Happy Anniversary!

Well, not quite.  In two days it will be the one-month anniversary of the date I started this blog.  But I thought I'd celebrate a little early by posting a tribute to a few of my alltime favorite young-adult authors and their books.  To begin with, no one's body of work has inspired and moved me like Katherine Paterson's.  Over thirty years ago, she courageously opened doors that so many authors have since walked through and pushed open even wider.  She writes about the outsider, and does it from the inside - from the soul.  To me, her most astonishing feat of heroism is "Jacob Have I Loved."   Then, Laurie Halse Anderson's "Wintergirls"  weaves a spell that seems to me must be witchcraft - but she is a white witch, and her goal is to erase some of the world's darkness, not add to it.  And then there's Angela Johnson's "The First Part Last" - the exquisite story of a boy becoming a man by falling in love with his child.  These authors are among my heroes, and the novels I've mentioned, with their unforgettable protagonists and language that cuts to the core, have widened and deepened my world.  I hope that if you haven't yet read them, you will soon.  Happy Anniversary, and, I hope, many more to come.