If you weren’t following PBS’s The Great American Read, it’s worth catching up: this eight-part series discussed America’s best-loved novels as users voted for their favorite books. Some of us at eNotes even wrote about our personal choices for The Great American Read. Just this week, we learned which book was voted as America’s #1…
On this day in 1933, Cormac McCarthy was born. The great American novelist moved around a lot, and served in the Air Force for four years. After returning to the University of Tennessee in 1957, he was awarded an Ingram-Merrill Award for creative writing. He has published ten novels and has an eleventh on the way. His…
eNotes gets a lot of thank-you notes from teachers and fan mail from students daily. Okay - more like Tweets from the students. We haven't received an actual letter since 2003. And while we love being recognized for all our hard work, what gets out of bed in the morning is making the lives of our teachers and students…
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On August 11, 2014, thousands of teens and their parents eagerly purchased tickets for the long-awaited film adaptation of Lois Lowry's 1994 Newbery Award-winning novel The Giver. My teenaged son read it in junior high and loved it. I loved it too. Like Madelyn L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, Lowry's The Giver has a subterranean…
Must. Remind. Self.. The OED is not an arbiter of, but a chronicler of, English language use. Every year, the Powers-That-Be lean over the windowsills located high atop their Ivory Towers and cock an ear towards the milling crowds below. When they hear a word they do not recognize being shouted often enough, they dip…
Is your Kindle finger itching? Do you have a yearning to go to the bookstore or library but don't know what sounds good? Well, maybe this will help. Last night, this year's National Book Awards were announced. Here is the complete list of winners and finalists. James McBride took the fiction prize for his novel…
A couple of years ago, I was going about my Sunday chores and listening to NPR's Weekend Edition with Scott Simon. A writer of children's books myself and a lover of children's literature in general, my ears always perk up when Daniel Pinkwater comes on the show to discuss a new children's book. The one he selected…
Read More "“This Is Not My Hat” Wins the 2013 Caldecott Medal"
Poet Rowan Ricardo Phillips had an enviable problem recently. He won both the 2013 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry AND was also chosen as one of the winners of the Whiting Writers' Award. Ceremonies for both the awards were to take place on the same night. Decisions, decisions.... Using some powers not bestowed on…
Read More "Rowan Ricardo Phillips Wins the 2013 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry"
