Girl Athletes: The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z by Kate Messner

As you may know, Kate Messner's The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z won the EB White Read Aloud Award this past week at BEA.  So of course, I must profile Gianna Z this week as one of my girl athletes!  Gianna Z is a middle grade novel - great for grades 5-8 and beyond.

I had the pleasure of meeting Kate at the New England SCBWI last week, and she is a lovely and talented person.  I'm thrilled her wonderful book has been honored.  Ok, I'll stop gushing. :)

 Summary from Kate Messner's website.

Gianna Zales is a star runner with one more hurdle to jump before she goes to cross-country sectionals – a monster leaf collection project. To get it done, she’ll have to survive a rival who desperately wants to take her place at sectionals, a grandmother who leaves her false teeth in the refrigerator, and a best friend whose feelings about her are changing like the leaves. Gianna Z needs a stroke of brilliance to make it work!

The book isn't necessarily about Gianna being a track star, it's about her relationships with her friends and family and coming to terms with her grandmother's health, but she is a track star.  It's part of her -- and that's what I like about this book.  It's not an unusual thing for Gianna to run - it's just what she does.

I'm anxiously awaiting Kate's next book - Sugar and Ice.  Visit Kate's website for more information.

Congrats to Kate Messner - winner of the EB White Read Aloud Award

I'm so excited that Kate won the EB White Read Aloud Award last night.

I wanted to pass along a link to her thank you letter to the Association of Booksellers for Children:

Thank you: An Open Letter to the Association of Booksellers for Children

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Finishing

Finishing my work-in-progress.  Finishing.

Finishing is relative, really, because it's never finished.  There can always be more revising, more tweaking, another line of dialogue, another description. 

But, it feels finished.  I typed a line on Monday - I didn't expect it to be the last line - and it just felt...right. That's the end, I said.

I've got the manuscript out to a few "fresh" eyes right now.  I hope to have it ready to query in two weeks (always good to have a goal, right?)

So, how do you know it's finished? 

Google Alerts

Who loves Google Alerts?  Not that I'm getting hits everyday...

But this afternoon, I found out that the Grand Forks Public Library just acquired Taurus, Virgo & Capricorn: All About the Earth Signs. How cool is that?!?

I'm not even sure where Grand Forks is...Michigan?

Update: Correction, North Dakota. ;)