by Category
by Year
1988
AML Award:
Novel
Presented to:
Ann Edwards Cannon
For:
Cal Cameron by Day, Spider-Man by Night
Although aimed at an adolescent market and thus simple in style and resonant with the idiom of the young, this Delacorte Award-winning first novel’s insight and depth, its acute rendition of and wise commentary on the conflicts of the young, make it a novel for adults as well. In the author’s skillful hands the ordinary becomes extraordinary. She has created a protagonist of high school age in whom an emerging tolerance and decency triumph over the clannish values of his peers; who learns to understand the sometimes not-so-understanding adults around him and to affirm the outcasts from his own age group; who learns, most notably, to discount the fear of eccentricity. "So we do all sorts of things to show how superior we are," Cal Cameron recognizes; "We treat [the eccentric] like they’re not even real -- ignore them, laugh at them, trick them into singing private songs." And Cal moves in an authentic contemporary social context: young and old, the personalities with whom he interacts are alive and credible. With quiet eloquence and unflagging perspicacity, the author has revealed, explained and judged attitudes and motives. Although none of her characters are expressly Latter-day Saints, they exist in the familiar setting of Provo, Utah and may easily be construed as Mormons who display, not the peculiarities of their faith, but the traits of a universal humanity.