Shine vs. Chime

So by now most of us are aware of the giant clusterfuck that is this year's National Book Awards for Young People.

Apparently, when the judges call in their list of finalists, they do it over the phone, with titles only. So... the judges picked Chime but when they called it in, the person on the other end heard Shine. For a few hours, some lists had Chime, some had Shine and some listed both. Initially, NBA just had 6 finalists this year and said there was a mistake, but didn't mention the books involved (although because only 2 books sound alike, it was obvious.)

And then yesterday they pressured Lauren Myracle to withdraw her book, in order to protect the integrity of the award. Sorry, NBA, y'all destroyed that yourselves by staying so damn Klassy.

Ideally, they would have just said "there was some confusion this year because we chose 6 instead of 5 titles, which is why the reporting was initially weird." Then no one would have known that one of the books wasn't supposed to be there. How they originally handled it was weird, but not a huge deal.

Pressuring Lauren Myracle to remove her book? That's about as Klassy as a front porch couch covered in plastic and cigarette burns. At least she was able to talk them into giving $5000 to the Matthew Shephard Foundation.

I hadn't been planning on reading Shine. I like most of the Myracle books I've read, but this sounds like too much of a downer. But in that completely realistic way, which makes it even more of a downer. I don't think I can handle it. But, after Myracle's been screwed so royally in the past week, I went ahead and bought a copy. I can't give her a shiny finalist medal sticker for the book cover, but I can buy a copy and hope others buy a copy so it gets sales and she gets money (either through royalties or a bigger advance on her next book), because I think she could probably use a night out.


Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.