Julian Ohioana Book Award for Fiction (2015) Valente’s endless invention and mythic

Valente’s endless invention and mythic range are breathtaking

The Thea Sisters are headed to Venice

he learned to create meaningful learning experiences despite the constraints of conventional schooling--initially for himself and then for his students--based on understanding each student's real interests and strengthening his or her intrinsic motivations

*And a talking bear

and how even the most innocent gestures contain a hairline crack of cruel intent

Julian Ohioana Book Award for Fiction (2015) Valente’s endless invention and mythicGore Vidal's fictional recreation of the Roman Empire teetering on the crux of Christianity and ruled by an emperor who was an inveterate dabbler in arcane hocus pocus, a prig, a bigot, and a dazzling and brilliant leader.