Congratulations to Laurel Snyder and Orphan Island for making the National Book Awards longlist for Young People’s Literature!
It’s Day 1 of our Posted Blog Tour!
(And we’re excited to share this kickoff with our pals at Librarian’s Quest - click through to read an excerpt from Posted featured on their blog!)
If you’ve ever been to middle school (or high school, or elementary school, or any school, like any school at all), you’re probably familiar with the phrase “Kids can be so cruel.” Maybe you’ve even uttered it yourself once or twice. If you haven’t yet found yourself struck with this thought, you will most definitely ponder it when you read Posted.
Per the book jacket:
From John David Anderson, author of the acclaimed Ms. Bixby’s Last Day, comes a humorous, poignant, and original contemporary story about bullying, broken friendships, and the failures of communication between kids. In middle school, words aren’t just words. They can be weapons. They can be gifts. The right words can win you friends or make you enemies. They can come back to haunt you. Sometimes they can change things forever.
When cell phones are banned at Branton Middle School, Frost and his friends Deedee, Wolf, and Bench come up with a new way to communicate: leaving sticky notes for each other all around the school. It catches on, and soon all the kids in school are leaving notes—though for every kind and friendly one, there is a cutting and cruel one as well.
In the middle of this, a new girl named Rose arrives at school and sits at Frost’s lunch table. Rose is not like anyone else at Branton Middle School, and it’s clear that the close circle of friends Frost has made for himself won’t easily hold another. As the sticky-note war escalates, and the pressure to choose sides mounts, Frost soon realizes that after this year, nothing will ever be the same.
Per your friendly neighborhood Walden Media blogger:
This book rocks. Centering around a tribe of nervous 8th grade outcasts clinging to each other for support in that liminal period between childhood and adolescence, Posted toes the line between middle grade and YA lit, and epitomizes the 8th grade experience with heart and humor.
Main character Frost and his friends were brought together by a mutual feeling of being set apart from the crowd, making for a hodgepodge of personalities that begin to clash when new girl Rose steps in. The ensuing shake-up and evolution of friendships within the group is astoundingly relatable to anyone who has ever been a frightened and insecure 13 year old, which, I am quite sure now, is all of us.
But the greatest strength of this book is the many dimensions to the post-it wars that are revealed over the course of the story. As we learn more, in bits and pieces, about Frost and his friends, we begin to understand the severity of this war, and the toll that it takes on its victims - and, best of all, all the little ways in which kids can prove us wrong, and show us that their capacity for empathy and kindness far outdoes the cruelty in their ranks.
Plus, Frost and co. play a ton of D&D. What’s not to love?
Stay tuned for more Posted fun over the next few weeks from our friends at the following blogs:
April 17 Librarian's Quest Walden Media Tumblr
April 18 Nerdy Book Club
April 19 For Those About to Mock
April 20 Teach Mentor Texts
April 21 Unleashing Readers
April 22 Next Best Book
April 23 Bluestocking Thinking
April 24 Litcoach Lou Book Monsters
April 25 Kirsti Call
April 26 Educate-Empower-Inspire-Teach
April 28 Maria's Melange Novel Novice
April 29 The Hiding Spot
April 30 This Kid Reviews Books
Our friends at pragmaticmom.com did a cover reveal today for our upcoming book Two Truths and a Lie, by Ammi-Joan Paquette & Laurie Ann Thompson. Follow the link to find out more!
walden-media reblogged
“I like writing stuff, because when I grow up, I’m going to be a script writer and a director…but I don’t think I should tell you any [of my ideas] because I don’t want some Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, J.J. Abrams to come and make millions of dollars off of my ideas."
Positive reviews are rolling in for The BFG - The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw gives it 4 stars!