As many folks have reported the National Book Award nominations were released last week. I'll leave the commenting on the adult titles for other folks but I'm a bit conflicted (and confused) over the YA titles. Here's the list:

M.T. Anderson, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party
Martine Leavitt, Keturah and Lord Death
Patricia McCormick, Sold
Nancy Werlin, The Rules of Survival
Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese

If you're not familiar with all of these titles, here is what you're looking at. Anderson has written an unorthodox look at slavery and the American Revolution that everyone and their cousin who reads it has said is amazing and unique and like nothing else. In other words, this ain't your mama's patriotic history. (See Lelia's review for more.)

Leavitt's book is a fantasy/romance novel described by Booklist as: “The romance is intense, the writing is startling, and the story is spellbinding--and it's as difficult to turn away from as the tales beautiful Keturah tells to the people of her village. ...This novel gets so many things just right. The plotting moves in and out of the everyday and the supernatural, but it's so finely tuned that the worlds seem one.

McCormick's novel, Sold, is about a young Nepalese girl sold by accident into sexual slavery. Here's from Horn Book: McCormick's searing novel, told in a series of poetic vignettes, gives voice to a child forced into prostituion in India. Lakshmi, a thirteen-year-old girl from a poor mountian village in Nepal, thinks she is being hired as a maid when her stepfather "trades" her to a woman for 800 rupees. Thus begins a journey to the city during which Lakshmi's naivete becomes heartbreakingly obvious."

Nancy Werlin's title is about a teenage boy who is desperate to save himself and his sisters from their violent mother. The family is in turmoil and it is only his mother's ex-boyfriend who can save them. Ultimately though the teen is the one who must take action - he is the one who must do what it takes to break free from his mother.

And finally, American Born Chinese is a graphic novel (wow!) about a Chinese American boy, a monkey king and the ultimate negative Chinese stereotype. From the publisher: "These three apparently unrelated tales come together with an unexpected twist, in a modern fable that is hilarious, poignant, and action-packed. American Born Chinese is an amazing ride, all the way up to the astonishing climax.."

So here's the thing, I don't see how there is any way that anyone could judge these five books against each other. There is not only no common ground here (except maybe audience age and even that is touchy with the graphic novel and Anderson's book), but they are all as polar opposite as you can imagine. Sexual slavery and romance? Historical fiction and teen violence? And a graphic novel combining fable and ethnic identity? What on earth do you do when you read these titles and try to figure out an award winner? How could you possibly do it?

And just in case some of you thinking that the award should go to the most significant title - to Sold perhaps because the topic is so important or to Octavian because the story is both significant and originally told, well you folks need to read my review of last year's winner, the very delightful and pleasant family story, The Penderwicks. There could not be a more innocuous or all around summer day sort of reading material book than that one. A ton of people compared it to the works of Elizabeth Enright (including me) and none of us were off the mark. It's a sweet story - a very sweet and well written and easy to read story.

And Walter Dean Myers's kick ass, originally written and illustrated, very socially significant title Autobiography of My Dead Brother, lost to it. (And yeah, I'm still annoyed.)

Jenny Diski wrote a very prescient entry on her site the other day about how book awards, in her opinion, are just wrong and after seeing these nominees I have to agree. It's not that any of them are not deserving of an award, it's just that there is no way to fairly judge them - no way to do this in anything but a most subjective and almost silly manner. Consider Jenny's take on the Bookers:

If one book is a winner, the other five are, by definition, losers. Don't ask what the books that never made it to the short list are. What a great idea. Writers made or broken by a prize-giving committee. Books in knockout competition with each other. Books that are chosen by a committee who must settle in the end for the book that everyone least disagrees about. Writers sit with their publicists at a televised dinner and wait until coffee to be told which of them has won, and, of course, which of them have lost. Isn't this a great way to respect and get the best literature?

Sometimes, you just can't pick the best thing - you can't narrow down a field of thousands to five and then one. Sometimes you have to accept that the categories are too broad and the possibilities too numerous. You have to back away from the need to select just one.

I mean what will it mean if romance is victorious over sexual slavery or lunchroom antics beat out a slave's self actualization? Will it come down to one person wrote drama better than another wrote adventure? Will it be that pictures can't win but can be nominated and that since last year was light this year must be heavy? I think, the more I think about it, that the whole thing is a bit crazy. We want to win always, don't we? We want to win.

But in this particular field, I'm sorry, I just don't see it. I don't see how on earth anyone could select a pure winner (over all others) out of this. I'm with Jenny Diski, who tried to keep out of the mess, but found herself dragged in against her will:

I always refused to let my books be submitted for prizes. I don't want to be in competition with other writers. I don't want to write with winner or loser hanging over my head. I don't want my publishers to feel that they don't have to make any further effort to get my book into bookshops. I don't want to be part of a race. I want to write books. I'd like people to read them, but not at any cost. Not at the cost of public humiliation - which is how I feel about both losing and winning. A few years ago it was made clear to me that if I wanted to go on being published I had to let them enter my books for prizes. It has become that important.

What a shame, and what a shame that four of these nominated books will somehow, for certain, be labeled losers next month.