#QP2018 Nominees Round Up: More Fiction!

The Stars Beneath Our Feet by David Barclay Moore
Knopf Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: September 19, 2017
ISBN: 9781524701246 

Wallace “Lolly” Rachpaul and his family are attempting to go through the motions, preparing for their first Christmas without his older brother, Jermaine… a “street pharmacist” gunned down in the neighborhood. The crew is now trying to recruit 12-year-old Lolly and others close to him to join them. Lol wants no part of that life and finds a reprieve engineering intricately detailed Lego creations that result in over 250,000 followers online.

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#QP2018 Nominees Round Up

Tash Hearts Tolstoy by Kathryn Ormsbee
Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 9781481489331

Tash Zelenka is head-over-heels in love with Leo Tolstoy. She channels her passion and her prodigious snark into the Web series she creates with her best friend Jack, a modern adaptation of Anna Karenina called Unhappy Families, which boasts a modest following. When a famous Internet personality gives their series a shoutout online, Unhappy Families experiences sudden overnight fame, resulting in overwhelming helpings of accolades, inevitable trolls, and pressure to deliver like they’ve never experienced before.
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Putting Women Back in the Narrative: Historical Fiction That Remembers The Ladies

It was pretty much inevitable that I would become a Hamilton addict.  As both an American history nerd and a musical theatre geek, I found Lin-Manuel Miranda’s brilliant musical exploring the story of Alexander Hamilton and the founding of the United States irresistible from the moment I first listened to the opening number. However, my love of Hamilton comes not only from Miranda’s incredibly well-crafted soundtrack and book but also from his clear interest in highlighting perspectives often left out of the historical record, including the voices and experiences of women.
Obviously, I am not the first to notice this; articles like Michael Schulman’s “The Women of Hamilton and Constance Gibbs’ “How the Hero of Hamilton the Musical is a Woman”  explore the powerful ways that Miranda’s writing and the performances of Phillipa Soo, Renee Elise Goldsberry, and Jasmine Cephas Jones illuminate the often unacknowledged perspectives, experiences, and contributions of women in our history.  Singing along to songs like “The Schuyler Sisters,” “Satisfied,” and “Burn,” I can’t help but feel the urge to read some great historical fiction that places women and their stories in the spotlight.

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