We are pleased to announce the 2020 Association for Mormon Letters Awards finalists in Picture Book, Middle Grade Novel, and Young Adult Novel. The final awards will be announced and presented on June 5, as part of the Association for Mormon Letters Virtual Conference. 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.
Picture Book
Amanda Rawson Hill and Joanne Le-Vriethoff. You’ll Find Me. Magination Press
Loss becomes remembrance in this book that offers tender ways to pay tribute to, and meaningfully incorporate, a loved one’s lost presence into present and future life experiences. Be it departed friends, family, pets, and more, memories can carry us beyond the precious moments we have together to keep the ones we loved before in mind forever. Throughout the book the omnipresent narrator encourages thoughtful reflection on the empty spaces left by the loss. The gentle scenes portrayed inspire recovery from sadness and honor those who are absent. This lyrical heartful story provides consent and gently encourage readers to move to a place of peace and acceptance despite the absence.
Amanda Rawson Hill grew up in Southwestern Wyoming. She got her degree in chemistry from Brigham Young University and then lived all over the United States before finally settling down with her husband and three kids in Central California. She spends her days homeschooling her kids, reading, writing, painting, knitting, volunteering in her community, and singing at the top of her lungs.
Lori Mortensen and Chloe Bristol. Nonsense: The Curious Story of Edward Gorey. HMH Books for Young Readers
In this lyrical biography of one of literature’s most creepily creative authors and illustrators, kids will learn about the inspiration behind a generation of creators, from Lemony Snicket to Tim Burton. Known for, among other things, wearing a large fur coat wherever he went, storyteller Edward Gorey was respected for both his brilliance and his eccentricity. As a child, he taught himself to read and skipped several grades before landing at Harvard (after a brief stint in the army). Then he built a name for himself as a popular book illustrator. After that, he went on to publish well over one hundred of his own books, stories that mingled sweetness and innocence, danger and darkness, all mixed with his own brand of silliness. Illustrated with 
Gorey-like humor and inspiration by Chloe Bristol, this stunning picture book biography about this beloved creator is the first for children.
Lori Mortensen is an award-winning children’s author of more than 100 books and over 500 stories and articles. Recent picture book releases include If Wendell Had a Walrus, illustrated by Matt Phelan, the picture book biography Away with Words, the Daring Story of Isabella Bird, Mousequerade Ball, illustrated by Betsy Lewin, Chicken Lily, and Cowpoke Clyde Rides the Range, a sequel to bestseller Cowpoke Clyde and Dirty Dawg. Look for her latest picture book, Arlo Draws an Octopus, May 2021. When she’s not hiking around, camera in hand, she’s tapping away at her keyboard, conjuring, coaxing, and prodding her latest projects to life. Today, she lives in the foothills of Northern California with her family.
Carol Lynn Pearson and Jane Sanders. I’ll Walk with You. Gibbs Smith
I’ll Walk With You is based on a much-loved song Carol Lynn Pearson wrote for the Primary Children’s Songbook in 1989 at the request of the Primary General Board. The picture book extends the concept of loving and accepting others, no matter what they look like, where they come from, or what their age and abilities are. “If you don’t walk as most people do . . . If you don’t pray as some people pray . . . If you don’t love as some people do . . .” The book is being enthusiastically received nationally and is a finalist for the annual Forward Indies Award.
Carol Lynn Pearson is well known in the LDS community for her poetry, which first appeared in 1967 in a slim volume titled Beginnings, and most recently in a new book titled Finding Mother God: Poems to Heal the World. A woman not unwilling to address challenging issues, in 2015 she published the hard-hitting The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy: Haunting the Hearts and Heaven of Mormon Women and Men. Carol Lynn is the author of more than 40 books and plays that together have sold more than 800,000 copies—autobiogra
phy, inspiration, humor, poetry, and fiction. Her memoir Goodbye, I Love You tells the story of her marriage to a gay man, their divorce, ongoing friendship, and her caring for him as he died of AIDS. She has written several plays, including the musical My Turn on Earth, and Facing East, which opened Off Broadway in 2007, and won an AML Drama Award as well as the Deseret News “Best Play of the Year.” She was presented with the 2018 AML Lifetime Achievement Award. She resides in Walnut Creek, California.
Kristyn Crow and Annie Won. All Aboard the Moonlight Train. Doubleday Books for Young Readers
Can’t sleep? Then hop aboard the Moonlight Train and get ready for a dreamy, nighttime adventure! A toucan will take your ticket, an elephant is your engineer, you can climb the giraffe’s long neck for a look-out, and a lion will tuck you into your sleeping car with a bedtime story. Ready to join us? All aboard! Children and parents will love the clickety-clack rhythm of this enchanting, rhyming bedtime tale that whisks little readers through a magical forest on the most unusual and wondrous train ever. Annie Won’s luminous, captivating 
art creates a joyous world of beautiful animals that will delight the youngest reader. It’s your ticket to a perfect bedtime read-aloud.
Kristyn Crow is the author of numerous children’s picture books. Her most recent titles include: Zombelina (2013), Zombelina Dances the Nutcracker (2015, AML Picture Book Award winner), Zombelina School Days (2017) and Hello, Hippo! Goodbye, Bird! (2016). She has received starred reviews from School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly, and won a blue ribbon from the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books.
Middle Grade Novel
Sarah Allen. What Stars are Made Of. Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Twelve-year-old Libby Monroe is great at science, being optimistic, and talking to her famous, accomplished friends (okay, maybe that last one is only in her head). She’s not great at playing piano, sitting still, or figuring out how to say the right thing at the right time in real life. Libby was born with Turner Syndrome, and that makes some things hard. But she has lots of people who love her, and that makes her pretty lucky. When her big sister Nonny tells her she’s pregnant, Libby is thrilled―but worried. Nonny and her husband are in a financial black hole, and Libby knows that babies aren’t always born healthy. So she strikes a deal with the universe: She’ll enter a contest with a project about Cecilia Payne, the first person to discover what stars are made of. If she wins the grand prize and gives all that money to Nonny’s family, then the baby will be perfect. Does she have what it takes to care for the sister that has always cared for her? And what will it take for the universe to notice?
Sarah Allen is a poet and author of books for young readers. Her first book, What Stars are Made Of, and her 2021 novel,Breathing Underwater, is a Jr. Library Guild Selection for 2021. Born and raised in Utah, she’s currently a poetry MFA candidate and graduate instructor at the University of South Florida, Tampa.
Cindy Baldwin. Beginners Welcome. HarperCollins
It’s been eighty-three days since Annie Lee’s daddy died, but she still sees reminders of him everywhere. His record player mysteriously plays his favorite songs, there’s shaving cream in the sink every morning, and the TV keeps flipping to the Duke basketball games he loved. She knows Mama notices it too, but Mama’s been working around the clock to make ends meet. To make matters worse, Annie Lee’s friends ditched her over the summer. She feels completely alone—until she meets Mitch.Though Mitch is tough and confident on the outside, she may need a friend just as badly as Annie Lee. But after losing so much, Annie Lee is afraid to let anyone get too close. And Mitch isn’t the only friend trying to break through Annie Lee’s defenses. Ray, an elderly pianist who plays at a local mall, has been giving her piano lessons. His music is pure magic, and Annie Lee hopes it might be the key to healing her broken heart. But when Ray goes missing, searching for him means breaking a promise to Mitch. Faced with once again losing those who mean the most to her, Annie Lee must make a choice: retreat back into her shell, or risk admitting how much she needs Mitch and Ray—even if it means getting hurt all over again.
Cindy Baldwin the author of Where the Watermelons Grow (an Oregon Spirit Book Award Honor, Indies Introduce title, and Indie Next selection), and The Stars of Whistling Ridge. She lives just outside Portland, Oregon, with her husband and daughter.
J. L. Esplin. 96 Miles. Starscape/Tor Teen
The Lockwood brothers are supposed to be able to survive anything. Their dad, a hardcore believer in self-reliance, has stockpiled enough food and water at their isolated Nevada home to last for months. But when they are robbed of all their supplies during a massive blackout while their dad is out of town, John and Stew must walk 96 miles in the stark desert sun to get help. Along the way, they’re forced to question their dad’s insistence on self-reliance and ask just what it is that we owe to our neighbors, to our kin, and to ourselves.
J. L. Esplin grew up with a Secret Service agent father, who was intent on raising self-reliant kids, prepared for any emergency, especially natural disasters. She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, on the edge of town with her husband and kids. 96 Miles is her first novel.
Yamile Saied Mendez. On these Magic Shores. Tu
Minerva Soledad Miranda is determined to reach her goals, despite shouldering more responsibility than the other kids at school–like caring for her two sisters while her mom works two jobs. But one night, Minerva’s mom doesn’t come home, and Minerva has to figure out what to do. Was Mamá snapped up by immigration enforcement? Will the girls be sent to foster homes or holding centers for migrant kids? Minerva and her sisters can’t let anyone know Mamá has disappeared. They’ll just pretend everything is normal until she comes back. Minerva’s plan to go it alone falls apart the first afternoon, when her baby sister throws a tantrum during Minerva’s audition for Peter Pan. But as the days pass and Minerva grows ever more worried about her mother, something magical seems to be watching out for them: leaving them cupcakes, helping Minerva find money, even steering them to friends and distant family who can help. Eventually, Minerva must make the hardest choice of her life. And when she does, she’ll be prepared to face life’s challenges–with friendship, hope, and a little bit of fairy magic.
Yamile (sha-MEE-lay) Saied Mendez is a fútbol obsessed Argentine-American. She’s the mother of 5 kids and 2 adorable dogs. Yamile’s an inaugural Walter Dean Meyers Grant recipient, a graduate of Voices of our Nation (VONA) and the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA Writing for Children program. She writes picture books, middle grade, young adult and adult romance fiction. Yamile is a founding member of Las Musas, the first collective of women and nonbinary Latinx MG and YA authors.
Celesta Rimington. The Elephant’s Girl. Crown Books for Young Readers
An elephant never forgets, but Lexington Willow can’t remember what happened before a tornado swept her away when she was a toddler. All she knows is that it landed her near an enclosure in a Nebraska zoo; and there an elephant named Nyah protected her from the storm. With no trace of her birth family, Lex grew up at the zoo with Nyah and her elephant family; her foster father, Roger; her best friend, Fisher; and the wind whispering in her ear. Now that she’s twelve, Lex is finally old enough to help with the elephants. But during their first training session, Nyah sends her a telepathic image of the woods outside the zoo. Despite the wind’s protests, Lex decides to investigate Nyah’s message and gets wrapped up in an adventure involving ghosts, lost treasure, and a puzzle that might be the key to finding her family. As she hunts for answers, Lex must summon the courage to leave the secure borders of her zoo to discover who she really is–and why the tornado brought her here all those years ago.
Celesta Rimington’s debut novel, The Elephant Girl, is a selection for the 2021-2022 Texas Bluebonnet Award Masterlist and the 2022 Oklahoma Children’s Sequoyah Masterlist. Tips for Magicians, her second magical realism middle grade novel, is a Junior Library Guild selection and will be released on August 17, 2021. Celesta is an elephant advocate, a musical theater performer, and a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She currently resides in the Rocky Mountains with her husband and children, where they have a miniature railroad with a rideable steam train.
Young Adult Novel
Teri Bailey Black. Chasing Starlight. Tor Teen
The Golden Age of Hollywood, 1938. Palm trees and movie stars. Film studios pumping out musicals and gangster films at a furious pace. Everyone wants to be a star―except society girl and aspiring astronomer Kate Hildebrand. She’s already famous after a childhood tragedy turned her into a newspaper headline. What she craves now is stability. But when Kate has to move to Hollywood to live with her washed-up silent film star grandfather, she walks into a murder scene and finds herself on the front page again. She suspects one of the young men boarding in her grandfather’s run-down mansion is the killer―or maybe even her grandfather. Now, Kate must discover the killer while working on the set of a musical―and falling in love. Will her stars align so she can catch the murderer and live the dream in Old Hollywood? Or will she find that she’s just chasing starlight?
Teri Bailey Black’s debut, Girl at the Grave (2018), won the Thriller Award for Best Young Adult Novel, and the Whitney Award for Best Debut and Best Young Adult Novel. She and her husband have four children and live in Orange County, California.
Dean Hughes. Displaced. Atheneum
Thirteen-year-old Hadi Toma and his family are displaced. At least that’s what the Lebanese government calls them and the thousands of other Syrian refugees that have flooded into Beirut. But as Hadi tries to earn money to feed his family by selling gum on the street corner, he learns that many people who travel the city don’t think they’re displaced—they think that they don’t belong in this country either. Each day he hears insults, but each day he convinces himself they don’t matter, approaching the cars again and again. He hardly dares to dream anymore that this might change. But then Hadi meets Malek, who has been instructed to work on the same corner. Malek, who talks about going to school and becoming an engineer. But Malek is new to the streets, and Kamal, the man who oversees many of the local street vendors, tells Malek he must work the corner…alone. And people who don’t follow Kamal’s orders don’t last long. Now Hadi is forced to make a choice between engaging in illegal activities or letting his family starve. Can the boys find a way out of their impossible situation, or will the dream of something greater than their harsh realities remain stubbornly out of reach?
Dean Hughes is a best-selling writer who published his 100th book in 2014. He holds a PhD from the University of Washington, and attended post-doctoral seminars at Stanford and Yale Universities and taught English at Central Missouri State University and Brigham Young University. His previous AML awards in include 1994 Young Adult Novel for The Trophy, 1998 Novel Award for Far from Home, 2019 Novel Award for Muddy, and the 2005 Smith-Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters for his Children of the Promise series, and an 2013 Outstanding Achievement Award for his writing career.
Tricia Levenseller. The Shadows Between Us. Feiwel and Friends
Alessandra is tired of being overlooked, but she has a plan to gain power: 1) Woo the Shadow King. 2) Marry him. 3) Kill him and take his kingdom for herself. No one knows the extent of the freshly crowned Shadow King’s power. Some say he can command the shadows that swirl around him to do his bidding. Others say they speak to him, whispering the thoughts of his enemies. Regardless, Alessandra knows what she deserves, and she’s going to do everything within her power to get it. But Alessandra’s not the only one trying to kill the king. As attempts on his life are made, she finds herself trying to keep him alive long enough for him to make her his queen—all while struggling not to lose her heart. After all, who better for a Shadow King than a cunning, villainous queen?
Tricia Levenseller is the author of the Daughter of the Pirate King duology, Warrior of the Wild, The Shadows Between Us, and forthcoming Blade of Secrets. She writes young adult high fantasies with heavy romantic subplots.Init ially from a small town in Oregon, Tricia now lives next to the Rocky Mountains with her bossy dog, Rosy. She received her degree in English Language and editing, and she is thrilled that she never has to read a textbook again.
Kara McDowell. One Way or Another. Scholastic
Sliding Doors meets To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before in a sweet, smart holiday romance about a girl who decides to stop letting her anxiety stand in the way of true love. When Paige is presented with two last-minute options for Christmas vacation, she’s paralyzed by indecision. Should she go with her best friend (and longtime crush) Fitz to his family’s romantic mountain cabin? Or should she accompany her mom to New York, a city Paige has spent her whole life dreaming about?Just when it seems like Paige will crack from the pressure of choosing, fate steps in — in the form of a slippery grocery store floor — and Paige’s life splits into two very different parallel paths. One path leads to New York where Paige falls for the city . . . and the charms of her unexpected tour guide. The other leads to the mountains where Paige might finally get her chance with Fitz . . . until her anxiety threatens to ruin everything.However, before Paige gets her happy ending in either destiny, she’ll have to face the truth about her struggle with anxiety — and learn that you don’t have to be “perfect” to deserve true love.
Born in the mountains and raised in the desert, Kara McDowell spent her childhood swimming, boating, and making up stories in her head. Now she lives in Mesa, Arizona, where she divides her time between writing, baking, and playing board games with her husband and three young sons. This is her debut novel.
Yamile Saied Méndez. Furia. Algonquin Young Readers
In Rosario, Argentina, Camila Hassan lives a double life. At home, she is a careful daughter, living within her mother’s narrow expectations, in her rising-soccer-star brother’s shadow, and under the abusive rule of her short-tempered father. On the field, she is La Furia, a powerhouse of skill and talent. When her team qualifies for the South American tournament, Camila gets the chance to see just how far those talents can take her. In her wildest dreams, she’d get an athletic scholarship to a North American university. But the path ahead isn’t easy. Her parents don’t know about her passion. They wouldn’t allow a girl to play fútbol—and she needs their permission to go any farther. And the boy she once loved is back in town. Since he left, Diego has become an international star, playing in Italy for the renowned team Juventus. Camila doesn’t have time to be distracted by her feelings for him. Things aren’t the same as when he left: she has her own passions and ambitions now, and La Furia cannot be denied. As her life becomes more complicated, Camila is forced to face her secrets and make her way in a world with no place for the dreams and ambition of a girl like her
Yamile (sha-MEE-lay) Saied Mendez is a fútbol obsessed Argentine-American. She’s the mother of 5 kids and 2 adorable dogs. Yamile’s an inaugural Walter Dean Meyers Grant recipient, a graduate of Voices of our Nation (VONA) and the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA Writing for Children program. She writes picture books, middle grade, young adult and adult romance fiction. Yamile is a founding member of Las Musas, the first collective of women and nonbinary Latinx MG and YA authors.