John Evans cuts the ribbon; Alison Reid is to his right.

Camino Books, Del Mar, Calif., has moved to new quarters in Del Mar Plaza and celebrated the opening this past Thursday with what John Evans, who owns the store with Alison Reid, called "a very warm welcome" that featured official statements from the state senator, mayor, and the Del Mar Village Association, as well as coffee, cake, and salted dark chocolate caramels. "We were busy throughout the day with well-wishes from regular customers from our previous location and new customers from the neighborhood. It was a blast!"

The new store is almost three miles from its old location, and at 1,275 square feet is about half the size it used to be, but still holds the same amount of books. Evans described it as "cozy, colorful, eclectic, and welcoming."

The new location also has a variety of outdoor spaces for events. "We can hold hundreds outdoors on the upper deck looking out at the ocean and there's a nice, maybe 100-seat courtyard where Esmeralda's used to be and where they had their events," Evans said. And across the street is a 300-seat outdoor amphitheater. Not surprisingly, Camino Books is planning for a lot of events.

Camino Books opened in Del Mar Highlands Town Center in 2019 as DIESEL and changed its name to Camino Books last year, after the DIESEL store in Brentwood was sold.

WNDB chair Ellen Oh, with Sherri Winston, Eden Royce, June Hur, Ekua Holmes, Renée Watson (photo: Nancy Anderson Cordell)

We Need Diverse Books hosted the 2025 Walter Dean Myers Awards and the "Many Voices, One World" symposium at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C., this past Friday. Kathie Weinberg, co-director of the Walter Dean Myers Awards, welcomed the audience, which included, along with the winners, honorees, committee, and interested adults, students from eight middle and high schools. Ellen Oh, a founding member and 10-year chair of WNDB, introduced the event by admitting that she comes "because of the students. You all coming here is what makes this event great--you're my favorite part of this ceremony." Christopher Myers spoke briefly, saying that "even as [his father] was shuffling off this mortal coil, he was writing me notes about one more story, one more thing. He understood it's important that we support each other in getting out the stories that are inside of us." And to the students he directed his last comments: "We here are all a collection of stories. You are an anthology. You are a diversity of stories and histories and cultures all within yourself. The opportunity to share that with each other is a gift."

Before the three winners of the 2025 Walter Dean Myers Awards--Renée Watson, Ekua Holmes, and Sherri Winston--spoke, Oh invited students from Eliot-Hine Middle School, Columbia Heights Education Campus/Bell High School, and Montgomery Blair High School to come up front and perform sections of dialogue from three of Myers's recently reissued titles. (Editorial note: the kids killed it.)

Renée Watson (photo: Nancy Anderson Cordell)

Renée Watson opened her acceptance speech for her teen category winner, Black Girl You Are Atlas (Kokila/PRH), with a quote from Myers's novel Scorpions: "It's a hard life sometimes and the biggest temptation is to let how hard it is be an excuse to weaken." "Hold onto hope," Watson told the audience, "Hold onto the people who love you, who hold you down. Hold on and be intentional about having joy in life. That is what Black Girl You Are Atlas is all about... I do not mean 'do not cry.' I do not mean do not be angry. I mean feel the pain and fight anyway." Watson spoke directly to the young people: "Your story can never be erased because you carry your story inside of you. Stories remind us that as a people, we have survived, and we will survive. It reminds us that we are not alone."

Ekua Holmes (photo: Nancy Anderson Cordell)

Ekua Holmes, the other teen category winner, for her illustrations in Black Girl You Are Atlas, spoke about how, after meeting Watson "in 2016 when we both won Coretta Scott King awards," she hoped to one day do a book project together. "Dreams do come true." There is a throughline that connects our experiences as Black girls and Black women, Holmes said--"Black Girl You Are Atlas is the kind of book you carry in your bag, just because. It's the kind of book you give your granddaughter when she turns 16. These are poems that bring the sun on gray days." To the adults in the auditorium, she said "we must write and illustrate more books. Buy more books. Gift more books. Donate more books." To the students: "You are your ancestors' wildest dream."

Sherry Winston (photo: Nancy Anderson Cordell)

Sherri Winston, the younger readers category winner for Shark Teeth (Bloomsbury) began her speech with, "As usual, I'm the one who didn't prepare anything. I never do." Shark Teeth started as a poem, she said. "My children dragged me to some event, and I got there and there weren't any other moms. I was there to hold coats. I got bored and this poem came into my ear. I wrote the poem, and I basically built this book around it--I wanted the whole book to feel like a poem."

Oh moderated the panel featuring Winston, Watson, Holmes, young readers category honoree Eden Royce (The Creepening of Dogwood House, Walden Pond Press/Harper), and teen readers category honoree June Hur (A Crane Among Wolves, Feiwel & Friends). "Our theme this year is 'Many Voices, One World,' " Oh said, "Where do you see your voice fitting into the publishing landscape?" Watson said she felt her place was to "keep writing. I'm going to keep writing about Black girls, I'm going to keep writing about big-bodied Black girls; I'm going to keep telling the truth through my writing." She continued: "I'm grateful that I have a past to look back to. There were a people who were enslaved in this country and when they were fighting, they didn't have anything to look back to--there was no proof that fighting for equal rights would make change. But I have a past I can look back to and see my place in it."

Holmes answered the question: "As an artist. I feel like I have an opportunity to address history through my artwork and share stories through my canvases." Hur recalled that, when writing her first book, she was writing "as a girl who grew up being ashamed of being Korean." But when she finally discovered Korean history, she "fell madly in love with it. Studying Korean history was like looking in a mirror--so much of who I am takes root in Korea's past." Royce noted that "as a Gullah Geechee person, it's extremely important to write about my culture because, even within the United States, there isn't a lot of knowledge about my people. As I got older, I started to embrace the way we spoke, and I wanted to be able to write that language, that sound, that dialect into a work." Winston said she saw her place "in this shifting landscape of children's literature" as "being responsible for continuing to promote hope and joy and knowledge in this younger generation." I write, she said, "to encourage people to be loud, to be too much, to fuse who you are in your heart and in your home with who you show to the world."

Excellent student questions followed--"How do you include diversity in literature without taking on the weight of the world?"; "What would you tell your younger self?"--which led to an especially candid and touching discussion of writing from Watson. When asked what inspired her to write her story, Watson admitted that she rarely writes herself into the work--while she may pull from personal experience, she keeps a distance between herself and her writing. But "when I was writing this book, I wanted to talk directly to you," she said. "I wanted you to know that you're worthy and your story matters." For me to say that to you, Watson emphasized, "I had to live that. Which means I had to do the brave thing and share my own story--the truth of me and not the fiction."

The panel was followed by a book fair and signing line--every student received the three reissued Walter Dean Myers books and could purchase any of the Walter Award-winning books from a Politics and Prose pop-up. More information about WNDB and the award can be found here. --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness

We Need Diverse Books' inaugural Stories Save Lives event, celebrating 10 years of the Walter Awards and of WNDB, was held at the Whittemore House in Washington, D.C., Thursday, April 10. Featured speakers included Massachusetts Seventh Congressional District Representative Ayanna Pressley, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Nikole Hannah-Jones, National Book Award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson, and Newbery Medalist Jason Reynolds. Several Walter Award winners were also in attendance--including Elizabeth Acevedo and Angeline Boulley--as was 2023 Newbery Medalist Amina Luqman-Dawson and Christopher Myers, Walter Dean Myers's author/illustrator son.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (photo: Nancy Anderson Cordell)

After a brief welcome from Jordan Bookey, author and chair of the host committee, Lizette Serrano, v-p of educational marketing and event strategy at Scholastic, introduced Pressley. Like many of the evening's speakers, Pressley condemned the current administration's attacks on diversity and inclusion, rampant book banning, and the focused attacks on bookstores and libraries: "I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I do that because I need the choir to sing."

Pressley shared her experience with one of the most banned authors in the U.S., Maya Angelou, in relation to the evening's theme, Stories Save Lives: "As a young child experiencing interfamily sexual abuse, I thought I was completely alone in the world until I read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I don't know where I would be if that book was not available to me. When I say books save lives, I know it to be true--because a book saved mine."

Dhonielle Clayton (photo: Nancy Anderson Cordell)

Author and WNDB chair Dhonielle Clayton used Myers's own words from his 2014 New York Times opinion piece, "Where Are the People of Color in Children's Books," to highlight the evening's theme: "Every book was a landscape upon which I was free to wander." Clayton, moderator of the anniversary's panel featuring Hannah-Jones, Reynolds, and Woodson, asked the authors if they remembered the first time they saw themselves in literature. "Stevie by John Steptoe," Woodson responded. "The characters looked like me, they sounded like the people I lived around, and it was an amazing moment. The next book was Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry." Hannah-Jones said Mildred D. Taylor's 1977 Newbery Medalist was her first as well--"There was a Black girl on the cover and that was the first time I saw a Black girl on the cover." Clayton noted "it was the same for me--it's so interesting how that one book has changed all of our lives."

"Yeah," Reynolds added, "it wasn't that for me. The first book that I saw myself in was The Young Landlords, an older Walter Dean Myers book. I had never read about neighborhood kids doing neighborhood things before that. The real issue is that I was 24 years old when I read that story, and it was the first time I actually saw myself."

Jacqueline Woodson (photo: Nancy Anderson Cordell)

It's not an accident, Woodson said, "it's by design that you didn't come to Walter until you were 24. As many books as he had written? As many awards as he had won? What was keeping those books out of your classrooms?"

Relating back to Pressley's remarks, Clayton asked the panel what they thought "our titans" would say if they were with us today. "They would be cursing," Woodson said. "You think children's book writers don't curse? We curse." Hannah-Jones responded, "I don't think they would be shocked. Those of us who had the luxury of being born after the civil rights movement had the luxury of being surprised. But people who had to fight to have basic rights would not be surprised we're having to fight again. I think they would be angry with all of us for allowing it to get here--we got complacent." Hannah-Jones noted that "about 90% of the book bans came from about 100 people." We are allowing, she said, "the tiniest minority to decide what is being taught in the classroom, to take books out of libraries." Books by Black and LGBTQ+ people are being singled out specifically, she said, and "this is why I say it's psychological warfare: because as a child, when I never saw myself in the history books, in my literature class, in the library, I internalized what that meant. And what that meant was I came from a people who didn't do anything important, who didn't do anything of value, and so I'm not important and I don't have value. You erase us from the curriculum and then you erase our rights."

Jason Reynolds and Nikole Hanna-Jones (photo: Nancy Anderson Cordell)

While Clayton, Hannah-Jones, Reynolds, and Woodson all worked to keep the conversation about Myers's legacy, there was an understandably somber tone. "This is the worst celebration I have ever been to," Reynolds lamented. "Happy 10th year, y'all." Clayton, graciously moderating, laughed and said, "I'm trying to bring in the joy, Jason. Give me a second to land the plane." So, Clayton asked, "What do we want for readers in the future? What do we want them to celebrate?"

Reynolds said he wants Black kids to get to be "weird." "I hope in 10 years," he said, that Black kids know "they don't have to be the coolest kid or the toughest kid; they can be the strangest kid." Hannah-Jones smiled: "Nobody ever comes to me for inspiration. Y'all, we're in trouble. I can't say we will all survive this moment but what I can say, because I've studied history, is that to be Black in America is to struggle. There has never been a moment since 1619 when we didn't have to struggle. We know how to do it. We always found a way. We will find a way. Ultimately, the future we have is the future we choose." Woodson focused her response on the inevitability and longevity of stories: "We always have story, and we will always have story. We had story when we weren't allowed to read, we had story when we weren't allowed to write. They can't kill the spirit. We came here not meaning to survive and we survived. We thrived. We continue to thrive. There is something about Black and brownness that is here to stay. For me, that's the celebration."

Christopher Myers (photo: Nancy Anderson Cordell)

After a tribute to Ellen Oh and her 10 years as WNDB chair, the evening closed with an energetic and upbeat anecdote from Christopher Myers about his father. "I must have been about 11 years old," he said. "I was crossing 14th street with Pop, and he ran into Tom Feelings. Great illustrator. They saw each other with the kind of frequency that old men see each other. We began to cross the street and they both looked back and said, 'Oh no! They coming!' So I began to run. The two adults said 'they coming'--I'm going to run. I found myself in the middle of 14th Street, cars every which way, and Tom and Dad standing on the corner just laughing, knowing that they had got me. Knowing that they had imbued in me the same instinct that they had. Every Black person will tell you that we are all running. White people will be like, 'What are we running from?' But Black people are all going to run together. We find ourselves in this moment right now where, oh no, they are coming... But I hope we can remember in these moments that you can find joy. You can still be standing on the corner laughing as your 11-year-old son dodges traffic." --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness

Bruce Joshua Miller

A memorial service for Bruce Joshua Miller, who died January 11, will be held on Friday, May 16, at 3 p.m. at Union Cemetery in Maplewood, Minn. Following the service, at 4 p.m., a reception will be held at the Drury Plaza Hotel in St. Paul.

Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist, and winner of the Nobel literature prize in 2010, died yesterday. He was 89.

Mario Vargas Llosa

He "combined gritty realism with playful erotica and depictions of the struggle for individual liberty in Latin America, while also writing essays that made him one of the most influential political commentators in the Spanish-speaking world," the New York Times wrote. He "gained renown as a young writer with slangy, blistering visions of the corruption, moral compromises and cruelty festering in Peru. He joined a cohort of writers like Gabriel García Márquez of Colombia and Julio Cortázar of Argentina, who became famous in the 1960s as members of Latin America's literary 'boom generation.' "

In 2010, the Nobel committee praised Vargas Llosa for "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat."

Vargas Llosa wrote in a variety of genres, including historical novels, political novels, comedies, murder mysteries, essays, political essays, literary criticism, and plays. Early work that established his international reputation included the novel The Time of the Hero, set in a Peruvian military school and based on his experiences at a military school; The Green House, set in a brothel of the same name; and Conversation in the Cathedral, which focuses on dictatorship's effect on the country's citizens.

Later work included Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, based on his first marriage, which took place when he was 19, to his uncle's sister-in-law, who was 10 years older than Vargas Llosa; The War of the End of the World, about an uprising by a cult in 19th-century Brazil; and The Feast of the Goat, about the assassination of Rafael Trujillo, longtime dictator of the Dominican Republic.

Vargas Llosa shifted politically during his life. As a young man, he was a Marxist and supported Cuba, but eventually became what the Wall Street Journal called "an unshakable defender of democracy, personal liberties and free markets at a time when the region was polarized between leftist revolutionaries and right-wing dictatorships. His belief that private enterprise and political freedom were inseparable turned him into an ideological outsider among members of Latin America's intelligentsia."

In 1990, when the country was in economic crisis and Shining Path was strongest, Vargas Llosa ran for president of Peru, but was soundly defeated by Alberto Fujimori.

Besides the Nobel Prize, Vargas Llosa won the Cervantes Prize, the Rómulo Gallegos Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award, the Jerusalem Prize, and the Pablo Neruda Order of Artistic and Cultural Merit. In 2021, he was elected to the Académie Française. In the late 1970s, he was president of PEN International.

Page 1's winning display

The winner and finalists have been selected for the second annual Indie Press Month display contest, part of the Independent Publishers Caucus's Indie-to-Indie program and sponsored by Shelf Awareness and Bookshop.org. The winner, Page 1 Books in Albuquerque, N.Mex., was awarded a cash prize of $400 for its in-store table display featuring hand-made signage, bookmarks, and the creative use of social media to educate and inform readers about indie presses.

The three finalists, who each receive $50 in co-op funding, are Aaron's Books, Lititz, Pa., for its elaborate three-tiered display including shelf-talkers and a surplus of indie press titles; Magic City Books, Tulsa, Okla., for its hand-made window signage; and Bookshop Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, Calif., for its large-scale use of IPC's marketing assets.

Five other stores are receiving co-op marketing for their timely use of social media to promote Indie Press Month to their audiences. Those stores are: Honest Dog Books, Bayfield, Wis.; Prologue Bookshop, Columbus, Ohio; Seminary Co-op, Chicago, Ill.; Tomorrow Bookstore, Indianapolis, Ind.; and Black Rock Books, Buffalo, N.Y.

IPC commented: "We were overwhelmed by the response and creativity of our friends and colleagues in the indie bookstore community throughout the country. We want to thank all the stores who signed up, and the many more stores that participated beyond the formal scope of the contest."

Congratulations to Highland Books, Brevard, N.C., which celebrated its 50th anniversary with an all-day party on Tuesday, April 1, that featured a sale, new branded merchandise, refreshments, and an offer to emboss purchased books with the store's 50th anniversary commemorative seal.

Leslie Logemann, who owns the store with her husband, Mark Connelley, said, "While Highland Books wouldn't be what it is without the hard work and dedication of the owners and employees who got us to this point, it really wouldn't have made it to 2025 and become a destination bookstore in western North Carolina without the love and support of its customers and this community as a whole. Brevard, and Transylvania County, is such a special and unique place, and Highland Books is such an integral part of it. This isn't my bookstore. It is most definitely the community's bookstore."

Highland Books was founded in 1975 by Jeanette Rowan, who sold the store a year later to Tim and Peggy Hansen, who owned the store for 40 years and built it into the form it has today. In 2015, the Hansens sold the store to Amanda and Chris Mosser, who in 2019 moved the store to its current location. In 2021, they sold the store to Logemann and Connelley.

Logemann has helped the store steadily grow and added events and attractions. "We expanded our hours and we're now open seven days a week, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. each day but Sunday when we're open 10-6. We moved the children's section downstairs so that it is larger and more accessible and turned the upstairs loft into an expanded young adult section, also with graphic novels and manga. We painted, upgraded railings, added bookshelves and displays, and we have quadrupled our inventory with not only more books, but other literary gift items. We now have weekly book clubs and regular offsite author events. We added a fabulous website that shows you what is in inventory at any moment and allows for easy shopping--pick up or shipping--and we offer free in-town delivery (often same day!). We have expanded our staff, now with nine full-time and part-time employees. I'm proud to say we are also a living wage employer."

Posted on Facebook by Bleak House Books, Honeoye Falls, N.Y.: "Many people have asked over the years: 'how do you decide what books to stock in your bookshop?' I've always struggled to come up with an answer to that, but today, I finally have it, thanks to some random equation that I've seen popping up everywhere online. I don't know who came up with it, but it's pure genius, and captures, to a 'T', the calculations I make when deciding on what books to stock. So here it is: BHB's secret formula!"

At WORD Bookstores:

Eileen Tyrrell has been promoted to store manager, Brooklyn. She has been with WORD for two years and leads all social media initiatives.

After a stint at Shakespeare & Co., Amanda Toronto has returned as children's manager/buyer for both the Brooklyn and Jersey City locations. She previously spent five years at WORD.

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Judy Smith has been named buyer for Gramercy Books, Bexley, Ohio, succeeding longtime buyer and former store manager Debbie Boggs, who has retired. Smith will handle all book and sideline buying, assist with the store's merchandising, and expand Gramercy's work with local schools, businesses, and nonprofit organizations.

Smith has served in a variety of roles within the book industry, beginning with her family's bookstore, Little Professor, then as a merchandise manager at Barnes & Noble, followed by several positions outside of retail. She returned to the industry as the manager of Liberty Books and most recently worked at Booksite.

"Judy brings more than 40 years of experience to her role, and we are thrilled to welcome her to Gramercy Books," said Linda Kass, Gramercy Books co-owner and founder. "My partner, John Gaylord, and I knew we had big shoes to fill when Debbie Boggs told us she would retire this year. Deb has spent her entire career working in independent bookstores and has been with Gramercy Books since we opened our doors in 2016. The entire staff will miss Debbie's bright smile and personal touch."

Boggs, who has worked in the book industry for more than 50 years, said, "I was fortunate to have had a job my entire adult life that allowed me to wake up happy to go to work every day. But I am looking forward to spending my days with my books, my dogs, my garden, and the friends and family that I haven't made enough time for during my work life."

Rise of the Zombie Bugs: The Surprising Science of Parasitic Mind-Control by Mindy Weisberger (Johns Hopkins University Press)

Today:
Good Morning America: Melinda French Gates, author of The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward (Flatiron, $25.99, 9781250378651). She will also appear on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

The View repeat: Kara Swisher, author of Burn Book: A Tech Love Story (Simon & Schuster, $19.99, 9781982163907).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Roy Choi, co-author of The Choi of Cooking: Flavor-Packed, Rule-Breaking Recipes for a Delicious Life (Clarkson Potter, $36.99, 9780593579251).

Today: Hailee Catalano, author of By Heart: Recipes to Hold Near and Dear (DK, $35, 9780593842652).

CBS Mornings: Lake Bell, author of All About Brains (S&S Books for Young Readers, $19.99, 9781665906753).

Drew Barrymore Show: Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo, author of How to Giggle: A Guide to Taking Life Less Seriously (Simon Element/S&S, $28.99, 9781668056004).

Live with Kelly and Mark: Ashlee Piper, author of No New Things: A Radically Simple 30-Day Guide to Saving Money, the Planet, and Your Sanity (Celadon, $24.99, 9781250382160).

Fox "has taken in for development" Before the Coffee Gets Cold, based on the bestselling novel by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (trans. by Geoffrey Trousselot), "with a significant script plus penalty commitment," Deadline reported. 

The project comes from Gideon Raff (The Spy), who will serve as writer and showrunner; Gail Berman's Jackal Group (Wednesday); and Sony Pictures Television. Raff executive produces alongside Berman and Hend Baghdady of the Jackal Group, Marcy Ross as well as SK Global's Chloe Dan and Matt Aragachi. Sony Pictures Television will co-produce with Fox Entertainment.

Winners were announced for the $1,000 2024 Athenaeum Literary Award, sponsored by the Athenaeum of Philadelphia and honoring "literature of outstanding merit by Philadelphia authors, as well as books whose subject matter focuses on Philadelphia culture or history."

The winners were Philadelphia author Emma Copley Eisenberg for her debut novel, Housemates (Hogarth), and art historian Elizabeth A. Athens for her historical study William Bartram's Visual Wonders: The Drawings of an American Naturalist (University of Pittsburgh Press).

Organizers praised Housemates for its "vivid depictions of West Philadelphia life and timely narrative of love and art," and Visual Wonders for being "a tour de force study of the intersections between observational drawing, knowledge, and the history of science."

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PEN America has announced the finalists in 11 categories for the 2025 PEN America Literary Awards, which confer a total prize purse of nearly $350,000 to writers and translators "chosen for dynamic and thought-provoking works of literary excellence." Winners will be announced on May 8 in New York City. The finalists can be seen here.

PEN America will honor three writers for career achievement: Mozambican author Mia Couto will receive the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature; Lebanese American playwright Mona Mansour will be honored with the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award; and Charles H. Rowell, founder of Callaloo, a journal celebrating writers and visual artists of African descent worldwide, receives the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing.

Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, interim co-CEO of PEN America and chief of literary programming, said: "Extraordinary books change our lives, compelling us to view the world through a new, often stunning lens. As books come under withering censorship across this country, we are excited to celebrate the freedom they represent, along with their power to spark compassion for others and move us to act with our hearts in troubling times. These exceptional writers, the stories they tell and the ideas they probe, build empathy and understanding--sorely needed today--and bring hope that these values will rule our thinking." 

Marisa (Mac) Crane's second novel, A Sharp Endless Need, is a propulsive, perfectly crafted coming-of-age story centered on basketball and queer sexuality. With razor-honed prose, Crane (I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself) offers authentic descriptions of teen angst and young love as well as exemplary sports writing, and a few memorable sex scenes.

Crane's protagonist, Mack, is a star point guard and the only one at her small-town Pennsylvania high school who is Division-I bound. Between her junior and senior seasons, her beloved but troubled father dies, and on the heels of this trauma, a new girl transfers to the team: Liv is being scouted by the same schools as Mack, and the two are instantly inseparable. Their on-court chemistry is transcendent; off-court, they share good times but are also nearly immobilized by a desire that both are at great pains to conceal. Mack's senior year is marked by larger-than-average difficulties: grieving her father, struggling with her distant, disengaged mother, playing hard with drugs and alcohol, and grappling with a sexuality that feels firmly forbidden in her community. The basketball scholarship she's headed for feels imperative. Her mother sees it as a financial necessity; Mack knows it's bigger than that. "I needed a future that was all basketball all the time because it was the only future I could imagine for myself. Basketball, I knew, was the only thing keeping me alive."

Mack's first-person voice is written from a distance of some years, a voice of wisdom looking back on her high school days. This perspective is one of the novel's strengths. It is the older, wiser Mack who observes that another player "didn't notice or appreciate the poetry of her pump fakes--she simply used them for their designated purpose. I guess what I mean is there was no romance."

Anyone who's ever been a teenager will relate to Mack's broader struggles with self-destructive behaviors, desires, and pain. Her particular challenges involve a devotion to craft and the one-and-only ticket out that basketball represents. "Everything outside of that stadium, our problems, our anxieties, our fears, could wait; nothing else mattered but this last play." The best sports writing evokes not only movement, sensory detail, and skill, but passion, and Crane has a firm grasp on these facets. As Mack's final season nears its close, her relationship with Liv, her college decision, and more hinge upon a handful of choices and impactful moments. A Sharp Endless Need is unforgettable. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

Shelf Talker: This poignant coming-of-age novel combines outstanding sports writing and heartfelt expression of the teen experience, set to small-town Pennsylvania basketball.