Today we're featuring Sundee Frazier's just released middle grade novel...

Brendan Buckley’s Universe & Everything In It

In ten years, I’d never once met my grandpa. My mom didn’t want to talk about him. Now suddenly I’d discovered him, and he was a scientist, just like me. Where had he been? Why couldn’t we talk about him? This is what I found out…

Ten-year-old Tae Kwon Do blue belt and budding rock hound Brendan Buckley keeps a “CONFIDENTIAL” notebook for his top secret, scientific discoveries. And he’s found something totally top secret. The grandpa he’s never met, whom his mom refuses to talk about or see, is an expert mineral collector, and lives nearby! Secretly, Brendan visits Ed DeBose, whose skin is pink, not brown like Brendan’s, his dad’s, or Grampa Clem who recently died. Brendan sets out to find the reason behind Ed’s absence, but what he discovers can’t be explained by science, and now he wishes he’d never found him at all…

Brendan’s genuine gusto for learning and digging for the truth will have readers rooting for him throughout this story of one boy’s attempt to understand race and reunite his family.

From Kirkus Reviews (Sept. 15, 2007): "Brendan is an appealing character with a sense of honor, . . . curiosity and intelligence. A good, accessible selection to inspire discussion of racism and prejudice."

From School Library Journal (Oct. 2007): "This is an absorbing look at a 10-year-old boy who has never had to deal with race and prejudice, who collides into years of anger and hurt in his family and must create a new identity for himself. . . . Frazier writes affectingly about what being biracial means in 21st-century America."

The Class of 2k7 has been bursting its collective seams today. Why? Because one of our members, Sara Zarr, is a finalist for the National Book Award!

Sara...

The Book...

According to the Press Release issued by the National Book Foundation, "The Finalists were selected by four distinguished panels of Judges who were given the charge of selecting what they deem to be the best books of the year. Their decisions are made independent of and without interference by the National Book Foundation and their deliberations are strictly confidential. To be eligible for a 2007 National Book Award, a book must have been published in the United States between December 1, 2006 and November 30, 2007 and must have been written by a United States citizen."

It must also be good.

Congratulations Sara! We are so proud of you.
To check out other nominees and other categories just go here!