Courtney Sheinmel-Positively

Look at Courtney in all her gorgeousness! Isn't she beautiful? Now picture her as a 13 year old girl, volunteering for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. Picture her sending her baby-sitting money to help. Picture her flying to California from New York City as a teen, to work side by side with Elizabeth Glaser during her summer vacation. Courtney's beauty is inside, as well as out.

Now picture Courtney climbing inside the head of the collective of HIV positive kids she's had the privilege to know, creating a character named Emmy, based on them, and based on what she herself was like as an adolescent.

Courtney's new book Positively comes out Sept. 13. You fall in love with Emmy on page one. Courtney pulls you in at the first sentence and does not let you go until the last. I know genres are important in the publishing world, but I think calling this book a young adult novel limits it. This is a book for everyone.

And I'm not just saying this because she named two little side characters in the book "Riley" and "Seth" and used some of Seth's actual dialogue. That has nothing to do with my endorsement. I swear.

Positively will likely make you cry. I did, more than once.

But it will leave you with hope.

Order Positively for your young adult, but make sure you read it yourself before giving it to them! You won't want to miss it.

Congrats Courtney. You knocked it out of the park with this one.

*Read more about Courtney and her other books here and here.