Thursday, July 9, 2020

#tbt: The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z by Kate Messner

Image: Bloomsbury
The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z by Kate Messner. 224 p. Bloomsbury USA, September, 2009. 9780802721730. (Own.)

#tbt features The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z by Kate Messner. Gianna Zales is an excellent cross country runner. She lives for it. Unfortunately, she's also an excellent procrastinator. She has to collect twenty different leaves for a science project in less than two weeks or she's off the team. Of course, her best friend, Zig, did his early and has been gently reminding Gee. to start her project. Gee. has other worries too. Her beloved grandmother is becoming more and more forgetful, sometimes dangerously so. And, what could be worse that your dad driving you to school in his hearse?

The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z was Ms. Messner's debut novel. It won the 2010 E.B. White Read Aloud Award for older readers; was a Bank Street Best Book for 2009 and was named to quite a few State Award Lists. She was a seventh grade language arts teacher at the time. I reviewed it on my less-than-a-year-old blog, here. Her second book, Sugar and Ice was released a year later and that book was my first review assignment for School Library Journal!

Ms. Messner has written over 50 books since 2009 - from picture books to novels to works of nonfiction. You might recall a Fact Friday post for a book called Tracking Pythons. That was a fascinating informational book written by her.

Since then, Ms. Messner has written fifty books from picture books to easy readers to early chapter books to nonfiction to professional titles. You can follow her on Twitter, @KateMessner, and check out her website, where she also blogs regularly.

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