Trapped will turn 1 year old on Feb. 1, and it is snowing here in Brooklyn, as if nature were throwing a surprise party for my wintry little book. If that were the case, here are some of the presents it would be unwrapping:
It has been nominated for a CBC Teen Choice Book Award. (Were one of a mind to, one could vote for it here. Now. I kid! Or do I?!)
It has also been nominated for the Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers list (a fantastic resource put out annually by YALSA, the YA division of the American Library Association). UPDATE: It made it! Hooray! Trapped is on the list, along with books by my close personal friends (they just don’t know it yet) Tim Tebow and 50 Cent, and a flock of amazing authors. Seriously, check it out. It’s a fantastic list.
StorySnoops recently named it to their “Best of 2011” list, where it is in good company, indeed.
It just got a great shout-out from Grafton, WI, where you better believe they know their snow, in “What Are They Reading for Fun?” in School Library Journal.
Yesterday it was named the top “Freezing Your Face Off” book by Teens at the Arlington Public Library!
And right before blowing out the candle at its party, my book would pause, a far-off look on its frozen face and maybe even a hint of a tear in its eye, remembering an incredible year:
Before the math got away from me (I’m more of a word person), I was attempting to calculate how many books had been sold this year—in tons! Let’s just say that the math would have been much easier (and lighter) after year one of my first book . . . .
The face that launched a thousand shipments
Trapped was reviewed in USA Today, on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and dozens of other super-cool places. Not to mention 122 customer reviews on Amazon, 132 on Barnes & Noble.com, and a whopping 1,507 ratings and 575 reviews on Goodreads. And though some of those made my book’s eyes water for less sentimental reasons, the response really mattered: Trapped started out as a little book, with a modest advance and expectations, and just snowballed (so to speak) based on reviews, word-of-mouth, and some truly bad weather.
It was an Indie Next List selection (hooray for indies!) and one of Barnes & Noble’s “Must-Reads for Teens” (hooray for you too, big guy), and made the Tayshas high school reading list in Texas, where the range is open and the librarians awesome.
Operation Snow Globe rolled on, with foreign rights sold in the UK, Australia, Germany, Italy, and Russia.
And finally, there are the scores of amazing comments, emails, and even a few actual letters from readers—and on that note, I’ll stop trying to quantify (and link!) this experience, because the quality of it has been absolutely overwhelming. Many young readers wrote to say that Trapped was their favorite book, or their first book report, or the first book they bought with their own money (no refunds!). If I look out the window and think that nature is throwing my book a party, it is only because it feels like the world has been astoundingly generous to me this year. Every one of those purchases, messages, and reviews feels like a gift (well, maybe not every review…), and it’s all still going, like a snowstorm that just won’t stop.
