Battle Commander

So there you are, our 2013 judges. Awesome, right?  And below are the updated brackets with just what they are judging revealed. What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

Tomorrow the Undead Poll opens so start preparing to lobby, tweet, and otherwise get the vote out for your favorites!

Then we’ve got a treat in store for you — a series of posts featuring our contenders arguing passionately as to why any one of them should be this year’s winner courtesy of the Battle Commander’s Book Blogger Club for 5th to 8th grade students.

James Patterson’s bestselling books for young readers, such as the Middle School books, Confessions of a Murder Suspect and the Maximum Ride and Witch & Wizard series, are aimed at giving kids exciting books that make reading fun. His passion to get kids to love books led him to found the #1 pro-reading not-for-profit website on the internet, ReadKiddoRead.com. From his large-scale school book donations to his various scholarships, Patterson has launched a full-scale movement to infect America’s kids with the joy of reading.

          (photo credit:  Deborah Feingold)

Kenneth Oppel is the Printz-Honor winning author of Airborn, Silverwing, This Dark Endeavor, and numerous other books for children and young adults. His novel Half Brother was the first book to win both the Canadian Library Association’s Book of the Year for Children, as well as its Book of the Year for Young Adults. Oppel’s Silverwing trilogy, told entirely from the point of view of bats, has sold over a million copies worldwide. His latest book is Such Wicked Intent, Book II in the Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein. Kenneth Oppel lives in Toronto with his wife and three children.

                (photo credit:Jim Gillett)

Marie Lu is the author of the New York Times bestselling Legend trilogy. Before she became a full-time writer, she worked as an art director in the video game industry. She can usually be found writing, reading, drawing, yelling at other Mario Kart players, and getting stuck in traffic.

Thanhha Lai has written exactly one novel, Inside Out & Back Again, so to fill up this bio space she is retyping her name to include its diacritical marks: Thanhhà Lại.  Such a change has no meaning for English readers but it does thrill her mother because a Lại mustn’t ever be mistaken for a Lai.  These tiny pesky marks, not to be confused with accent marks, will be a main feature in Lại’s next novel, Listen, Slowly.  She just submitted the first draft after typing 80 pages in two weeks, so excuse her if this bio lacks focus.  Lại can often be heard muttering to herself, “la révision est toute.”