Young-Adult Novel Mr. Touchdown Wins Writers Notes Book Award for Young-Adult

Desegregation novel wins first-place in national 2006 Writers Notes Book Awards. This young-adult novel deals with the integration of a Memphis high school in 1965.

Silver Spring, MD (PRWEB) March 29, 2006 -- Author Lyda Phillips’ desegregation novel Mr. Touchdown has won first-place in the national 2006 Writers Notes Book Awards in the young-adult category.

Writers Notes Book Awards honor books published by independent and small presses, self-publishers and unique or short print runs.

“With rich description and smooth dialogue, this can’t-put-down novel moves us to the heart of the high-pressure choices and explosive changes faced by Eddie Russell, his sister Lakeesha, and friends as they become the first black students to integrate all-white Forrest High in the autumn of 1965,” the judges said of Mr. Touchdown. “It’s a balanced and vividly accurate portrayal of the violence, personal struggles, and inter-generational and community undercurrents of desegregation and non-violent movements for social justice of the 1950s and ‘60s.”

Mr. Touchdown is available online through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and iUniverse, as well as at all booksellers through Ingram and Baker & Taylor distributors (July 29, 2005, ISBN 0-595-67288-4 hardcover $23.95; ISBN 0-595-35900-0 trade paperback, $13.95).

Lyda Phillips is an award-winning journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. A native of San Antonio, she went to school in Memphis, Tennessee, and has degrees from Northwestern, Columbia, and Vanderbilt universities. She lives in Maryland with her family.

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