Sherri L. Smith Books In Order
Book links take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.Publication Order of Avatar Graphic Novels
Avatar: Tsu'tey's Path | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Avatar: The High Ground, Volume 1 | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Avatar: The High Ground, Volume 2 | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Avatar: The High Ground, Volume 3 | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Avatar Books
Avatar: The High Ground Library Edition | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
Lucy the Giant | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Sparrow | (2006) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet | (2008) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Flygirl | (2009) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Orleans | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Toymaker's Apprentice | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Pasadena | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Blossom and the Firefly | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Children's Books
My Little Golden Book About Misty Copeland | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Graphic Novels
Disney Villains: Ursula and the Seven Seas | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
American Wings: Chicago's Pioneering Black Aviators and the Race for Equality in the Sky | (2024) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of What Was...? Books
What Was the Hindenburg? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Battle of Gettysburg? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Gold Rush? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the March on Washington? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Boston Tea Party? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was Pearl Harbor? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Alamo? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Underground Railroad? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was Pompeii? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was Ellis Island? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is the Statue of Liberty? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is the Panama Canal? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Lewis and Clark Expedition? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was D-Day? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is the World Series? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was Hurricane Katrina? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Were the Salem Witch Trials? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is the Super Bowl? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Great Depression? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was Woodstock? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Are the Summer Olympics? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is the Declaration of Independence? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Were the Twin Towers? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Great Chicago Fire? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the San Francisco Earthquake? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Age of the Dinosaurs? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Wild West? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is Rock and Roll? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Ice Age? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Are the Ten Commandments? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is the World Cup? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Titanic? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Holocaust? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is Climate Change? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is the Constitution? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is the Women's Rights Movement? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Were the Roaring Twenties? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is the Stanley Cup? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was Stonewall? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is NASA? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Vietnam War? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Berlin Wall? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Were the Negro Leagues? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Are the Paralympic Games? | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Bombing of Hiroshima? | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is LEGO? | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is a Presidential Election? | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is the Civil Rights Movement? | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is Nintendo? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Age of Exploration? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is Congress? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is Black Lives Matter? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Are the Winter Olympics? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Plague? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Harlem Renaissance? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Are Castles and Knights? | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is Juneteenth? | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is the AIDS Crisis? | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is the Supreme Court? | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was Reconstruction? | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is the Women's World Cup? | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921? | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was World War I? | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Donner Party? | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Was the Children's Blizzard of 1888? | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
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Publication Order of Who Was/Is...? Books
Who Was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Annie Oakley? | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Ben Franklin? | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Albert Einstein? | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Sacagawea? | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Harry Houdini? | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Maria Tallchief? | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Amelia Earhart? | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Thomas Jefferson? | (2003) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Helen Keller? | (2003) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Eleanor Roosevelt? | (2004) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Mark Twain? | (2004) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Ferdinand Magellan? | (2004) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Ronald Reagan? | (2004) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Louis Armstrong? | (2004) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was John F. Kennedy? | (2004) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Charles Darwin? | (2005) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Johnny Appleseed? | (2005) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Leonardo da Vinci? | (2005) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Thomas Alva Edison? | (2005) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Were the Beatles? | (2006) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was King Tut? | (2006) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Daniel Boone? | (2006) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was William Shakespeare? | (2006) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Anne Frank? | (2007) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Marco Polo? | (2007) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Elvis Presley? | (2007) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Martin Luther King, Jr.? | (2007) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Abraham Lincoln? | (2008) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Neil Armstrong? | (2008) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Queen Elizabeth? | (2008) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Barack Obama? | (2009) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was George Washington? | (2009) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Pablo Picasso? | (2009) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Walt Disney? | (2009) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Claude Monet? | (2009) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Franklin Roosevelt? | (2009) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Jim Henson? | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Jackie Robinson? | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Rosa Parks? | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Dr. Seuss? | (2011) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Paul Revere? | (2011) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Steve Jobs? | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Babe Ruth? | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is J.K. Rowling? | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Roald Dahl? | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Maurice Sendak? | (2012) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Bill Gates? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Sally Ride? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Christopher Columbus? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Bob Dylan? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Michelle Obama? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Alexander Graham Bell? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Davy Crockett? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Laura Ingalls Wilder? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Frida Kahlo? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Ernest Shackleton? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Steven Spielberg? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Milton Hershey? | (2013) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Louis Braille? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Nelson Mandela? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Abigail Adams? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Dolly Parton? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Theodore Roosevelt? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Bruce Lee? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is George Lucas? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Were the Wright Brothers? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Ulysses S. Grant? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Robert E. Lee? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Clara Barton? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Queen Victoria? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Muhammad Ali? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Marie Curie? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Henry Ford? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Roberto Clemente? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Susan B. Anthony? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Rachel Carson? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Julius Caesar? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Isaac Newton? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Gandhi? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Stan Lee? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Alfred Hitchcock? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Charles Dickens? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Genghis Khan? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Sitting Bull? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Betsy Ross? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Andy Warhol? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Gloria Steinem? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Frederick Douglass? | (2014) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Galileo? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Wayne Gretzky? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Robert Ripley? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Jesus? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Jacques Cousteau? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Harriet Beecher Stowe? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Winston Churchill? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Mother Teresa? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Steve Irwin? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Woodrow Wilson? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Beatrix Potter? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was J. R. R. Tolkien? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Richard Branson? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Edgar Allan Poe? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Were the Brothers Grimm? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Jesse Owens? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Malala Yousafzai? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Derek Jeter? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Jeff Kinney? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is (Your Name Here)? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Julia Child? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Marie Antoinette? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Seabiscuit? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Blackbeard? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was George Washington Carver? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Sojourner Truth? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Michael Jackson? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Frank Lloyd Wright? | (2015) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Maya Angelou? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Lucille Ball? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Joan of Arc? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Elton John? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Jules Verne? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Alexander the Great? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Milton Bradley? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Hillary Clinton? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was? Mad Libs | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Bruce Springsteen? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Stevie Wonder? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Were The Three Stooges? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Jacqueline Kennedy? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Charlie Chaplin? | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Sonia Sotomayor? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Cesar Chavez? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Princess Diana? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Are the Rolling Stones? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Bob Marley? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Pete Seeger? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Andrew Jackson? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Pope Francis? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Are Venus and Serena Williams? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Alexander Hamilton? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Fidel Castro? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Lewis Carroll? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Ralph Lauren? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Coretta Scott King? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Chuck Jones? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Jane Austen? | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Knock! Knock! Who Was There? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Henry VIII? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Booker T. Washington? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is the Dalai Lama? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Aretha Franklin? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Leif Erikson? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Pele? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Were the Tuskegee Airmen? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Selena? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
The Who Was? Activity Book | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Judy Blume? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Bono? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
What Is the Women's Rights Movement? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Nikola Tesla? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Napoleon? | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Michael Jordan? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was H. J. Heinz? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Norman Rockwell? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Where Is the Kremlin? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Stephen Hawking? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Che Guevara? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was P. T. Barnum? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Oprah Winfrey? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is R. L. Stine? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Harriet Tubman? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Mister Rogers? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
The Who Was? History of the World | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Sam Walton? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Ruth Bader Ginsburg? | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Jackie Chan? | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Richard Nixon? | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Temple Grandin? | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Harvey Milk? | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Ida B. Wells? | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is David Beckham? | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Celia Cruz? | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Benedict Arnold? | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Nellie Bly? | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Confucius? | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Duke Ellington? | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Catherine the Great? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Walt Whitman? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Levi Strauss? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is RuPaul? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Neil deGrasse Tyson? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was A. A. Milne? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Juliette Gordon Low? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Were the Navajo Code Talkers? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was David Bowie? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Were Stanley and Livingstone? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Queen Elizabeth II? | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Dale Earnhardt Jr.? | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
The Who Was? Trivia Book | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Charles Schulz? | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Ernest Hemingway? | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Jimmy Carter? | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Johnny Cash? | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Ponce de León? | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was E. B. White? | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Georgia O'Keeffe? | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Shaquille O'Neal? | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Michelangelo? | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Alex Trebek? | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Salvador Dalí? | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was John McCain? | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Is Simone Biles? | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Jim Thorpe? | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was Frank Sinatra? | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
Who Was John Lewis? | (2023) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
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Publication Order of Anthologies
If you take a closer look into one of the books written by Sherri L. Smith, you will most likely come across the quote : “Bad things happen everywhere, even in the land of roses”. These are perhaps the words that can most vividly describe young adult novels, which happen to be the center of Smith’s work. And indeed who could be more competent to write about all the things that accompany a transition to the world of grown-ups than a girl whose life brought her from coast to coast of the USA, and took her to work on movies like “Mars Attacks!”, make comic books, and work in a construction company? And win some literary awards in addition? Sherri L. Smith did all of this. This is a story about working girl(s).
Sherri L. Smith was born in Chicago in 1971. However, it was not the “Windy City” where she spent her childhood. It was, in fact, New York- Staten Island to be precise. Smith was always inclined towards the art, and her persistence enabled her to get a Bachelor’s degree in film and broadcast journalism, as well as Master’s degree of Arts in Humanity and Master’s degree of Science in business. The education provided her with a lot of possibilities, and it was not long until she entered the magical world of movies. She participated in the creation of the stop-motion animation effects in Tim Burton’s famous movie “Mars Attacks!” Soon after that, Smith landed a contract with Disney, where she worked on numerous animated projects. However, after three years, Smith was ready to accept new challenges and her career took a surprising turn, as she got a job in a construction company at LA International Airport. She used this time to do some work at Bongo Comics (where she was behind “The Simpsons” comic books) and devote herself to her dream- writing a novel. That is how “Lucy the Giant ” was conceived. Upon its initial release, Smith’s first novel was welcomed with praise and it was selected as an ALA Best Book for Young People. This was just the first drop in an ocean of accolades that this novel would eventually win. If “Lucy the Giant” was a success, what then to say about “Flygirl”? This novel turned out to be a small wonder, and the Washington Post even considered it as the best book of 2012. Smith gained a very strong core of fans and that incited her to continue with writing. This was a good call, as Sherri L. Smith still manages to write acclaimed young adult novels. This prolific author just could not stick to one job and she found a new occupation in a company that manufactures costumes and monsters for the sake of film industry. Nevertheless, writing stays Smith’s main preoccupation.
As it was stated, Smith’s sphere of interest revolves around young adult novels. Is there a better way to start talking about her books than to talk about Flygirl, a gold medalist in the selection of the California Book Awards? Flygirl is a story of Ida Mae Jones, a girl with big dreams in times of trouble. It is hard enough if you live in the WW2 period, it is even more difficult if you are a woman, and it is dreadful if you are an Afro-american in the USA. Nonetheless, if you have an ambition to become a world-class pilot, that takes your case to a whole new level. It seems like an impossible mission for many people. Not for Ida, though. She is a courageous girl with some baggage- her father was a renowned pilot, and she wants to follow his footsteps. Alas, those dreams are beyond the grasp of a black girl. Not even after the army conceives an organization called “Woman Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) does Ida get a chance to get her wings. This decision drives our protagonist to take drastic measures- she makes a complex cover-up and starts presenting herself as white. Soon after she gets her position in WASP and is finally able to help her brother who is fighting somewhere in Pacific. Nevertheless, a new life that Ida has to live is going to face her with some important existential issues and she will have to be calm and act wisely in order not to go astray in the process of adjusting.
“Lucy the Giant” is the very first book written by Smith and it was published in 2002. It received many recognitions and made Sherri famous. This novel also revolves around a young heroine, who is limited by her society. This time, the place is Alaska, and the protagonist is Lucy Otswego, an unusually tall girl. Of course, as it is usually the case in small communities, “unusual” is often deemed as “gross” and Lucy gets a bad reputation. Things at home are not better. Lucy’s mother is out of the picture, and her father is a heavy drinker prone to the violent outbursts. Lucy does not have many friends, except for Sheila and her dog Bar, whom she found on the street. However, Bar soon falls ill and Lucy’s father could not care less about taking him to the vet. Lucy finally decides that she had enough and starts planning a new life, far from the coldness of Alaska and its citizens. Lucy yearns for a chance to escape, and soon after that chance shows itself in the form of a crabbing boat that is looking for crew. Due to Lucy’s strong physiognomy and sturdy stature that give her the looks of a much older girl, she is received on a boat and taken to a life changing trip in the freezing regions of Bering Sea. This is a trip that will change Lucy’s way of thinking and help her grow up.
Anyone who is even remotely introduced to Smith’s work will soon realize that this author finds particularly interesting to write about (mostly) teenage misfits, people who are at the crossroads between childhood and adult age, but do not seem to firmly stand on either of these places. That is the heart of young adult novels. If an author can correctly represent those mixed feelings, mild confusion as well as the uncertainty of mind in that delicate age, he will undoubtedly find his way to the audience, just like Smith did.
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