Hooray!

I'm pleased to announce FLYGIRL is a Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) 2014 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults selection!  Each year YALSA chooses from books nominated at their midwinter conference, highlighting relevant timely and timeless topics.  FLYGIRL falls under their "Conflicted:  Life During Wartime" heading.  As the website says, "Today’s U.S. teens have lived most of their lives in a country at war. These books address direct combat as well as life in a war zone, across a broad swath of locations and historical periods."

Amazing to think how many people today have never known our country without war.  The windows of peace have been small (or tense-- I was a Cold War kid and wept when the Berlin Wall came down).  I wonder if reading about conflict can help us learn to avoid it, or if war is simply in our nature.  There is a value to "never forget," but that same sentiment can be applied to holding grudges.  My mother used to say, "forgive, but never forget," which is a bit tricker, but maybe that's the way to go.

Woo woo, I went deep for a second there. 

Thank you to the Popular Paperbacks Young Adults Committee for continuing to remember and support Ida Mae.  I must go back to a crazy writing marathon, so I will be (and have been) MIA from here for a week or so.  But I'll be back!

In the meantime, go watch the Olympics!  GO TEAM USA!