Box Office Boffo: Ready Player One
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It’s true: all the best movies come from good books.

Writers know what they are doing: they create conflict and plot and characters that readers love, and then Hollywood options the work and reaps the reward.

Another reaper-of-rewards is author and Ohio native Ernest Cline. Born in Ashland, Ohio (home to a really cool hot air balloon festival every summer!) and former resident of Columbus, Mr. Cline now calls Austin, Texas, home. He owns a DeLorean which means he totally WINS and OWNS and even PWNS (if he wants to) American popular culture from the 1980s.

Cline used to work at CompuServe, which was founded in Columbus in 1969. It was a ground-breaking tech communications company, and the perfect place to work if you loved tech and info and the infinite possibilities they presented. This speculative way of looking at the world found its way into Cline’s first book, Ready Player One, which was published in 2011. Columbus is there too, as the city of escape for protagonist Wade Watts.

A lover of all things tech, geek, nerd, and 1980s, Cline was especially thrilled to work with the great filmmaker Stephen Spielberg, the force behind so many of our cultural touchstones.

Ernie also tweets now and then and can be found on Twitter as @erniecline.

 

 

 

2018 is the Year of Jacqueline Woodson!
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Jacqueline Woodson

 

Our own Jacqueline Woodson has received honors and awards for her insightful work for many years. Ms. Woodson has over 5 million copies of her books in print, four Newberry Honors, and she is the winner of the National Book Award for Brown Girl Dreaming.

And she owns all of 2018!

In January, Ms. Woodson was named the sixth National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, for 2018–2019. Her appointment was official at an inauguration ceremony on Tuesday, January 9 at the Library of Congress, presided over by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden.

The National Ambassador for Young People program is sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, the Children’s Book Council, and CBC’s charitable arm, Every Child a Reader. The Librarian of Congress selects the Ambassador based on the recommendations of an independent committee comprised of various children’s literature experts including educators, librarians, and booksellers. Among the criteria for the Ambassador post are: contributions to young people’s literature, the ability to relate to kids and teens, and dedication to fostering literacy in all forms.

Woodson has chosen the phrase “Reading = Hope x Change,” as her platform as Ambassador. “I definitely believe that reading can change us and shape us in so many ways, and through it we can be exposed to people and places and ideas that we might not otherwise come across or confront in real life,” she said. “A platform about the importance of reading and having conversations across the lines of books is really important to me.”

Check out this super-great illustrated press release from her publisher, Nancy Paulson of Nancy Paulson Books, an imprint of Penguin.

Jacqueline Woodson was born in Ohio, so we are pleased and proud to be able to claim her as our own!

 

Ohioana Announces 2018 Book Award Finalists
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The Ohioana Library is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2018 Ohioana Book Awards. First given in 1942, the awards are the second oldest state literary prizes in the nation and honor outstanding works by Ohio authors in five categories:

Fiction

  • Ford, Jeffrey. A Natural History of Hell: Stories, Small Beer Press.
  • Lang, Ruth Emmie. Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance, St. Martin’s Press.
  • Ng, Celeste. Little Fires Everywhere, Penguin Press.
  • Olmstead, Robert. Savage Country, Algonquin Books.
  • Umrigar, Thrity. Everybody’s Son, Harper.

Nonfiction

  • Bahney, Jennifer Bowers. Betrayer’s Waltz, McFarland.
  • Batchelor, Bob. Stan Lee: The Man Behind Marvel, Rowan & Littlefield Publishers.
  • Logsdon, Gene. Letter to a Young Farmer, Chelsea Green Publishing.
  • Ricca, Brad. Mrs. Sherlock Holmes, St. Martin’s Press.
  • Stillman, Deanne. Blood Brothers, Simon & Schuster.

About Ohio or an Ohioan

  • Alexander, Brian. Glass House, Picador.
  • Blunk, Jonathan. James Wright: A Life in Poetry, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
  • Chernow, Ron. Grant, Penguin Press.
  • Merry, Robert W. President McKinley: Architect of the American Century, Simon & Schuster.
  • Reston, James Jr. A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial, Arcade Publishing.

Poetry

  • Awad, Ruth. Set to Music a Wildfire, University of Southern Indiana Press.
  • Fagan, Kathy. Sycamore, Milkweed Editions.
  • Nordgren, Sarah Rose. Darwin’s Mother, University of Pittsburgh Press.
  • Pitinii Davis, Allison. Line Study of a Motel Clerk, Baobab Press.
  • Smith, Maggie. Good Bones, Tupelo Press.

Juvenile Literature

  • Carson, Mary Kay. Photos by Tom Uhlman. Mission to Pluto: The First Visit to an Ice Dwarf and the Kuiper Belt, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
  • Derby, Sally. Illus. by Mika Song. A New School Year: Stories in Six Voices, Charlesbridge.
  • Daywalt, Drew. Illus. by Adam Rex. The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors, HarperCollins/Balzer and Bray
  • Dougherty, Shawn. Illus. by Leah Busch. Wake, Blue Manatee Press.
  • Rylant, Cynthia. lllus. by Brenden Wenzel. Life, Beach Lane Books.

Middle Grade/Young Adult Literature

  • Bundy, Tamara. Walking with Miss Millie, Nancy Paulsen Books.
  • McCahan, Erin. The Lake Effect, Dial Books for Young Readers.
  • Rogerson, Margaret. An Enchantment of Ravens, Margaret K. McElderry Books.
  • Rubini, Julie K. Virginia Hamilton: America’s Storyteller, Ohio University Press
  • Springstubb, Tricia. Illus. by Eliza Wheeler. Cody and the Rules of Life, Candlewick Press.

 

Ohioana will profile all the finalists in the coming weeks. Beginning Monday, May 21, we will present “30 Books, 30 Days,” a special feature on our Facebook page in which one finalist is highlighted each weekday through Friday, June 29.

Winners will be announced in July, and the 2018 Ohioana Book Awards will be presented at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus on Thursday, October 18.