LOVE IS THE HIGHER LAW: A GIVEAWAY

GIVEAWAY ENDED
LOVE IS THE HIGHER LAW

BY DAVID LEVITHAN

ABOUT THE BOOK:

First there is a Before, and then there is an After. . .

The lives of three teens—Claire, Jasper, and Peter—are altered forever on September 11, 2001. Claire, a high school junior, has to get to her younger brother in his classroom. Jasper, a college sophomore from Brooklyn, wakes to his parents’ frantic calls from Korea, wondering if he’s okay. Peter, a classmate of Claire’s, has to make his way back to school as everything happens around him.

Here are three teens whose intertwining lives are reshaped by this catastrophic event. As each gets to know the other, their moments become wound around each other’s in a way that leads to new understandings, new friendships, and new levels of awareness for the world around them and the people close by.

David Levithan has written a novel of loss and grief, but also one of hope and redemption as his characters slowly learn to move forward in their lives, despite being changed forever.

EXCERPT FROM LOVE IS THE HIGHER LAW:

Chapter One

Claire

My first thought is: My mother is dead.

When Mrs. Shields, the school secretary, shows up so gravely in the doorway and gestures for Mrs. Otis to come over to her, I am sure that my mother has died, that I am now going to have to pack up my books and go to Sammy's school and collect him and tell him that Mom is dead and I'm all he has now and somehow we'll get by. I am so sure that something is wrong, incredibly wrong, and I can't imagine what else it could be. I am already gathering my books as Mrs. Shields whispers to Mrs. Otis. I see Mrs. Otis nod, distressed, and then Mrs. Shields disappears back into the hall. I sit up straighter, waiting for Mrs. Otis to look at me, to say my name. But instead she looks at all of us and says, "Class, a plane has hit the World Trade Center."

Katie Johnson gasps. Other kids start talking.

I am blank.

And then Mrs. Otis asks, "Do any of you have parents working in the World Trade Center?"

We look around. No. But Teresa says that Jill Breslin, who's in one of the other senior English classes, has a father who works there. I think of our apartment, only ten blocks away from the towers. I know my mother isn't home. I know she left with me and Sammy this morning and continued uptown to her office. But suddenly I'm wondering: What if she forgot something? To finish reading this excerpt, visit the Random House website HERE.

Excerpted from Love Is the Higher Law by David Levithan. Copyright © 2009 by David Levithan. Excerpted by permission of Knopf Books for Young Readers, a division of Random House, Inc.

AWARDS FOR LOVE IS THE HIGHER LAW: 

WINNER 2009 Book Sense Children's Pick List 

WINNER 2010 ALA Rainbow Project Bibliography 

WINNER 2010 New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

David Levithan finds it downright baffling to write about himself, which is why he's considering it somewhat cruel and usual to have to write this brief bio.  The factual approach (born '72, Brown '94, book '03) seems a bit dry, while the emotional landscape (happy childhood, happy adolescence - give or take a few poems - and happy adulthood so far) sounds horribly well-adjusted.  The only addiction he's ever had was a brief spiral into the arms of diet Dr Pepper, unless you count My So-Called Life episodes as a drug.  He is evangelical in his musical beliefs and deathly afraid that his bio will end up sounding like the final paragraph in an on-line dating ad.
 
Luckily, David is much happier talking about his books than he is talking about himself.  Boy Meets Boy and The Realm of Possibility started as stories he wrote for his friends for Valentine's Day (something he's done for the past sixteen years) and turned themselves into teen novels. When not writing during spare hours on weekends, David is a senior editor at Scholastic, and the founding editor of the PUSH imprint, which is devoted to finding new voices and new authors in teen literature. He lives in Hoboken, NJ. To read more about author David Levithan, visit his bio on his website HERE.

"A story doesn't have to always reflect reality; it can create reality as well."--David Levithan
Photo © Beth Levithan

GIVEAWAY

I CHOSE TO HIGHLIGHT

LOVE IS THE HIGHER LAW  TODAY

BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WOULD 

BE A GOOD CHOICE FOR A GIVEAWAY

ON THIS SEPTEMBER 11

 
--U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES
---INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
IN CASE YOU WIN!
--ALL COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE TO 
COUNT AS MORE THAN ONE!

HOW TO ENTER:

+1 ENTRY: COMMENT ON WHAT YOU THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT YOU READ ABOVE ABOUT LOVE IS THE HIGHER LAW  THAT MADE YOU WANT TO WIN THIS BOOK, AND DON'T FORGET YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS

+1 MORE ENTRY: BLOG AND/OR TWEET ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND COME BACK HERE AND LEAVE ME YOUR LINK

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING ABOUT SEPTEMBER 11 THAT YOU HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT, OR PERHAPS REMEMBERING WHERE YOU WERE 10 YEARS AGO ON THAT FATEFUL DAY

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE OTHER CURRENT GIVEAWAY OF MINE THAT YOU HAVE ENTERED. IF YOU ENTERED MORE THAN ONE, YOU CAN COMMENT ON EACH FOR EXTRA ENTRIES AS LONG AS YOU ENTER EACH SEPARATELY

GIVEAWAY ENDS AT 
6 PM, EST, SEPTEMBER 27

 GOOD LUCK!