The William C. Morris Debut YA Award originated in 2009, honoring William C. Morris for his work in promoting literature for children and young adults. The award is given annually to “a debut book by a first time author writing for teens and celebrating new voices in young adult literature” (American Library Association, 2011). The winner of the William C. Morris Debut YA Award should “illuminate the teen experience and enrich the lives of its readers” (American Library Association, 2011). The criteria for the award are as follows: strength of writing and/ or illustration, integrity of work, and proven or potential appeal.
The 2009 winner of the William C. Morris Debut YA Award was A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce. The novel is a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, set at a mill in a fictional village in the time just before the Industrial Revolution. The narrator, a young miller’s daughter named Charlotte, has inherited the responsibility of her father’s mill, Stirwaters, upon his death. She, along with her sister Rosie and their loyal mill workers, try to keep the mill afloat, but the discovery of substantial mortgage on the mill taken out by her father before his death, appears to be more than Charlotte and Rosie, the last of the Miller family, can afford to pay, and the fate of the mill is in serious doubt. When Rosie turns to her father’s books for a spell for summoning fairies for help, Charlotte is appalled. However, the mysterious Jack Spinner appears and offers a solution to their problem: he will weave straw into gold thread that the girls can sell to make the mortgage payment. In return, he only asks for a pearl ring that belonged to Charlotte’s mother. Desperate, Charlotte agrees, despite her reservations, and Jack Spinner comes through as promised. The mill is saved. This certainly, though, is not the end to the girls’ problems. The mill appears to be plagued by bad luck, a curse many say, and a number of disasters, including a broken mill wheel and the destruction of valuable cloth, keep the mill on the constant verge of collapse. To add to the trouble, Charlotte and Rosie’s Uncle Wheeler comes to live at the mill to help the orphaned girls, but his true motives are questionable. And always at the gate, waiting for Charlotte to fail, are the Pinchfields, the owners of an industrialized mill who want to buy out Stirwaters and will stop at nothing to make the mill fail. In the end, Charlotte must decide how much she is willing to pay Jack Spinner to save the mill, for his final asking price is far higher than Charlotte ever imagined. Ultimately, Charlotte must find the courage to face the curse that has plagued Stirwaters for generations and do what she must to end it before she loses more than the mill.
A Curse Dark as Gold is Elizabeth Bunce’s first novel. The novel is well written and there is no question of the integrity of the work. Its creative retelling of the traditional Rumpelstiltskin story and reimagining of the world on the brink of the Industrial Revolution would fit well into a school library media program and could be utilized in both the English and social studies curriculum. My only question as to the novel’s qualification for the William C. Morris Debut YA Award is its potential appeal to young adults. While the heroine of the novel is a teen and she and her sister are certainly strong female characters and role models, the story is slow moving, which might be a deterrent for many young adult readers today. The end of the novel is suspenseful and engaging; the difficulty is in getting to the end. The long exposition may fail to keep the attention of many young readers.
References
American Library Association. (2011). William C. Morris debut ya award.
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Bunce, E. C. (2008). A curse dark as gold. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books.
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