Why I only feel sort of sorry for Lauren Myracle

So apparently I've been living under a rock for the past week, because I missed some pretty big news in books. If you have also been living under a rock and haven't heard about the National Book Award screw up, here it is in a nutshell: NBA finalists were announced last Wednesday and among the finalists for "Young Readers" was SHINE by Lauren Myracle. However, not two hours later another book was added, CHIME by Fanny Billingsley, and for the first time ever, there were six finalists.

BUT it was later revealed that there had been a miscommunication and SHINE was never meant to be on the list, but had been mixed up with CHIME. First NBA announced that all six titles would remain, then they said they would take SHINE off the list, then they had the gall to ask Lauren Myracle to withdraw her book from nomination to "preserve the integrity of the award."

You can read more details in Publisher's Weekly. Also Libba Bray had quite the blog post about the situation and then there's Lauren's own blog post, an honest and classy recounting of the emotional roller-coaster.

Okay, so that was a HUGE mistake. HUGE! It's difficult to imagine something like this happening, especially when the authors are called personally by the director of the National Book Foundation himself. You wouldn't think that mistakes like that would happen, coming from the top. But it happened and I can only imagine how difficult is has been for Lauren Myracle.

But do I feel sorry for her? Well...yes and no. On one hand, it's got to hurt to realize that you've been given one of the biggest awards in literature only by mistake. I mean talk about a slap in the face. "Your books SHINE is amazing. Oh wait...just kidding. We meant another book that rhymes with SHINE but isn't actually your book. We like that one better." And the whole thing was just handled...not very well, though honestly, once a mistake like that is made, I'm not sure there is a good way to handle the situation.

On the other hand? Holy Crows, you can't buy publicity this good! This debacle has brought Myracle and her book into the spotlight in a way that even the award itself couldn't do. I mean, I can't even name all the other NBA finalists from memory. Can you? And will I be buying SHINE? You bet! And probably before I even take a look at CHIME to see if it will interest me. (Maybe we should be feeling a little sorry for Franny Billingsley?)

So while I hope that NBA puts more checks and balances on their process in the future, I wouldn't mind a mistake in my case. Maybe the Newbery committee will be nominate a book called DUMP or SLUMP or BUMP or FRUMP. Then maybe I'll get an accidental phone call of my own.