Kelly pointed out that the publisher actually doesn’t have a Young Adult or Children’s imprint, so all their books are considered adult, which is a fair point. If you read many book blogs (or belong to any YA list-servs) you’ll know that everyone is all up in arms about this David Small memoir because it was published as an ADULT book and now is taking one of the five coveted spots on the list for YOUNG PEOPLE. If I drank, I would have turned to the bottle to drown my sorrows after this book. The pictures, which have a bit of an eerie, dreamlike quality to them, don’t help. This book was so ridiculously depressing. Obviously things work out okay for him – he’s now a very successful artist and apparently happily married, but oh. His home life continues to get worse until he finally leaves home at sixteen and begins making his way as an artist. He has a massive, ugly scar up the side of his neck – he says he looks like a poorly sewn boot. When he wakes up from the surgery, though, he finds out that the surgeon accidentally slashed his vocal cords and he can hardly speak anymore. When David is a teenager, a family friend notices a growth on David’s throat and eventually he goes in for surgery. His dad was a doctor and did a ridiculous number of tests on David throughout his childhood.

His mom suffered from some pretty debilitating depression and appears not to have really cared for David at all. He won the Caldecott Award for “ So You Want to be President?” a few years ago, and he also illustrates many of his wife’s books (his wife is Sarah Stewart, author of such lovely books as The Library and The Gardener).

You may know David Small, even if you don’t recognize his name. I finished the whole thing in about an hour. This year? The list isn’t so hot, in my opinion.Īfter boldly declaring that I was going to read all the books (gulp) before the announcement, I sat around twiddling my thumbs and making zero progress.įinally, when I got Stitches from the library, I figured I’d dive in to that one because, well, it’s a graphic novel, so I knew it would be fast. Last year, even though I ended up not loving a few of the titles, they all sounded at least somewhat interesting.

I have to say, I was just not as excited about any of the books nominated for the National Book Award this year.

Stitches by David Small