Born to Fly is one of 10 middle grade books recently nominated for Connecticut’s state book award,the Nutmeg Award

It was also selected for the Illinois Rebecca Caudill Young Reader’s Book Award shortlist for 2013.

I was excited to learn that BORN TO FLY has been nominated for the 2012 Grand Canyon Reader Award in the Intermediate Fiction category.

The Grand Canyon Reader Award  is a reader award program for students in Arizona. Students vote annually on their favorite book in the following categories: Picture, Non-Fiction, Intermediate, Tween and Teen.  One of my favorite writers, Gordon Korman was a double category winner in 2010 so I feel quite humbled to be nominated.

A big thank you to all the Arizona students who read and nominated the book.

Here is a list of the wonderful books nominated in my category:

11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass (2009)

Born To Fly by Michael Ferrari (2009)

Closed For the Season by Mary Downing Hahn (2009)

Dying To Meet You by Kate Klise (2009)

Extra Credit by Andrew Clements (2009)

Neil Armstrong Is My Uncle: and Other Lies Muscle Man McGinty Told Me by Nan Marino (2009)

A Nest For Celeste: A Story about Art, Inspiration, And The Meaning of Home by Henry Cole (2010)

The Night Fairy by Laura Amy Schlitz (2010)

The Secret of Zoom by Lynne Jonell (2009)

Star in the Forest by Laura Resau (2010)

Thanks to the Middle Grade Ninja, Robert Kent for featuring Born to Fly as his book of the week.

Robert runs a great site that focuses on middle-grade books, with lots of reviews and tips on writing.

The thing I like about Robert’s reviews is that he always digs up good examples from the books to reinforce his points. He’ll highlight a line of dialogue or a piece of action and then explain why he thinks it works. He really does his homework. Check it out.