A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST Part historical fiction, part fable, and 100 percent adventure. Thirteen-year-old Mei reimagines the myths of Paul Bunyan as starring a Chinese heroine while she works in a Sierra Nevada logging camp in 1885. Aware of the racial tumult in the years after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Mei tries to remain blissfully focused on her job, her close friendship with the camp foreman's daughter,...
The 2021 National Book Award finalists were announced last week. This prestigious annual literary award includes five different categories—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature—with five finalists for each. Read on for the twenty-five books that made the cut.