The finalists for the 2008 National Book Award in Young People's Literature were announced today:

Laurie Halse Anderson, Chains (Simon & Schuster)
Kathi Appelt, The Underneath (Atheneum)
Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied (Scholastic)
E. Lockhart, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (Hyperion)
Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now (Alfred A. Knopf)

I can't wait to read Chains, which is set in Revolutionary New York. The powerful cover art is by Christopher Silas Neal.

Coincidentally, I just finished M.T. Anderson's The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. I: The Pox Party (Candlewick), set in Revolutionary Boston, which won this award in 2006. It is itself an astonishing book. Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves was released yesterday. What to read first?