Y - Authors from A to Z Challenge

Authors from A to Z is a posting challenge hosted by 

Heather at Proud Book Nerd. The challenge is simple: each day for the month of June (except Sundays) share your favorite authors whose last name corresponds to the letter for that day.  For more info, click the photo!

How I'm participating in the challenge:

I am trying to highlight at least three authors (YA or otherwise) per letter, some current favorites, others future favorites. If I cannot come up with three, I will substitute favorite books that start with the letter of that day. If that doesn't work, then just for fun I am going to list songs that start with the letter of that day. And if that doesn't work, well, it will be a surprise!

Today's Letter: Y

Philip Yancy

When I really started reading again, part of what got me back into it was a lot of Christian life non-fiction books.  Yancey's What's So Amazing About Grace? and several other of his works were poignant and thought-provoking.  He's been a writer for a long time and covers a myriad of topics in his many books.  His writing style is clean and precise while feeling very comfortable without being oversimplified.  If you put a Yancey book in front of me, I will read it.

Jane Yolen

In high school, I had a great fascination with fiction pertaining to the Holocaust.  Two of my favorite books from this period of my reading life are The Devil's Arithmetic and Briar Rose.  It wasn't until I was researching authors for this challenge that I realized Yolen wrote them both.  These two stories stuck with me after reading each of them only once (though The Devil's Arithmetic starring Kirsten Dunst helped some) and they had a way of transporting me to that dark time and teaching me about humanity, evil, and hope.

Suzanne Young (Future Favorite)

I've seen Young's The Naughty List series, but not being huge into contemp YA, I hadn't really felt I needed to add it to my must-read-soon list.  But Young's new novel, A Need So Beautiful, just looks stunning.  Can't wait to get this and see what Young has to offer!