JLG Winners' Spotlight - Is This the Year of the Poet?

The 2018 Boston Globe–Horn Book award winners have been announced, and Junior Library Guild congratulates all of the winners! We want to send a special shout-out to those that are also JLG selections:

• The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevdeo (Fiction and Poetry Award)
• A Different Pond by Bao Phi, illustrated by Thi Bui (Picture Book Honor)
• The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson (Fiction and Poetry Honor)
• The First Rule of Punk written and illustrated by Celia C. Pérez (Fiction and Poetry Honor)
• The 57 Bus by Daskha Slater (Nonfiction Honor)

In particular, we want to shine a spotlight on The Poet X and A Different Pond, both by poets whose previous work has been written and performed for adults. It’s exciting to see these talented writers venturing into the realm of young people's literature.

Both books tell the stories of immigrant families, and explore complex family dynamics and relationships. In Acevedo’s young adult verse novel, we follow the personal journey of Xiomara Batista, a high-school student whose parents are originally from the Dominican Republic. The story explores the cultural differences between Xiomara and her parents, as well as Xiomara’s struggle to reconcile her worldview with her mother’s strict religious beliefs. The poems both complement one another and function well as self-contained pieces. As the title suggests, the novel puts poetry front and center as both a structural and thematic element. Poetry is the tool that Xiomara uses to begin to understand who she truly is. It is through writing poetry that she starts to discover how her family and background will inform the person she becomes as she grows into a young adult.

Similarly, in the semiautobiographical picture book A Different Pond, Phi details the quiet, pre-dawn moments shared by a boy and his father as they fish for the family's evening meal and the man relates stories of his life in Vietnam. As Erika Long of Horn Book puts it, “I am impressed by how Bui seamlessly tells an authentic story of family and tradition, evoking a particular mood and theme, both of which last the length of the book and beyond.” Phi’s words are complemented by Thi Bui's expressive illustrations, which are laid out in comics-style panels. (Cartoonist Bui also recently published The Best We Could Do, her graphic-novel memoir for adults.) Her art enhances the contemplative tone of the lyrical prose.

All of the 2018 BGHB winners are highly deserving of the honor, and each book is compelling in a unique way. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to make these excellent titles available to JLG members.