The American Library Association, including its divisions, offices, and round tables, recognize books and other media of distinction each year, covering a variety of age groups and subject areas. Below you will find a review of one of ALA's lauded books. To read about all of ALA's book and media awards and its notable books and media of distinction, visit our ALA Awards and Notable Books page.
Blind Faith
Ellen Wittlinger
Best Books for Young Adults Winner
Fifteen-year-old Elizabeth has always envied the bond that her distracted, artistic mother shared with Elizabeth’s grandmother, Bunny, and wonders, "How come I wasn’t part of this chain of mother-daughter best friends too?" Then Bunny dies, and Elizabeth feels even more shut out as her mother sinks into a consuming grief. Only visits to a nearby spiritualist church, where members claim to channel the dead, seem to cheer Liz’s mom, but the church brings increasing friction with Liz’s atheist dad. A fragile romance with Nathan, her new 16-year-old neighbor, helps Liz begin to talk about her complicated feelings. Once again, Wittlinger brings readers right into a teen’s roiling emotional life with sensitive, skillful descriptions, written in Liz’s voice, of how feelings register: Liz understands Nathan’s sadness in his "low-key, no-wattage, half smile" and her mother’s grief in the lost energy that leaks "like air from a knifed tire." Not all characters, including Liz’s mother, feel fully developed, but the precisely observed, palpable moments and provocative questions about faith make a memorable story. - Gillian Engberg