Every year, the National Book Foundation recognizes achievements in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and young people's literature. Last year, the award in the young people's literature category went to Jeanne Birdsall for her novel The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy

The 2006 National Book Award finalists were announced yesterday. For the first time ever, the nominees include a graphic novel--Gene Luen Yang's "American Born Chinese" which was nominated in the young people's literature category. (Other nominees were  M.T. Anderson's The Pox Party: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1; Martine Leavitt's Keturah and Lord Death; Patricia McCormick's Sold (listen to the author read an excerpt); Nancy Werlin's The Rules of Survival).

Here's a plot synopsis of American Born Chinese, taken from the book's website:

All Jin Wang wants is to fit in...

When his family moves to a new neighborhood, he suddenly finds that he's the only Chinese--American student at his school. Jocks and bullies pick on him constantly, and he has hardly any friends. Then, to make matters worse, he falls in love with an all-American girl ...

Born to rule over all the monkeys in the world, the story of the Monkey King is one of the oldest and greatest Chinese fables. Adored by his subjects, master of the arts of kung-fu, he is the most powerful monkey on earth. But the Monkey King doesn't want to be a monkey. He wants to be hailed as a god ...

Chin-Kee is the ultimate negative Chinese stereotype, and he's ruining his cousin Danny's life. Danny's a basketball player, a popular kid at school, but every year Chin-Kee comes to visit, and every year Danny has to transfer to a new school to escape the shame. This year, though, things quickly go from bad to worse ...

These three apparently unrelated tales come together with an unexpected twist, in a modern fable that is hilarious, poignant, and action-packed. American Born Chinese is an amazing ride, all the way up to the astonishing climax - and confirms what a growing number of readers already know: Gene Yang is a major talent.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth

Recognize this? Well, if you haven't read it yet, you will soon. Tell your teachers to get on that! It's The Road Not Taken, the classic Robert Frost poem that every student absolutely MUST read before he/she gets to high school. I'm not going to link it here because it's just so important that you have to go find it yourself. It's totally worth it and will take you about three seconds to find. At any rate, it is a poem about self-discovery, originiality, and yes, even anti-establishment. Oh, and it all takes place in the most pastoral of scenes. Ahhh.

Why am I talking about this poem? Well, to introduce you to Robert Frost for starters. He was a poet who, as a young boy, often heard voices in his head. His mother told him that he shared her "second sight", while his father continued to drink away the years.

What does any of this have to do with poetry? Hmm. Well, alot, actually. One of the best ways to appease the voices in your head is to write them out of you. I'm not saying that Frost wrote because of this. I'm just suggesting that you might.

Wow. ANYWAY.... we are here today to talk about a new Robert Frost poem (new to us anyway). Frost has been dead for nearly 40 years but since when has that kept the great ones from their art? His latest poem, "War Thoughts at Home" was handwritten in a copy of a close friend's book. That friend was Frederic G. Melcher, and the poem is partly about him.

According to the Virginia Quarterly Review, "War Thoughts at Home" embodies the stories of two great friends in Frost's life. The first was Edward Thomas--who died in the trenches during World War I--and the poem narrates Frost's ambivalence about the war that claimed Thomas's life. The story of the other friend picks up where the first leaves off. It is the story of a new beginning for Frost in his friendship with Frederic G. Melcher, a rising star in the book trade, and it was Melcher who preserved this lost passage of Frost's poetic thoughts about the war.

Here is a brief excerpt of "War Thoughts at Home"

On the backside of the house
Where it wears no paint to the weather
And so shows most its age,
Suddenly blue jays rage
And flash in blue feather.

It is late in an afternoon
More grey with snow to fall
Than white with fallen snow
When it is blue jay and crow
Or no bird at all.

The entire poem is printed in the current issue of the Virginia Quaterly Review. Pick one up today!

Wow, college is fun!  I'm taking my first college Creative Writing class -- "Intro to Short Fiction" -- and the 3-hour class goes by much too quickly.  Imagine, reading and writing short stories for "homework"?!  Those are things I love doing for fun! 

I've learned in my class that other people will always have different opinions about your writing.  There are eighteen students in my class, and each week, we critique two or three short stories submitted by our classmates.  Not surprisingly, each week there are eighteen different opinions on how to improve each story!  I've learned that if there is a suggestion about one of my stories that the majority of the class agrees upon -- maybe I need to add more character description, or tighten up the dialogue -- then it is something I should pay attention to.  But trying to please everyone will drive you crazy -- not to mention, it's impossible!  As my writing friend Elizabeth Berg wrote me in a letter, "First, please yourself." Good advice for any area of your life, I think.