We are pleased to announce the 2019 Association for Mormon Letters Awards finalists in Young Adult Novel, Middle Grade Novel, and Picture Book. The final awards will be announced and presented on May 2 at the AML Conference, held in Salt Lake City. We will be announcing the other category finalists over the coming week. The finalists and winners are chosen by juries of authors, academics, and critics. The announcements include book blurbs and author biographies adapted from the author and publisher websites.
Young Adult Novel
Julie Berry. Lovely War. Viking.
A multi-layered romance set in the perilous days of World Wars I and II, where gods hold the fates–and the hearts–of four mortals in their hands. They are Hazel, James, Aubrey, and Colette. A classical pianist from London, a British would-be architect-turned-soldier, a Harlem-born ragtime genius in the U.S. Army, and a Belgian orphan with a gorgeous voice and a devastating past. Their story, as told by goddess Aphrodite, who must spin the tale or face judgment on Mount Olympus, is filled with hope and heartbreak, prejudice and passion, and reveals that, though War is a formidable force, it’s no match for the transcendent power of Love.
Julie Berry earned an M.F.A. in writing from Vermont College of the Fine Arts, and published her first novel for young readers in 2009. All the Truth That’s In Me, her first YA novel, was named a 2013 Horn Book Fanfare title and a School Library Journal Best of 2013 book. It was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and the Edgar Award, and won Australia’s Silver Inky. The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place (2014) won many awards, including an AML Middle Grade Novel Award. The Passion of Dolssa won a 2017 Printz Honor from the American Library Association and was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was an AML Young Adult Award finalist. Wishes & Wellingtons (2018) was an AML Middle Grade Award finalist. She has won three Whitney Awards. Lovely War won the S.C.B.W.I. Golden Kite Award and the S.C.I.B.A. prize for young adult fiction, was a 2019 Horn Book Fanfare Title, and has been named one of the 10 YALSA 2020 Best Fiction for Young Adults Finalists.
Katie Henry. Let’s Call it a Doomsday. Katherine Tegan Books.
Publishers Weekly review (Starred): High school student Ellis Kimball suffers from severe anxiety, which stems from her fixation on how the world might soon end. Much to the chagrin of her family and therapist, she throws much of her energy into buying food and supplies to survive the impending apocalypse. While Ellis is devout in her Mormon faith, she also questions many of its tenets, particularly since she is coming to terms with her sexual identity. After she meets Hannah, who is convinced that her prophetic dreams of the apocalypse will land the two together at the end of the world, her life is upended. Henry develops a separate voice for Ellis’s constant anxiety, both extending the characterization and adding a light touch to the story. This is a rare YA novel in its approach to religious faith as a life-giving, if complicated, aspect of a young adult’s life. Henry walks a fine line, showing Mormonism’s many layers of tradition while questioning central aspects of it, particularly attitudes toward LGBTQ people. Full of heart and hope, even as she believes the world is about to end, Ellis is a protagonist to root for.
Katie Henry is a writer living and working in New York City. She received her BFA in dramatic writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and is a published playwright, specializing in theater for young audiences. Her plays have been performed by high schools and community organizations in over thirty states. This is her second novel, after her debut, Heretics Anonymous.
Erin Stewart. Scars Like Wings. Delacorte.
Ava Lee has lost everything there is to lose: Her parents. Her best friend. Her home. Even her face. She doesn’t need a mirror to know what she looks like–she can see her reflection in the eyes of everyone around her. A year after the fire that destroyed her world, her aunt and uncle have decided she should go back to high school. Be “normal” again. Whatever that is. Ava knows better. There is no normal for someone like her. And forget making friends–no one wants to be seen with the Burned Girl, now or ever. But when Ava meets a fellow survivor named Piper, she begins to feel like maybe she doesn’t have to face the nightmare alone. Sarcastic and blunt, Piper isn’t afraid to push Ava out of her comfort zone. Piper introduces Ava to Asad, a boy who loves theater just as much as she does, and slowly, Ava tries to create a life again. Yet Piper is fighting her own battle, and soon Ava must decide if she’s going to fade back into her scars . . . or let the people by her side help her fly.
Erin Stewart grew up in Virginia, studied at BYU and the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern, and now makes her home in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. Erin loves using her background in journalism to research and write fiction based on real life. A heart failure survivor and adoptive mother, she believes life throws plot twists and people in our path for a reason–always. Scars Like Wings is her debut novel.
Spencer Hyde. Waiting for Fitz. Shadow Mountain.
Addie loves nothing more than curling up on the couch with her dog, Duck, and watching The Great British Baking Show with her mom. It’s one of the few things that can help her relax when her OCD kicks into overdrive. She counts everything. All the time. She can’t stop. Rituals and rhythms. It’s exhausting. When Fitz was diagnosed with schizophrenia, he named the voices in his head after famous country singers. The adolescent psychiatric ward at Seattle Regional Hospital isn’t exactly the ideal place to meet your soul mate, but when Addie meets Fitz, they immediately connect over their shared love of words, appreciate each other’s quick wit, and wish they could both make more sense of their lives. Fitz is haunted by the voices in his head and often doesn’t know what is real. But he feels if he can convince Addie to help him escape the psych ward and get to San Juan Island, everything will be okay. If not, he risks falling into a downward spiral that may keep him in the hospital indefinitely.
Spencer Hyde spent three years of his high school experience visiting Johns Hopkins for severe OCD. He feels particularly suited to write Waiting for Fitz because he’s lived through his protagonists’ obsessions. Spencer worked at a therapeutic boarding school before earning his MFA at Brigham Young University and his PhD at the University of North Texas, specializing in fiction. He won the 2015 AML Short Fiction Award for his story “Remainder”. He is currently an assistant professor of English at Brigham Young University. He wrote a blog about Waiting for Fitz and writing about mental illness for the AML. His second YA novel, What the Other Three Don’t Know, was published earlier this month.
Middle Grade Novel
Josh Allen. Out to Get You: Thirteen Tales of Weirdness and Woe. Holiday House
Get ready for a collection of thirteen short stories that will chill your bones, tingle your spine, and scare your pants off. Debut author Josh Allen masterfully concocts horror in the most innocent places, like R.L. Stine meets a modern Edgar Allan Poe. A stray kitten turns into a threatening follower. The street sign down the block starts taunting you. Even your own shadow is out to get you! Spooky things love hiding in plain sight. The everyday world is full of sinister secrets and these page-turning stories show that there’s darkness even where you least expect it. Readers will sleep with one eye open. A glow-in-the-dark cover and thirteen eerie full-page illustrations by award-winning artist Sarah J. Coleman accompany the tales in this frightful mashup that reads like a contemporary Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.
Josh Allen teaches creative writing and literature at Brigham Young University-Idaho. He was formally the editor of AML’s literary journal Irreantum. His work has appeared in Cricket, Dialogue, Juxtapose, and other literary magazines. This is his debut book.
Kate Coombs. The Red Flower. Blue Sparrow Books
Nearly paralyzed by grief over her own dead, Aubrey is looking for birds for a science assignment when she stumbles across a murdered boy in the park. The boy has a mysterious red flower tattoo on his arm, and the next morning the red flower appears on Aubrey’s arm. Driven to find out what happened to the boy and his missing girlfriend, Aubrey enlists the help of her little brother, a basement video game player, and the dead boy’s best friend. But someone is playing increasingly ruthless tricks on her, a mysterious owl is watching, and the three old ladies on Sycamore Street may not be what they seem. Based on a Grimm’s fairy tale, The Red Flower gives tweens and teens a determined new hero in a story of magic, suspense, and a little romance.
Kate Coombs writes poetry, picture books, and middle grade fiction. Her latest books are board books in the BabyLit series. Three are Little Naturalists, including John James Audubon, John Muir, and Henry David Thoreau. Three are Little Poets, including Emily Dickinson, William Shakespeare, and Walt Whitman. Her picture book The Tooth Fairy Wars was a 2014 AML Picture Book Award finalist. Kate lives in Utah, where she is a Reading Specialist and cloud watcher. Kate has taught students in grades K–12, but she is currently teaching college students how to write.
Jennifer A. Nielsen. Words on Fire. Scholastic
Danger is never far from Audra’s family farm in Lithuania. She always avoids the occupying Russian Cossack soldiers, who insist that everyone must become Russian — they have banned Lithuanian books, religion, culture, and even the language. But Audra knows her parents are involved in something secret and perilous. In June 1893, when Cossacks arrive abruptly at their door, Audra’s parents insist that she flee, taking with her an important package and instructions for where to deliver it. But escape means abandoning her parents to a terrible fate. As Audra embarks on a journey to deliver the mysterious package, she faces unimaginable risks, and soon she becomes caught up in a growing resistance movement. Can joining the underground network of book smugglers give Audra a chance to rescue her parents?
Jennifer A. Nielsen is the acclaimed author of the bestselling Ascendance Series: The False Prince (2012 AML Middle Grade Award), The Runaway King, and The Shadow Throne. She also wrote the bestselling Mark of the Thief trilogy, the stand-alone fantasy The Scourge; the historical thrillers A Night Divided, Resistance, and Words on Fire (two of which were AML Award finalists); Book Six of the Infinity Ring series, Behind Enemy Lines; and The Traitor’s Game series: The Traitor’s Game, The Deceiver’s Heart, and The Warrior’s Curse. She has won seven Whitney Awards. Jennifer lives in northern Utah.
Liesl Shurtliff. Time Castaways: #1 The Mona Lisa Key and #2 The Obsidian Compass. Harper Collins
#1: Mateo, Ruby, and Corey Hudson’s parents don’t have too many rules. It’s the usual stuff: Be good. Do your homework. And never ride the subway without an adult, EVER. But when the siblings wake up late for school, they have no choice but to break a rule. The Hudson siblings board the subway in Manhattan and end up on a frigate ship in Paris…in the year 1911. As time does tell, the Hudson family has a lot of secrets. The past, present, and future are intertwined—and a time-traveling ship called the Vermillion is at the center. Racing to untangle the truth, the kids find themselves in the middle of one of the greatest art heists of all time.
#2: The trio have lost their friend Jia to the villainous Captain Vincent’s clutches, and now they’re determined to bring her back to safety. But the Hudson kids don’t have a way to time-travel without the Obsidian Compass, until Mateo figures out the secret component to get his own homemade compass working. Soon the whole family—plus their wacky neighbor, Chuck, and his rusty orange bus, Blossom—are swept up in another epic journey. With their own time-traveling vehicle and some help from history’s most famous young markswoman, Annie Oakley, the Hudsons think they’re prepared to sneak onto the Vermillion. Unbeknownst to them, Captain Vincent already knows they’re coming. In fact, he’s counting on it.
Liesl Shurtliff grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, and graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in music, dance, and theater. Her first three books, Rump, Jack, and Red are all New York Times bestsellers, and Rump won an ILA Children’s Book Award, and was adapted into a children’s theatre play at BYU in 2019. She lives in Chicago with her family, where she continues to spin fairy tales. This is her third time as an AML Award finalist.
Picture Book
Camille Andros and Tessa Blackham. From a Small Seed: the Story of Eliza Hamilton. Henry Holt and Co.
Ever since she was a young girl, Eliza Hamilton hoped to help people in need. From the private quarters of her family home to her national platform as Hamilton’s partner, Eliza was a lifelong advocate for fairness, freedom and faith. The remarkable acts of charity and public service she performed after Alexander’s death are considered a significant contribution to the Hamilton legacy the world celebrates today. Here is a thoughtful, historical account of her life beginning with her childhood influences.
Camille Andros is the author of Charlotte the Scientist Is Squished and The Dress and the Girl, which was the 2018 AML Picture Book Award winner. She has made her home in Israel, Utah, Arizona, California, Ohio, Nevada, and, now, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She has her BA in health science, is an EMT, and danced ballet for fourteen years. Tessa Blackham is a children’s book designer and the illustrator of Monday Is Wash Day, which Kirkus praised in a starred review: “such carefully assembled artwork conjures magic”. She holds a BFA from Brigham Young University and currently lives in Seattle.
McArthur Krishna, Bethany Brady Spalding, Kathleen Peterson. Girls Who Choose God: Stories of Extraordinary Women from Church History. Deseret Book.
Dive into church history with compelling stories of trail-blazing women. Mothers, midwives, miracle-workers, suffragists, state senators, visionaries, and missionaries— women from our church history have done it all. In choosing God in their moments of challenge, they were a tremendous force for good in the world. Come to know more of your old favorites such as Lucy Mack Smith and Jane Manning James. And get introduced to new trail-blazers such as Ellis Shipp and Mattie Cannon. Paving the way for us to follow, these fifteen extraordinary women can lead us to make our own godly choices.
McArthur Krishna has a master s degree in communications from BYU. She co-owned Free Range, an award-winning marketing business focused on telling social justice stories. Bethany Brady Spalding has founded programs to promote health and nutrition in the USA. South Africa, and India. Bethany currently leads a regional coalition in Richmond, Virginia, to create a healthier food environment for at-risk children. Kathleen Peterson has illustrated twenty books, mostly for young people, on topics ranging from world religions to Hawaiian legends. Her art can be found in galleries throughout the West. The team previously won the 2014 AML Picture Book Award for Girls Who Choose God: Stories of Courageous Women from the Bible, and were finalists in 2015 for Girls Who Choose God: Stories of strong women from the Book of Mormon. McArthur and Bethany also won the 2016 AML Picture Book Award for Our Heavenly Family, Our Earthly Families.
Amy Newbold and Greg Newbold. If Monet Painted a Monster. Tilbury House Publishers.
If a master artist painted a monster, what would it look like? Amy and Greg Newbold ask that simple question to open a monstrous new doorway into the wide, wild world of art. Edward Hopper’s monster lurks outside the nighthawks’ diner. James Whistler’s monster rocks in her chair. Monsters invade masterpieces by Dorthea Tanning, Paul Cezanne, M.C. Escher, Jean Michel Basquiat, Giuseppe Archimboldo, Rene Magritte, Henri Rousseau, Franz Kline, Frida Kahlo, Bob Thompson, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Thomas Hart Benton, and Helen Frankenthaler. The monster emerging from Claude Monet’s waterlilies is unforgettable. Our guide for this romp through re-imagined masterpieces is an engaging hamster. Thumbnail biographies of the artists identify their iconic works
Amy Newbold conceived If Picasso Painted a Snowman book while visiting the Musée Picasso in Paris. If Monet Painted a Monster is her third picture book. Amy learned to read at age four, and has been reading and writing ever since. Although she once fell asleep in art history class, she has always loved art, museums, and museum gift shops. Amy has a BA in political science from Brigham Young University. Greg Newbold grew up drawing superheroes and Dr. Seuss characters on giant rolls of newsprint in his childhood basement. Greg has an MFA in illustration from the University of Hartford. His illustrations have been awarded gold and silver medals from the Los Angeles Society of Illustrators. Greg has illustrated more than a dozen books for children, including If Picasso Painted a Snowman, If da Vinci Painted a Dinosaur, The Little Match Girl, The Touch of the Master’s Hand, Winter Lullaby, and Spring Song. Amy and Greg’s If Da Vinci Painted a Dinosaur was a 2018 AML Picture Book finalist.
Kenneth Wright and Sarah Jane Wright. Lola Dutch: When I Grow Up. Bloomsbury Children’s Books.
Lola Dutch is always bursting with grand plans–so of course she has many ideas for what she wants to be when she grows up! She could be a magnificent performer . . . or a daring inventor . . . or a brilliant botanist . . . there are exciting ideas all around! But Lola is too excited–she wants to try EVERYTHING. How will she ever decide what she is destined to become? The curious and creative Lola Dutch is inspired to imagine every way to explore the wonder of her world. And she doesn’t have to wait until she grows up! Inspired by their own four gorgeously creative children, Sarah Jane and Kenneth Wright are thrilled to continue this fun series about the unstoppable Lola Dutch, a larger-than-life character perfect for fans of Olivia and Fancy Nancy.
Kenneth Wright and Sarah Jane Wright live in Utah with their four uniquely intense children. In 2008 Sarah Jane opened a simple online shop that has since grown into a worldwide business with art prints, fabrics, wallpaper, puppets, and illustrated children’s books. Kenneth is a full-time educator and history teacher. Together Kenneth and Sarah Jane share a ridiculous number of hobbies. On any given day at the Wright house you’ll see treehouse building, pastry making, spontaneous musicals, and kids tucked into cozy nooks, reading stacks of books on EVERYTHING. This is their second book.