Thursday, September 19
6 – 7 pm
Monteabaro Recital Hall, Howard Community College
For teens and adults.
Registration and information.
National Book Award for Young People’s Literature winner Elizabeth Acevedo is the guest author for the 2024 Bauder Lecture, which is a free event. Acevedo is The New York Times-bestselling author of The Poet X, which also won the Michael L. Printz Award, the Pura Belpré Award, the Carnegie Medal, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and the Walter Award.
Clap When You Land, a novel-in-verse, brims with grief and love, as Acevedo writes about the devastation of loss, the difficulty of forgiveness, and the bittersweet bonds that shape our lives. It was selected as the Howard County Book Connection title, in partnership with Howard Community College, Howard County Poetry and Literature Society, and Howard County Library System.
From Publisher’s Weekly:
At nearly 17, Camino Rios lives in the Dominican Republic with her aunt, where she dreams of attending medical school at Columbia University, near her father, whom she only sees for a few months each year. Skilled chess player Yahaira Rios, 16, lives with her Dominican parents in New York City, next door to her girlfriend, Dre. When Yahaira’s father leaves for his annual summer trip to the D.R., the plane crashes, leaving no survivors and upending the lives of Yahaira and his other daughter, Camino. In the months following the crash, the girls, previously unknown to each other, discover their sisterhood—and their father’s double life—and must come to terms with difficult truths about their parents. Returning to verse, Acevedo subtly, skillfully uses language and rhythm to give voice to the sisters’ grief, anger, and uncertainty; Camino’s introspective openness; and Yahaira’s tendency toward order and leadership. Raw and emotional, Acevedo’s exploration of loss packs an effective double punch, unraveling the aftermath of losing a parent alongside the realities of familial inheritance.
The Bauder Lecture by Howard Community College is made possible by a generous grant from Dr. Lillian Bauder, a community leader and Columbia resident.
Also by the author:
With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
From The Poet X author, Elizabeth Acevedo presents a story about 17-year-old Emoni Santiago, Puerto Rican-raised in Philly. She’s a high school senior figuring out her next move in life. In ninth grade she got pregnant and had her daughter Emma and together she and her baby’s father are figuring out what it means to co-parent with the support of his parents and her Abuela with whom she lives.
Emoni loves to cook and wants to be a chef in her own restaurant someday. When she gets involved in a culinary arts class whose end-of-year field trip is an apprenticeship trip to Spain will she dazzle or disappoint? And when things heat up between her and her classmate Malachi, will she allow herself to find love that is real? With family drama, romance and the value of friendship, Acevedo presents a book you will find savoring to the very last bite.
Reviewed by Carmen J.
Carmen J. is a teen instructor at HCLS East Columbia Branch. Among her favorite things are great books, all things 80s, shamelessly watching The Bachelor, gardening, and drinking anything that tastes like coffee.
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