I Made the List … The Rainbow List!
(No this is not related to a book I wrote a few years back.)

I am honored to announce that DRAMA! Entrances and Exits was included on the 2009 American Library Association Rainbow List “Featuring well-written and/or well-illustrated titles with authentic and significant GLBTQ content for youth from birth through age 18.”

You can check it out here or here.

This is only the second list that has been released by the ALA Rainbow Project, but it already puts me in the company of great writers like David Levithan, Rachel Cohn, Alex Sanchez, and Ellen Wittlinger. Wouldn’t they make for an awesome dinner party?

Speaking of talented writers that I HAVE dined with … I’d like to kneel and bow to my pal Nancy Holder who made the New York Times Children’s Bestseller List this week (along with her coauthor, Debbie Viguie), for the first book in their Wicked series (actually it’s the first two books, combined in one – loooong story). Congrats Nancy!!

To celebrate these great writerly honors, I think it’s time for another totally biased review!

GoldenGirl (a Bradford novel) by Micol Ostow

First, the deets: This book was written by another person I am proud to call friend. The concept was created and packaged by Flirty Girl Productions, which is co-run by another friend. And the book was distributed by Simon Pulse, which is staffed by a bunch of friends and—technically speaking—bosses since they published DRAMA! So, as I said above, this review is totally biased. But I wouldn’t be posting it if it weren’t true. You all know I haven’t been that big with the blogging lately. So for me to actually get off my butt and sit down and type (wait a minute) you know it HAS to be all kinds of worth mentioning.

GoldenGirl is so, so, very.

Set in Philadelphia’s Main Line, the Bradford books follow the lives of the rich and fabulous students of Bradford Prep in all their ultra-finery. Reading this book made me the teensiest bit homesick. Not that I ever lived anywhere near the Main Line. Or knew any of these kinds of people growing up. But still, anything Philly-centric is a must for me.

Micol captures fashion-forward, pop-cultural, trend speak perfectly in this book. Told through a series of public, personal, and way private blog entries, the narrator, Spencer, has an intensely intense voice that drew me into the story and carried me all the way through to the secret-revealing end. She is one of those girls who you still manage to root for, even when she’s doing questionable things. GoldenGirl is the first in a series that promises scandalous new revelations with every future book.

BONUS: You get to live vicariously in the world by checking in with the series online. And sometimes isn’t it easier to live vicariously through someone else then deal with all of your own drama?

BONUS PLUS: One of my favorite movies of all time–that I think I’ve mentioned here before–was also set in Philadelphia’s Main Line: The Philadelphia Story starring Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and Jimmy Stewart.

As if you didn’t know.