Cheryl Davis's List: Split by Swati Avasthi, OSOB 2012

• 1) To honor domestic violence month by raising awareness about domestic violence:
  
  Check. Part of the purpose is to speak about it, so others can speak up. Another is to support survivors of domestic violence.
  
  Here are some of the great comments about domestic violence:
  
  “When I was a kid, there weren't such a things as child abuse, or abusive homes. Children and women were property. What happened in the home was private. 28Growing up in an abusive house wasn't easy. But you loved your parents because you don't know any better.” ~ Sharon K 28
  
  “There are so many more aspects to abuse that tear you apart beyond the abuse itself. The helplessness, the incredible guilt that comes with being unable to protect your siblings...even years later, when you're all grown up and the abuser is dead and gone, the old guilt still eats away at you and that blank card still stares you in the face.” ~ TreeFeathers
  
• Family Violence Prevention Fund.
  
• “Do you remember back at the hotel when you promised that if we lived, you’d get dressed up in a nurse’s outfit and give me a sponge bath?" asked Jace.
  "It was Simon who promised you the sponge bath."
  "As soon as I’m back on my feet, handsome," said Simon.
  "I knew we should have left you a rat.”

1 more annotation...

• As a judge for three years for the Minnesota Book Awards (twice  for YA books, once for the children's category), Avasthi saw other  perspectives of what makes a good book. "As a writer, most  of my focus is on the story," she noted. "But  librarians and booksellers understand really well what makes a person  come to a book. It was good to pick up some snippets of that in  the judging." She hopes to be a book award judge one more  time before she becomes ineligible because she's a recipient.

• I was surprised that Jace was so furious at Christian.  That is pretty far into the book, so I just went with it.  That was what led to the climax and of course, the resolution.  It's particularly funny because my writer's group asked me, when they read Chapter 2, how mad Jace was at Christian and I didn't really understand what they meant; I was so attached to Jace through the first draft, that if he was stuffing down his anger, then I was, too.

• Worst of all, Jace realizes that if he really wants to move forward, he may first have to do what scares him most: He may have to go back.

• Swati Avasthi, a Minnesota Book Award finalist for "Split";

• portrait of abuse are among the winners of the 2010 Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards (Cybils), an annual honor given to books that combine literary merit with kid appeal.
• Split (Knopf/Borzoi, 2010) by Swati Avasthi
  After Jace Witherspoon is kicked out by his abusive father, he seeks refuge in Albuquerque with his older brother, whom he hasn't seen in six years. Their mother, also a victim of her husband's abuse, promises to leave him and join her children on Thanksgiving. Jace counts down the days while trying to start a new life and rebuild his relationship with Christian, but he's haunted by a terrible secret and the people he left behind.

• Christian is far from thrilled to see Jace—he has dealt with the past by distancing himself from it both literally and emotionally, and Jace is a reminder he can’t ignore. As the story unfolds, scenes from the past—awful things they both witnessed and endured—play out, as do the effects on their lives. For Jace, one of these is the anger he can sometimes barely control.

• shared experience can spark important conversations that might not happen otherwise.  Tune in to hear about eight new novels that all focus in some way on teens and their complicated relationships with family members, peers, and the larger world.