SLJ's Battle of the Kids Books: Predictions

I personally thought it'd be fun to make some predictions before knowing which author judge is assigned to which battle. Often I make my predictions based on the judges preferred tastes (as if I knew) and it usually bites me big time. So instead, I'm going to make my predictions this year without the knowledge of who's judging what.

Round 1

• AMELIA LOST over ANYA'S GHOST
• BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY over BOOTLEG
• THE CHESHIRE CHEESE CAT over CHIME
• DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE over DEAD END IN NORVELT
• DRAWING FROM MEMORY over THE GRAND PLAN TO FIX EVERYTHING
• INSIDE OUT AND BACK AGAIN over HEART AND SOUL
• A MONSTER CALLS over LIFE
• OKAY FOR NOW over WONDERSTRUCK

Round 2

• BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY over AMELIA LOST
• DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE over THE CHESHIRE CHEESE CAT
• DRAWING FROM MEMORY over INSIDE OUT AND BACK AGAIN
• A MONSTER CALLS over OKAY FOR NOW

Round 3

• DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE over BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY
• A MONSTER CALLS over DRAWING FROM MEMORY

Winner of the Undead Poll: OKAY FOR NOW

Big Kahuna Round

• DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE over A MONSTER CALLS, and OKAY FOR NOW

Tough Calls . . .

THE CHESHIRE CHEESE CAT over CHIME is a tough one to call. Both are totally different kinds of work. I personally, don't see either of these prevailing a round further, overtaking DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE, but another tough call for me was choosing OKAY FOR NOW as my predicted Undead Winner. I think CHIME has a following and could overtake it. Although based on OKAY FOR NOW's support on Heavy Medal and Goodreads, I think it would be tough to pick against it as the Undead Winner.

I also had a hard time with what to do with WONDERSTRUCK. Personally, I didn't like it at all! However, Selznick too, has appeal. I don't get it, but he does. I could see WONDERSTRUCK making a run either in the brackets or in the Undead Poll.

AMELIA LOST is another one of those titles that I could really see other authors digging. For some reason my gut is telling me BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY, but I wouldn't be surprised to see AMELIA LOST go far either.