As the year draws to a close, I am honored by the many accolades and “Best of” lists my latest YA narrative nonfiction book RISING FROM THE ASHES: LOS ANGELES, 1992. EDWARD JAE SONG LEE, LATASHA HARLINS, RODNEY KING, AND A CITY ON FIRE (Norton Young Readers/W.W. Norton & Co., 2024) has received.
My book is a finalist for the 2025 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award. It’s a privilege to be included amongst such esteemed fellow nominees: “A Greater Goal: The Epic Battle for Equal Pay in Women’s Soccer—and Beyond,” by Elizabeth Rusch (Greenwillow Books), “Homebody” by Theo Parish (HarperAlley), “Shackled: A Tale of Wronged Kids, Rogue Judges, and a Town that Looked Away” by Candy J Cooper (Calkins Creek), and “The Unboxing of a Black Girl” by Angela Shanté (Page Street Publishing). The winner will be announced January 27, 2025. For more information on the finalists: https://www.ala.org/news/2024/12/yalsa-announces-2025-excellence-nonfiction-young-adults-award-finalists
Please join Yoo and finalists Rusch, Cooper, Parish and Shanté for a special virtual “YALSA Nonfiction Award Finalists Panel in Conversation with School Library Journal (SLJ)” at 2 PM ET/11 AM PT. You can register for free here: https://www.slj.com/event/yalsa-nonfiction-award-finalists-in-conversation-with-slj
RISING FROM THE ASHES has also been selected so far as a “Best Books of 2024” by Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Horn Book, School Library Journal, Chicago Public Library, Center for the Study of Multicultural Children’s Literature and as a “Blue Ribbon” book by the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books.
For state reading lists, RISING FROM THE ASHES has been selected as one of the “Best New Books for Missouri Students, 2024, High School” by the Reading Circle Committee of the Missouri State Teachers Association (MSTA).
It has also received five starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Horn Book, School Library Journal, and the Bulletin for the Center of Children’s Books, and is a 2024 Junior Library Guild Gold Standard.
You can also read an essay I wrote, “My Own Sa I Gu,” for the November/December 2024 issue of Horn Book Magazine here: https://www.hbook.com/story/the-writers-page-my-own-sa-i-gu
Much gratitude to my literary agent Tricia Lawrence (Erin Murphy Literary Agency), to my editor Simon Boughton, Kristin Allard and everyone at Norton Young Readers, and to Pulitzer photographer Hyungwon Kang and translator/interpreter Aerin Park.
It was an honor and privilege to interview the 100+ sources, including the families of Edward Jae Song Lee, Latasha Harlins, and Rodney King, who shared your stories of courage and resilience with me.