Bancroft Press in the MediA

Reappearance of Sam Webber Wins One of Publishing's Most Prestigious Awards

(BALTIMORE --April 1, 2000) A quiet, little-noticed urban novel written by a first-time novelist and published by a small Baltimore firm has captured one of the most prestigious prizes in book publishing.

Jonathon Scott Fuqua's "The Reappearance of Sam Webber" (Bancroft 1999) has been honored with an ALEX Award as one of the ten best adult books for teenagers in 2000 -- as determined by YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association) and Booklist. Named after and underwritten by the late Margaret "Alex" Edwards, a young adult specialist at Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library, the ALEX goes each year to 10 books, marketed primarily to adults, whose well-written, readable nature "absolutely guarantee them to be enjoyable reading for teenagers" from the seventh through twelfth grades.

The awards are designed to keep alive Edwards' enduring belief that teens often prefer books written for adults. She herself often recommended adult books to teens so as to broaden their experience and their understanding of the world.

This year's ALEX awards will appear in the April 1, 2000 issue of the American Library Association's biweekly magazine Booklist, announced to the public April 11 (to coincide with National Library Week), and officially handed out to authors at the ALA Annual Meeting in Chicago July 9.

Fuqua's "Sam Webber," one of six novels to win an ALEX this year, stands alongside a National Book Award winner ("Plainsong," by Kent Haruf), and an Oprah Book Club selection ("River, Cross My Heart," by Breena Clark). Among the 10 ALEX winners for 2000, all but "Sam Webber" and one other title were published by large, well-established publishing houses.

Fifteen members of the review committee nominated 208 books for consideration this year. To make the list of ALEX finalists -- about 70 -- a book had to be seconded by the full committee.

The ALEX Awards are said to be influential, in part because librarians recommend winners so often that every library in the country makes sure it orders the books that win. In addition, many small library systems devote their entire Young Adult budgets to buying ALEX Award-winners.

The Award Committee said this of the book: "There's a strong sense of place in this ultimately warm, reassuring novel set in a poor, racially tense Baltimore neighborhood. Sam Webber doesn't like his new home, a smelly apartment light years away from the middle-class area where he spent his first 11 years. Since his father's disappearance, he's felt responsible for protecting his mother, but he's so sad and scared he can't even help himself: druggies and muggers patrol the streets; bullies hound him in school. His only friend is the school's black janitor, who turns out to need Sam as much as Sam needs him. Themes of racism, urban violence, depression, and family structure threaded through the story make the book effective for discussion as well as for independent reading."

Bancroft Press publisher Bruce Bortz says he's "heartened to have won such an important prize with the first Bancroft book ever recommended for an ALEX. I hope the experts are right when they say this award gives a book an additional two years to find its audience because this book clearly has not found its audience. Judging by amazon.com rankings, it's the ALEX Award winner least in demand thus far -- and by a great margin. It pleases me no end that the award had its birth in the Enoch Pratt, which I consider one of the country's best and most improving libraries. I also think that Alex Edwards would be delighted that such a fine Baltimore book -- Baltimore author, Baltimore publisher, Baltimore setting -- has been brought to the attention of readers everywhere."

The ALEX award is the latest, and probably most important, of the awards "Sam Webber" has picked up thus far. The other three are from:

• School Library Journal: One of the top five adult novels for young adults in 1999.

• The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE): One of the two best novels in print (and the most recently published) to deal with the timely issue of violence and youth.

• Booklist Editors' Choice '99: One of 14 novels selected, including fiction by Michael Crichton, Kent Haruf, Alice Hoffman, Stephen King, and Nicolas Sparks. "A warm, rich novel.

• New York Public Library: Included in the year 2000 version of its Books for the Teen Age. The list, in its seventy-first year of publication and publicly unveiled at a ceremony March 18, selects the best of the previous year's books for teenagers. "Sam Webber" was cited in the category of novels and short stories with one of the list's famous 42- character annotations ("A disappearing father, a new neighborhood").