Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award finalists announced

The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) have announced the finalists for the first Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award, for a young adult book "demonstrating a positive approach to life, widespread teen appeal, and literary merit." The author of the winning book will receive $5000.

The finalists are:

After Tupac and D Foster, by Jacqueline Woodson
Graceling, by Kristin Cashore
The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
Me, The Missing, and the Dead, by Jenny Valentine
My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins, and Fenway Park, by Steve Kluger

Amelia Elizabeth Walden (1909-2002) was the author of over forty YA books, the first of which was published in 1946.