Unsung Book Week: Two fabulous unsung authors

Oct. 11th, 2008 at 9:26 AM

As explained here, I've made this week is Unsung Book Week at my blog. Feel free to join in and share your favorite less-talked-about books, either in the comments or at your own blog.

To finish up this week, I'm giving a shout-out to two great Canadian YA authors whose work I loved growing up, but who don't seem to be much known across the border (many of their books are hard to find new even up here these days--I've included links where I could find them--but if you can search 'em out, I highly recommend it):

Monica Hughes

Monica Hughes writes fantasy and science fiction novels for teens; she does an amazing job of combining the fantastic with gritty truth. I most enjoy DEVIL ON MY BACK, set in a future where everyone lives in enormous domes to protect them from the pollution that's devastated the outside world--and one boy accidentally discovers that the outer world is not still as devastated as the leaders would like people to think; KEEPER OF THE ISIS LIGHT, about a girl who's grown up on an alien planet with various physical adaptations to help her adjust--adaptations she doesn't realize the extent of until new colonists arrive from Earth and see her as just as alien as the planet; and SANDWRITER, a vivid fantasy in which a spoiled noble girl visits a desert country, and learns it is not so backward--or so easily dismissed--as she expected.

Welwyn Wilton Katz

Welwyn Wilton Katz writes fantasy and supernatural novels; I love how she plays with mythology and tropes. My faves of hers are SUN GOD, MOON WITCH, in which two teens get caught up in a struggle over a circle of standing stones, and it's not exactly clear whether light or dark is on the right side; and WITCHERY HILL, a chilling story about a girl who discovers her step-mother is most literally a witch, and her visiting cousin who must risk both their lives to save her from a cursed book of magic. (And she has an Arthurian story, THE THIRD MAGIC, for those who are King Arthur fans.)

It's been fun sharing some of my little-known favorites with you! I hope you all discover at least one new book to love. :)

Mood: happy

Comments

( 6 comments — Leave a comment )

habiliments wrote:

Oct. 11th, 2008 05:13 pm (UTC)

I loved Keeper of the Isis Light when I was young. I bought a paperback copy of it a few years ago but still haven't re-read it ... I'm a little scared that it might not hold up. Some books, I think, I just have to keep my memories of, even if they're a little off. There's another one like that that I read in middle school that I keep remembering but am afraid to look for.

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megancrewe wrote:

Oct. 13th, 2008 11:47 pm (UTC)

I re-read KotIS recently and it held up quite well. I think I enjoyed some things more than I did as a teen, actually (because as a teen, I perceived the situation as being terribly unfair, which bothered me, while now I can see that despite being unfair, it was understandable).

But yeah, I've had some books I loved as a kid or teen that didn't hold up when I re-read them, and that's always sad.

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