of them can say he sprung it on them). She knows
that as a princess, her first duty is to the realm (another idea she's been
raised with), and the fact is, Jonathan has a very great marriage in mind for
her with someone whose people will object strongly to a knighted queen. In
exchange for a look at her proposed husbands before she has to commit to a
marriage and the chance to say no, she gives up her plan to be a knight.
There is always a storm of protests when I explain this, but this is how
everyone married up until very recently. Love was one thing (and even that is
sort of new-fangled); marriage is something done for the advantage of the
family, not the people who marry. This is true even in poor families, where a
weaver might marry his son to a girl who is a good weaver herself, or a merchant
family will marry one of their daughters to another merchant family which cuts
them in on, say, a spice monopoly. Farmers might marry their children in
exchange for land or livestock, nobles for land or money, royalty for alliances
with other royalty. In some parts of the world, this is still the case: kids
marry the person their parents have arranged for them to marry, because that's
what they were brought up to expect. Most of the time they aren't even given
much of a say; Jonathan's granting Kally unusual freedom in allowing her a look
at her prospective husband, and Kally knows she's not to turn the match down for
reasons any noble would regard as silly (he's older, he's younger, he doesn't
appeal to her physically).
Not that Jon gets away with it clean, mind. Thayet, who was away when he did
this, was most displeased, and things were a bit tense in the royal household
for a year.
"Encumbered by idjits, we press on."-- Pat
Garrett in the movie Young Guns II
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety."--Benjamin Franklin
Dykstra's Law: Everybody is somebody's weirdo.
"Dare to be stupid."--Weird Al Yankovic
"Writers are students of human nature. That's why they prefer to work alone."--
Tim Liebe |
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