The 2009 Pearson Prize Teen Choice Award winners have been announced and Misfit McCabe by LK Gardner-Griffie grabbed runner-up honors. Published in 2008, Misfit McCabe is written for teen readers, a market that can be notoriously difficult to reach. The Pearson Prize attempts to make reading exciting to teens by involving them in selecting a winner and two runner-up prizes for the contest.

Author LK Gardner-Griffie specializes in teen literature. Misfit McCabe is the story of 14 year old Katie McCabe. The story follows her journeys through a difficult year where she deals with the illness of her father and going to live with her Uncle Charley. Any teen is sure to recognize her struggles with a new town, new friends, and new foes.

The Pearson Prize Teen Choice Award started in 2008 as a way to engage Montreal teenagers in reading books. The brain child of Michael Earnest Sweet, the prize also serves as a way to bring in books for teens to read on a limited budget. Authors donate books as their entrance fee to the contest, the teens get books to read, and the authors get recognition. All of the books are independently published.

LK Gardner-Griffie says of the award, “There can be no greater satisfaction for a writer than to have their work read and enjoyed. Now all I have to do is get Nowhere Feels Like Home ready to enter next year’s contest!” For more information on Misfit McCabe and LK Gardner-Griffie, visit www.griffieworld.com. For more information about the Pearson Prize, visit www.pearsonprize.org.

Author and Contact: LK Gardner-Griffie
Email: lkgardner-griffie@griffieworld.com

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After learning what the project was, and finding out some information about the Pearson Prize Award contest, I was delighted to participate in the contest. The contest is one which is determined solely by the students, and what author can resist a captive audience of their target readership? Michael Sweet was looking for a way to encourage his students to read, but they were lacking in books, so he came up with the idea of having a contest where the authors send in their books as the entry fee. Two books per participant are required, because the books are shared among the students as they all read the books and write reviews for class credit. I actually had 3 copies of Misfit McCabe participating in the contest because one of the books from the Where in the World is Misfit McCabe? project was sent from a classroom in Durango, Colorado to a classroom in Montreal, QC.

I considered it an honor to have been invited to participate in the contest. Misfit McCabe’s target audience is slightly younger than high school students, so I wasn’t sure how it would fare with the high school readers, simply because it might be a little on the young side for them. Imagine my surprise when I received an email with the following message from Michael Sweet:

Congratulations. More than 20 teens choose your title as their number one selection from more
than 150 titles!

That Misfit McCabe should be a favorite for more than 20 students and to have been selected as one of the top 3 books out of more than 150 titles is beyond excellent.

Now I have to write my own press release and get some of those little gold seals so I can put them on my books.