NEWS: WA young adult novel makes American readers list

The North American version of In Ecstasy by Kate McCaffrey was nominated for the 2010 American YALSA Quick Picks list for YA Reluctant Readers.

The Quick Pick’s list is nominated by committee members from the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) and is presented annually at the American Library Association’s Midwinter meeting.

Books nominated for the list are considered to be those that teens, aged 12-18, will want to read for pleasure despite being reluctant readers in general.

Colleen MacMillan Associate Publisher at Annick Press stressed that though it was only a nomination it was still good news.

“It means someone on the committee is championing the book,” said MacMillan.

In Ecstasy was published in North America by Annick Press earlier this year. It charts the lives of two best friends who both try ecstasy with very different results.

The book has been very successful in Australia with a reprint on the way. It won this year’s Australian Family Therapists’ Award for Children’s Literature in the Older Readers Category.

McCaffrey’s earlier novel Destroying Avalon was published by Animus Publishing in Hungary in April 2009 and by Darun Publisher Pty Ltd in South Korea in September 2008.

McCaffrey is currently working on a third YA novel titled Beautiful Monster to be published by Fremantle Press in the first half of 2010. She will be a guest of the Singapore Writers Festival on 24-26 October 2009.