Margaret A. Edwards winner

Woodson, Jacqueline.  If You Come Softly.  New York: Speak, 1998. 181 pages.
On their first day at Percy,  sophomores Miah and Ellie meet by literally bumping into each other.  Miah is the son of a famous filmmaker and a writer.  Ellie is the daughter of a doctor.  They come from two different worlds, one upper class and black, the other upper middle class and white.  While they are falling deeply in love they try to come to grips with the prejudices of both their worlds.
This book is a very quick read.  It grabs you in the beginning and holds on tightly to the reader until the end.  Written from the character's viewpoints in alternating chapters, I found myself falling in love with both Miah and Ellie.  While I saw the end coming, I was amazed at how powerfully it effected me.

What's next?

Next assignment is to read:

• one Teen Top Ten winner
• one VOYA perfect 10
• an Alex Award winner
• a MAE (Margaret Edwards) winner.

John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things is my selection for the Alex Award.  I have chosen Laurie Halse Anderson's Wintergirls for the Teen Top Ten winner,  Jacqueline Woodson's If You Come Softly is my MAE selection.  Francisco Storks  Marcelo in the Real World will be my read for VOYA perfect 10.

The assignment following this is to read a challenged book.  I am thinking about The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier.

After that I need to read two Margaret Edwards award winners and a realistic fiction book.  I would love to have recommendations for these.