National Book Award long list for young people's literature has a poetic touch

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NEW YORK (AP) — This year's long list of National Book Awards for young people's literature has a poetic touch.

Five of the 10 nominees announced Tuesday by the National Book Foundation are novels written in verse, including Olivia A. Coles' “Ariel Crashing a Train” and Shifa Saltagi Safadi's “Kareem Between,” a young Muslim's coming-of-age story. The other novels in verse are Margarita Engle’s “Wild Dreamers,” Alicia D. Williams' “Mid-Air” and Angela Shanté's “The Unboxing of a Black Girl.”

Judges also selected two debut novels, Josh Galarza’s “The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky” and Ali Terese’s “Free Period,” along with Violet Duncan's “Buffalo Dreamer,” Randy Ribay's “Everything We Never Had” and Erin Entrada Kelly's “The First State of Being.”

Throughout the week, the foundation will be unveiling long lists in five competitive categories, including poetry, nonfiction and fiction. The lists will be narrowed to five on Oct. 1, and winners will be announced during a Nov. 20 dinner ceremony.

Ten nominees for books in translation also were announced Tuesday, their settings ranging from Scandinavia to the Middle East to Taiwan. Three books originated in Arabic: Nasser Abu Srour's “The Tale of a Wall,” translated by Luke Leafgren; Bothayna Al-Essa's “The Book Censor’s Library,” translated by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain; and Samar Yazbek's “Where the Wind Calls Home," translated by Leri Price.

Translation judges also cited three books in Spanish: Layla Martínez's “Woodworm,” translated by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott; Fernando Vallejo's “The Abyss," translated by Yvette Siegert; and Fernanda Trías' “Pink Slime,” translated by Heather Cleary.

The other translation nominees were Linnea Axelsson's “Ædnan,” translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel; Solvej Balle's “On the Calculation of Volume (Book I),” translated from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland; Fiston Mwanza Mujila's “The Villain’s Dance,” translated from the French by Roland Glasse; and Yáng Shuāng-zǐ's “Taiwan Travelogue,” translated from the Mandarin Chinese by Lin King.