Paul Mosier, our 2020 Judy Goddard Award winner, is working on a yet-to-be published book, Carnival Girl, for middle-grade readers.  Following is an excerpt from the first page: “When you find me, I will be at Big Sky Carnival. Big Sky is where I have been living and working, traveling from town to town, ever since we were separated.  I know that you will recognize me, Mama, though I have grown much over the past two years. I may be taller, and it is true that I have been coloring my hair yellow so LaMigra will not take notice of me, but I am still your mija.”

His previous book, Summer and July, (2020)  is described by Publishers’ Weekly as follows: “Capturing the urgency and intensity of middle-school friendships, what he (Mosier) gets right is important: the thin, confusing line between best buddy and queer crush, the simultaneous need for independence and parental presence, and the ways that adolescent identity is a dance between frustration and buoyancy that can real itself in friendship.”

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Dusti Bowling, co-recipient of the 2020 Judy Goddard Award, is the author of  three titles published in 2021. Across the Desert is a rescue story of a girl who sets out across the Arizona desert to rescue a young pilot stranded after a plane crash.

Aven Green, Sleuthing Machine and Aven Green, Baking Machine is a two-book series about a third-grader who solves mysteries and bakes cakes and cookies, despite being born without arms.