Roger Reid, writer and producer of the popular Alabama Public Television series Discovering Alabama and author of the young adult novels Space and Longleaf, received a Southeast Regional EMMY Award for Outstanding Achievement for his work as writer of a Discovering Alabama episode titled “Alabama in Space.”

In a ceremony held in Atlanta last week, National Academy of Arts and Sciences colleagues from around the South recognized Reid’s work as a writer of a “non-news program.”

The honored episode focused on Alabama’s involvement in the space program, which helped to put a man on the moon 40 year ago, and discussed “what the journey has helped us discover right here on Earth,” says Reid “This award would not have been possible without the direct involvement of friends at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. These are many of the same folks who helped me develop the science content of my novel Space.”

Space is a fast-moving story that incorporates factual information about astronomy and America’s space program into its intriguing tale of suspicion and pursuit.

Space is available from NewSouth Books, Amazon.com, or your favorite retail or online book seller.

Space, the young adult novel by Roger Reid, has been named to the Alabama Department of Education’s Emphasis on Reading list for the school year 2009-2010. Mr. Reid was the only Alabama author to have a book so designated.

Criteria for the award include quality of writing, character development and appeal to young readers. Library media specialists vote to select titles that will be ultimately voted on by kids themselves. The children’s choices become those named to the final list. Books are selected in three grade level categories: K-1, 2-3, and 4-6. The list of 2009-2010 books can be found on the program website.

Space is set at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, and blends an exciting mystery story with intriguing morsels of scientific facts about astronomy and America’s space program. The book is available from NewSouth Books, Amazon, or your favorite local or online book retailer.

Author Roger Reid continued a successful tour to launch his new young adult novel Space with appearances in Montgomery, Alabama at Baldwin Arts & Academics Library, Houston Hill Junior High School and with an interview on the WSFA-TV program Alabama Live. According to an article in the Montgomery Advertiser, Reid and colleagues Randy Mecredy, director of the Alabama Museum of Natural History, and Mark Hainds of the Longleaf Alliance, spoke to Houston Hill students about the fascinating world of science.

From the article:

Reid said that the fantasy in stories such as Harry Potter and other scince fiction that the students enjoy is actually being created in the real world. Well, some of it.

Reid joked that he was too old to go the moon, but the the seventh-graders had a shot if that was something they wanted to do.

Read the entire article at The Montgomery Advertiser website.

Reid, Mecredy and Hainds were interviewed by Kim Hendrix on Alabama Live in a segment entitled “Discovering Alabama in a new way.” They discussed their school visits in the Montgomery area presenting the science from Space and from Reid’s first young adult novel Longleaf. Hainds showed samples of the longleaf pine needles and pine cone.

The scientists discussed the importance of reaching students through Reid’s innovative approach of combining an exciting adventure story featuring a fourteen-year-old protagonist with real-life scientific facts. Reid also emphasized the importance of encouraging writing, a topic he shares with students.

See the interview at WSFA’s website.

Space and Longleaf are available from NewSouth Books, Amazon.com, or your favorite local or online book retailer.

NewSouth Books’ Junebug Books imprint recently published two new titles by Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) members: In the Company of Owls by Peter Huggins, and Space by Roger Reid. These books join Reid’s 2005 title Longleaf and A Yellow Watermelon by Ted Dunagan as the latest works by Southern SCBWI chapter Southern Breeze authors to be released from NewSouth.

In the Company of Owls tells an exciting story of courage and the triumph of family loyalty in the face of danger. After Aaron Cash and his father discover their neighbor Morgan Blackburn’s illegal still, Blackburn resorts to increasingly violent acts to force the Cash family to sell their land. Aaron must ultimately use his wits–and his BB gun–to defend his family, an act that leaves both Aaron and the reader to consider its many implications. Of In the Company of Owls, poet Tony Crunk writes, “[Aaron’s] story, and Huggins’s graceful telling of it, sneak up as quietly as a spring shower, but startle as fiercely as a copperhead strike.”

In Space, fourteen-year-old Jason is recruited by his cantankerous friend Stephen to help find which of a group of gathered scientists killed Stephen’s father. Adding to the suspense is a mysterious Man in a Red Flannel Shirt who keeps appearing wherever Jason happens to be. In the climactic scene, Jason uses his scientific knowledge to escape a pursuing gunman in the woods surrounding the real-life Conrad Swanson Observatory. Graham Salisbury says of Space, “Another Roger Reid winner for young mystery lovers. Space is packed with fascinating science, action, compelling story questions, and an ending that rockets off the page. Loved it!”

Southern Breeze named author Ted Dunagan’s A Yellow Watermelon, published earlier this year, a “Soaring Success.” In the best Southern literary tradition, A Yellow Watermelon explores poverty and racial segregation through the eyes of an innocent boy; Ted Dillon wanders through the cotton fields, streams, churches, whiskey stills and his own heart and mind as he struggles with the hypocrisy and wonders of his small world, amid the lingering effects of the Great Depression. Yet with beguiling prose and an ear for the way people speak, the author brings to life a story so engaging and heartfelt that it will resonate with young and old. Kirkus Reviews calls A Yellow Watermelon “a memorable, generous-hearted tale.”

NewSouth Books is a general trade publisher based in Montgomery, Alabama, with a growing list of fine literary fiction–for adults and young adults–and non-fiction.