It’s the story of Ryan Hart, a fourth-grade girl in Portland, Oregon, who is dealing with all the usual troubles of grade school life while her family struggles with the loss of her father’s job. The one I’m currently reading is great - it’s Ways to Make Sunshine by Renée Watson. Gratz, a Knoxville native, answered a few questions from our Glorious Pastime questionnaire via email.Ĭhapter 16: What book are you currently reading and what led you to choose it?Īlan Gratz: I’m one of the judges for a middle-grade book award this year, and I’ve been reading my way through a stack of kids’ books sent to me by various publishers. A new full-length novel, Ground Zero, is due in February 2021. In response to popular demand, it will be released as an ebook and audiobook on September 1. A companion novella, Resist, was offered by Scholastic as a book club giveaway but never made available for sale.
Gratz’s most recent novel, Allies, is another story of World War II, this time centered around the D-Day invasion.
Gratz’s bestselling 2017 novel, Refugee, follows the lives of three young protagonists in different times and places as they flee violence and persecution. Booklist described Samurai Shortstop, which features a 16-year-old protagonist confronting cultural upheaval in late-19th-century Japan, as “a testament to enduring values in a time of social change.” In a 2013 interview, Gratz told Chapter 16, “I think we do a disservice to kids when we shy away from the heavy-hitting topics with them,” and he’s put that philosophy to work in stories about a wide range of subjects, including baseball, censorship, and the World War II Battle of Okinawa. Alan Gratz has been entertaining and inspiring young readers since his first novel, Samurai Shortstop, was published in 2006.
0 kommentar(er)
