|
2009 ALA Youth Media Awards
And The Winners Are...
• Newbery Award
• Michael L. Printz Award
• Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal
• Coretta Scott King Award
• Alex Awards
• Margaret A. Edwards
Award
• William C. Morris YA Debut Award
• Schneider Family Book
Award
• Odyssey
Awards
Each year the American Library Association (ALA) honors books and media for children and teens. Recognized worldwide for the high quality they represent, ALA awards --- including the Newbery, Printz, Sibert and Coretta Scott King Book Awards --- guide parents, educators, librarians and others in selecting the best materials for youth. Selected by committees composed of librarians and other literature and media experts, the awards encourage original and creative work in the field of children’s and young adult literature and media.
The John Newbery Medal honors the author of the year's most outstanding contribution to children's literature. Presented every year since 1922, the Medal is named for 18th-century British bookseller John Newbery. Henrik Van Loon won the first Newbery Medal in 1922 for THE STORY OF MANKIND. Receiving the Newbery Medal virtually guarantees that the winning book will remain in print and on library and bookstore shelves for years to come.
The
Michael L. Printz Award, established in 1999, honors excellence in literature written for young adults. The award-winning book may be fiction, nonfiction, poetry or an anthology and can be a work of joint authorship or editorship. Nominated books may have been previously published in another country, but must have been in the U.S. during the preceding year. The books must be designated by their publishers as either a young adult book or one published for ages 12 through 18. The award is named in honor of the late Michael L. Printz, longtime YALSA member and Topeka, Kansas, school librarian, known for discovering and promoting quality books for young adults.
The Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal was awarded for the first time in 2001 to Marc Aronson for SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND THE QUEST FOR EL DORADO. It is given to honor the authors, illustrators and/or photographers of the most distinguished informational book published for children in the preceding year. Informational books are defined as those written and illustrated to present, organize and interpret documentable factual material. The award is named in honor of Robert F. Sibert, the long-time President of Bound to Stay Bound Books, Inc. of Jacksonville, Illinois.
The Coretta Scott King Award is given to an African American author and an African American illustrator for an outstandingly inspirational and educational contribution. The books promote understanding and appreciation of the culture of all peoples and their contribution to the realization of the American dream. The Award is further designed to commemorate the life and works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and to honor Mrs. Coretta Scott King for her courage and determination to continue the work for peace and world brotherhood.
The Alex Awards are given to 10 books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18. The winning titles are selected from the previous year's publishing. The award is sponsored by the Margaret Alexander Edwards Trust and Booklist. Edwards was a young adult specialist for many years at the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore. Her work is described in her book FAIR GARDEN AND THE SWARM OF BEASTS, and over the years she has served as an inspiration to librarians who serve young adults. The Alex Awards are named after Edwards, who was called “Alex” by her friends.
The Margaret A. Edwards Award, established in 1988, honors an author's lifetime contribution in writing for young adults as well as a specific body of his or her work. The award is named in honor of the late Margaret A. Edwards, an administrator of young adult programs at Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland, for more than 30 years. Edwards brought young adult literature and library services to the attention of the library profession. She spent her professional life bringing books and young adults together, pioneering outreach services for teenagers and establishing a stringent training program designed for librarians beginning their work with adolescents.
The William C. Morris YA Debut Award, ALA’s newest award, celebrates the achievement of a previously unpublished author, or authors, who have made a strong literary debut in writing for young adult readers. The work cited illuminates the teen experience and enriches the lives of its readers through its excellence, demonstrated by compelling, high quality writing and/or illustration, the integrity of the work as a whole, and its proven or potential appeal to a wide range of teen readers. The award's namesake is William C. Morris, an influential innovator in the publishing world and an advocate for marketing books for children and young adults.
The Schneider Family Book Awards is donated by Dr. Katherine Schneider, and honors an author or illustrator for a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences. Three annual awards are presented for the best Teen, Middle School and Children’s Book.
The Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production is presented to the producer of the best audiobook produced for youth available in English in the United States. The first Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production was given in January 2008. Honor titles may also be selected. The award is jointly administered by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) and the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), divisions of ALA, and is sponsored by Booklist magazine.
2009 Newbery Winner
 THE GRAVEYARD BOOK
Neil Gaiman
HarperCollins Children’s Books
ISBN: 9780060530921
Ages 10-up
320 pages
September 2008
• Read a Review
• Read an Excerpt
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Bod is an unusual boy who inhabits an unusual place --- he's the only living resident of a graveyard. Raised from infancy by the ghosts, werewolves and other cemetery denizens, Bod has learned the antiquated customs of his guardians' time as well as their timely ghostly teachings --- like the ability to Fade. Can a boy raised by ghosts face the wonders and terrors of the worlds of both the living and the dead? And then there are things like ghouls that aren't really one thing or the other.
2009 Newbery Honors
 AFTER TUPAC & D FOSTER
Jacqueline Woodson
Putnam Juvenile
ISBN: 9780399246548
Ages 10-up
160 pages
January 2008
• Read a Review
• Read an Excerpt
• Author Interview
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
The day D Foster enters Neeka and her best friend’s lives, the world opens up for them. D comes from a world vastly different from their safe Queens neighborhood, and through her, the girls see another side of life that includes loss, foster families and an amount of freedom that makes the girls envious. Although all of them are crazy about Tupac Shakur’s rap music, D is the one who truly understands the place where he’s coming from, and through knowing D, Tupac’s lyrics become more personal for all of them.
The girls are 13 when D’s mom swoops in to reclaim D --- and as magically as she appeared, she now disappears from their lives. Tupac is gone, too, after a fatal shooting. As the narrator looks back, she sees lives suspended in time and realizes that even all-too-brief connections can touch deeply.
 SAVVY
Ingrid Law
Dial Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780803733060
Ages 9-11
352 pages
May 2008
• Read a Review
• Read an Excerpt
• Author Interview
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
For generations, the Beaumont family has harbored a magical secret. They each possess a “savvy” --- a special supernatural power that strikes when they turn 13. Grandpa Bomba moves mountains, her older brothers create hurricanes and spark electricity…and now it’s the eve of Mibs’s big day.
As if waiting wasn’t hard enough, the family gets scary news two days before Mibs’s birthday: Poppa has been in a terrible accident. Mibs develops the singular mission to get to the hospital and prove that her new power can save her dad. So she sneaks onto a salesman’s bus…only to find the bus heading in the opposite direction. Suddenly Mibs finds herself on an unforgettable odyssey that will force her to make sense of growing up --- and of other people, who might also have a few secrets hidden just beneath the skin.
 THE SURRENDER TREE: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom
Margarita Engle
Henry Holt Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780805086744
Ages 12-up
176 pages
April 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
It is 1896. Cuba has fought three wars for independence and still is not tree. People have been rounded up in reconcentration camps with too little food and too much illness. Rosa is a nurse, but she dares not go to the camps. So she turns hidden caves into hospitals for those who know how to find her.
Black, white, Cuban, Spanish --- Rosa does her best for everyone. Yet who can heal a country so torn apart by war? Acclaimed poet Margarita Engle has created another breathtaking portrait of Cuba.
 THE UNDERNEATH
written by Kathi Appelt
illustrated by David Small
Atheneum/Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 9781416950585
Ages 8-12
320 pages
May 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
A calico cat, about to have kittens, hears the lonely howl of a chained-up hound dog deep in the backwaters of the bayou. She dares to find him in the forest, and the hound dares to befriend this creature he is supposed to hate. They are an unlikely pair, about to become an unlikely family. Ranger urges the cat to hide underneath the porch, to raise her kittens there because Gar-Face, the man living inside the house, will surely use them as alligator bait should he find them. But they are safe in the Underneath...as long as they stay in the Underneath. Kittens, however, are notoriously curious creatures. And one kitten's one moment of curiosity sets off a chain of events that is astonishing, remarkable and enormous in its meaning.
2009 Michael L. Printz Winner
 JELLICOE ROAD
Melina Marchetta
HarperTeen
ISBN: 9780061431838
Ages 14-up
432 pages
August 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Abandoned by her mother on Jellicoe Road when she was 11, Taylor Markham, now 17, is finally being confronted with her past. But as the reluctant leader of her boarding school dorm, there isn't a lot of time for introspection. And while Hannah, the closest adult Taylor has to family, has disappeared, Jonah Griggs is back in town, moody stares and all.
2009 Michael L. Printz Honors
 THE ASTONISHING LIFE OF OCTAVIAN NOTHING, TRAITOR TO THE NATION, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves
M. T. Anderson
Candlewick Press
ISBN: 9780763629502
Ages 14-up
592 pages
October 2008
• Read a Review
• Read an Excerpt
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Fearing a death sentence, Octavian and his tutor, Dr. Trefusis, escape through rising tides and pouring rain to find shelter in British-occupied Boston. Sundered from all he knows --- the College of Lucidity, the rebel cause --- Octavian hopes to find safe harbor. Instead, he is soon to learn of Lord Dunmore's proclamation offering freedom to slaves who join the counterrevolutionary forces. In Volume II, M. T. Anderson recounts Octavian's experiences as the Revolutionary War explodes around him, thrusting him into intense battles and tantalizing him with elusive visions of liberty.
 THE DISREPUTABLE HISTORY OF FRANKIE LANDAU-BANKS
E. Lockhart
Hyperion Books for Children
ISBN: 9780786838189
Ages 12-up
352 pages
March 2008
• Read a Review
• Read an Excerpt
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Frankie Landau-Banks at age 14: Debate Club. Her father's "bunny rabbit." A mildly geeky girl attending a highly competitive boarding school.
Frankie Landau-Banks at age 15: A knockout figure. A sharp tongue. A chip on her shoulder. And a gorgeous new senior boyfriend: the supremely goofy, word-obsessed Matthew Livingston.
Frankie Landau-Banks. No longer the kind of girl to take "no" for an answer. Especially when "no" means she's excluded from her boyfriend's all-male secret society. Not when her ex-boyfriend shows up in the strangest of places. Not when she knows she's smarter than any of them. When she knows Matthew is lying to her. And when there are so many pranks to be done.
Frankie Landau-Banks at age 16: Possibly a criminal mastermind.
This is the story of how she got that way.
 NATION
Terry Pratchett
HarperTeen
ISBN: 9780061433016
Ages 12-up
384 pages
September 2008
• Read a Review
• Read an Excerpt
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Mau is the only one left after a giant wave sweeps his island village away. But when much is taken, something is returned, and somewhere in the jungle, Daphne --- a girl from the other side of the globe --- is the sole survivor of a ship destroyed by the same wave. Together the two confront the aftermath of catastrophe. Drawn by the smoke of Mau and Daphne's sheltering fire, other refugees slowly arrive: children without parents, mothers without babies, husbands without wives --- all of them hungry and all of them frightened. As Mau and Daphne struggle to keep the small band safe and fed, they defy ancestral spirits, challenge death himself and uncover a long-hidden secret that literally turns the world upside down.
 TENDER MORSELS
Margo Lanagan
Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780375848117
Ages 14-up
448 pages
October 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
TENDER MORSELSis a dark and vivid story, set in two worlds and worrying at the border between them. Liga lives modestly in her own personal heaven, a world given to her in exchange for her earthly life. Her two daughters grow up in this soft place, protected from the violence that once harmed their mother. But the real world cannot be denied forever --- magicked men and wild bears break down the borders of Liga’s refuge. Now, having known Heaven, how will these three women survive in a world where beauty and brutality lie side by side?
• Past Winners: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2001
2009 Robert F. Sibert Winner
 WE ARE THE SHIP: The Story of Negro League Baseball
written and illustrated by Kadir Nelson
Jump at the Sun/Hyperion Books for Children
ISBN: 9780786808328
Ages 8-up
96 pages
January 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
The story of Negro League baseball is the story of gifted athletes and determined owners; of racial discrimination and international sportsmanship; of fortunes won and lost; of triumphs and defeats on and off the field. It is about hundreds of unsung heroes who overcame segregation, hatred, terrible conditions and low pay to do the one thing they loved more than anything else in the world: play ball.
Using an “Everyman” player as his narrator, Kadir Nelson tells the story of Negro League baseball from its beginnings in the 1920s through its decline after Jackie Robinson crossed over to the majors in 1947.
2009 Robert F. Sibert Honors
 BODIES FROM THE ICE: Melting Glaciers and the Rediscovery of the Past
James M. Deem
Houghton Mifflin Books for Children
ISBN: 9780618800452
Ages 9-12
64 pages
October 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
In 1991, mountain climbers on the Niederjoch Glacier on the Italian-Austrian border came across something unexpected: a body. It had been a very warm summer, and five bodies had already turned up in the area. But something here was different. The materials found with the body suggested it might be very old, perhaps from the 1800s. But radiocarbon dating proved the iceman was 5,300 years older, from the Copper Age. He was named Ötzi and he is the oldest human mummy preserved in ice ever found.
James M. Deem takes us on a captivating and creepy journey to learn about glaciers, hulking masses of moving ice that are now offering up many secrets of the past.
 WHAT TO DO ABOUT ALICE?: How Alice Roosevelt Broke the Rules, Charmed the World, and Drove Her Father Teddy Crazy!
written by Barbara Kerley
illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham
Scholastic Press
ISBN: 9780439922319
Ages 5-7
48 pages
March 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Theodore Roosevelt had a small problem. Her name was Alice. Alice Lee Roosevelt was hungry to go places, meet people, do things! Father called it running riot. Alice called it eating up the world. Whether she was entertaining important White House visitors with her pet snake or traveling the globe, Alice bucked convention and turned every new experience into an adventure!
Brimming with affection and wit, this spirited biography gives readers a peek at family life inside the White House. Prose and pictures spring, gambol and two-step across the pages to celebrate a maverick American heroine.
• Past Winners:
2008,
2007,
2006,
2005,
2004,
2003
2009 Coretta Scott King Author Winner
WE ARE THE SHIP: The Story of Negro League Baseball
written and illustrated by Kadir Nelson
Jump at the Sun/Hyperion Books for Children
ISBN: 9780786808328
Ages 8-up
96 pages
January 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
The story of Negro League baseball is the story of gifted athletes and determined owners; of racial discrimination and international sportsmanship; of fortunes won and lost; of triumphs and defeats on and off the field. It is about hundreds of unsung heroes who overcame segregation, hatred, terrible conditions and low pay to do the one thing they loved more than anything else in the world: play ball.
Using an “Everyman” player as his narrator, Kadir Nelson tells the story of Negro League baseball from its beginnings in the 1920s through its decline after Jackie Robinson crossed over to the majors in 1947.
2009 Coretta Scott King Author Honors
 BECOMING BILLIE HOLIDAY
written by Carole Boston Weatherford
illustrated by Floyd Cooper
Wordsong
ISBN: 9781590785072
Ages 12-up
117 pages
October 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Before the legend of Billie Holliday, there was a girl named Eleanora. The world, however, would know her as Billie Holliday, possibly one of the greatest jazz singers of all time. Eleanora's journey into legend took her through pain, poverty and run-ins with the law. By the time she was 15, she knew she possessed something that could change her life --- a voice. Eleanora could sing! Her remarkable voice led her to a place in the spotlight with some of the era's hottest big bands. Billie Holliday sang as if she lived each lyric and in many ways she had.
Through a sequence of raw and poignant poems, award-winning poet Carole Boston Weatherford chronicles Eleanora Fagan's metamorphosis into Billie Holliday and the dream she pursued with passion.
 THE BLACKER THE BERRY
written by Joyce Carol Thomas
illustrated by Floyd Cooper
Amistad/HarperCollins
ISBN: 9780060253752
Ages 4-8
32 pages
July 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Black is dazzling and distinctive, like toasted wheat berry bread; snowberries in the fall; rich, red cranberries; and the bronzed last leaves of summer. In this lyrical and luminous collection, Coretta Scott King honorees Joyce Carol Thomas and Floyd Cooper celebrate these many shades of black beautifully.
 KEEPING THE NIGHT WATCH
written by Hope Anita Smith
illustrated by E.B. Lewis
Henry Holt Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780805072020
Ages 8-13
80 pages
March 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
So many unanswered questions weigh down 13-year-old C.J. as he struggles to understand why his father walked out. His father is back now, though C.J. is not as quick to forgive as the other members of his family. He still feels the weight of responsibility that fell on his shoulders when Daddy was gone, and he’s not prepared to give that up. But C.J.’s anger is making him a stranger in his own home, and instead of life seeming better now that Daddy has returned, it feels worse. Through powerful poems, Hope Anita Smith chronicles the nuanced emotions of a family that is slowly learning to heal and put the pieces back together.
2009 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Winner
THE BLACKER THE BERRY
written by Joyce Carol Thomas
illustrated by Floyd Cooper
Amistad/HarperCollins
ISBN: 9780060253752
Ages 4-8
32 pages
July 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Black is dazzling and distinctive, like toasted wheat berry bread; snowberries in the fall; rich, red cranberries; and the bronzed last leaves of summer. In this lyrical and luminous collection, Coretta Scott King honorees Joyce Carol Thomas and Floyd Cooper celebrate these many shades of black beautifully.
2009 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honors
 BEFORE JOHN WAS A JAZZ GIANT: A Song of John Coltrane
written by Carole Boston Weatherford
illustrated by Sean Qualls
Henry Holt Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780805079944
Ages 5-9
32 pages
April 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Young John Coltrane was all ears. And there was a lot to hear growing up in the South in the 1930s: preachers praying, music on the radio, the bustling of the household. These vivid noises shaped John’s own sound as a musician. Carole Boston Weatherford and Sean Qualls have composed an amazingly rich hymn to the childhood of jazz legend John Coltrane.
 THE MOON OVER STAR
written by Dianna Hutts Aston
illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
Dila Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780803731073
Ages 6-8
32 pages
October 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
In July 1969, the world witnessed an awe-inspiring historical achievement when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the moon. For the young protagonist of this lyrical and hopeful picture book, that landing is something that inspires her to make one giant step toward all of the possibilities that life has to offer.
WE ARE THE SHIP: The Story of Negro League Baseball
written and illustrated by Kadir Nelson
Jump at the Sun/Hyperion Books for Children
ISBN: 9780786808328
Ages 8-up
96 pages
January 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
The story of Negro League baseball is the story of gifted athletes and determined owners; of racial discrimination and international sportsmanship; of fortunes won and lost; of triumphs and defeats on and off the field. It is about hundreds of unsung heroes who overcame segregation, hatred, terrible conditions and low pay to do the one thing they loved more than anything else in the world: play ball.
Using an “Everyman” player as his narrator, Kadir Nelson tells the story of Negro League baseball from its beginnings in the 1920s through its decline after Jackie Robinson crossed over to the majors in 1947.
2009 Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award
Shadra Strickland, illustrator of BIRD
 BIRD
written by Zetta Elliott
Lee & Low Books
ISBN: 9781600602412
Ages 8-12
48 pages
October 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Young Mekhai, better known as Bird, loves to draw. With drawings, he can erase the things that don't turn out right. In real life, problems aren't so easily fixed. As Bird struggles to understand the death of his beloved grandfather and his older brother's drug addiction, he escapes into his art. Drawing is an outlet for Bird's emotions and imagination, and provides a path to making sense of his world. In time, with the help of his grandfather's friend, Bird finds his own special somethin' and wings to fly.
• Past Winners: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001
The 2009 Alex Awards
 CITY OF THIEVES
David Benioff
Viking Adult
ISBN: 9780670018703
May 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Set in Leningrad in the depths of the German siege of 1941-42, David Benioff’s second novel (following THE 25th HOUR) is a moving exploration of the power of friendship, played out against a backdrop of both the best and worst qualities war reveals of human behavior.
 THE DRAGONS OF BABEL
Michael Swanwick
Tor Books
ISBN: 9780765319500
January 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
A war-dragon of Babel crashes in the idyllic fields of a post-industrialized Faerie and, dragging himself into the nearest village, declares himself king and makes young Will his lieutenant. Nightly, he crawls inside the young fey's brain to get a measure of what his subjects think. Forced out of his village, Will travels with female centaur soldiers, witnesses the violent clash of giants, and acquires a surrogate daughter, Esme, who has no knowledge of the past and may be immortal.
 FINDING NOUF
Zoe Ferraris
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618873883
June 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Life in Saudi Arabia is notoriously opaque. Closed to most outsiders and with women covered and often kept isolated, it is hard to imagine, much less penetrate, the social and personal customs and daily lives of the people who live there. First-time author Zoë Ferraris takes readers inside Saudi society with her exciting novel. It is a tale of secrets and sensuality, propriety and identity --- and it is a good mystery as well.
 THE GOOD THIEF
Hannah Tinti
The Dial Press
ISBN: 9780385337458
August 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Twelve year-old Ren is missing his left hand. How it was lost is a mystery that Ren has been trying to solve for his entire life, as well as who his parents are, and why he was abandoned as an infant at Saint Anthony’s Orphanage for boys. He longs for a family to call his own. But then a young man named Benjamin Nab appears, and he may hold the key to not only Ren's future, but to his past as well.
 JUST AFTER SUNSET: Stories
Stephen King
Scribner
ISBN: 9781416584087
November 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Gather around the campfire and prepare to lose all track of time and place, as you become immersed in these 13 gripping tales from Stephen King, who has published his first short story collection since EVERYTHING’S EVENTUAL six years ago. With this winning combination of suspense, horror, magical realism, ghost stories and more, “13” appears to be our lucky number.
 MUDBOUND
Hillary Jordan
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
ISBN: 9781565125698
March 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
It is 1946, and city-bred Laura McAllan is trying to raise her children on her husband's Mississippi Delta farm --- a place she finds foreign and frightening. In the midst of the family's struggles, two young men return from the war to work the land. Jamie McAllan, Laura's brother-in-law, is everything her husband is not --- charming, handsome and haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm, has come home with the shine of a war hero. But no matter his bravery in defense of his country, he is still considered less than a man in the Jim Crow South. It is the unlikely friendship of these brothers-in-arms that drives this powerful novel to its inexorable conclusion.
 OVER AND UNDER
Todd Tucker
Thomas Dunne Books
ISBN: 9780312379902
July 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
In the summer of 1979, Andy and Tom are two 14-year-old boys --- best friends, expert cave explorers and crack shots with their Springfield M-6 Scout rifles. In rural southern Indiana they are blissfully unaware of the local labor strife surrounding the Borden Casket Company. The fact that Andy’s dad is a manager and Tom’s dad is a union laborer has no bearing on their fun and adventure.
But in the building summer heat, violence quickly erupts --- including an explosion, a murder and the escape of two fugitives --- and the young boys can no longer ignore that the world around them has forever changed. Through their secret observations of labor meetings, both boys feel the effect of the dissolution, and it tests their loyalty and friendship, as well as the town's spirit.
 THE OXFORD PROJECT
written by Stephen G. Bloom
photographed by Peter Feldstein
Welcome Books
ISBN: 9781599620480
September 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
In 1984, photographer Peter Feldstein set out to photograph every single resident of his town, Oxford, Iowa (pop. 676). He converted an abandoned storefront on Main Street into a makeshift studio and posted fliers inviting people to stop by. At first they trickled in slowly, but in the end, nearly all of Oxford stood before Feldstein's lens. Twenty years later, Feldstein decided to do it again. Only this time he invited writer Stephen G. Bloom to join him, and together they went in search of the same Oxford residents Feldstein had originally shot two decades earlier. Some had moved. Most had stayed. Others had passed away. All were marked by the passage of time.
 SHARP TEETH
Toby Barlow
Harper
ISBN: 9780061430220
January 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
In Los Angeles, gangs of lycanthropes can become vicious dogs at will. As Anthony, a young man down on his luck, finds himself entangled with a renegade wolf and her warring pack, a drama of identity, belonging and explosive violence unfolds at breakneck speed.
 THREE GIRLS AND THEIR BROTHER
Theresa Rebeck
Shaye Areheart Books
ISBN: 9780307394149
April 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
In her fiction debut, playwright Theresa Rebeck turns her sharp eye on the fickle nature of fame and how it affects three sisters, who skyrocket to overnight success, and their fragile brother, who is left behind in their wake.
• Past Winners: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005
The 2009 Margaret A. Edwards Award
Laurie Halse Anderson is the winner of the 2009 Margaret A. Edwards Award for CATALYST, FEVER 1793 and SPEAK. These gripping and exceptionally well-written novels, through various settings, time periods and circumstances, poignantly reflect the growing and changing realities facing teens. Iconic and classic in her storytelling and character development, Anderson has created for teens a body of work that continues to be widely read and cherished by a diverse audience.
In CATALYST, overachiever Kate Malone is forced to confront unresolved issues when girl bully Terri and her family move into her home. FEVER 1793 shows how Mattie Cook’s dreams for the future are reduced to a day-to-day struggle for survival as a yellow fever epidemic fills the streets of Philadelphia. And in SPEAK, a 2000 Printz Honor Book, Melinda Sordino is silenced by a trauma and ostracized by her classmates until she once again faces her attacker and finds the strength to fight back.
Anderson will be honored at the YALSA Edwards Award Luncheon and presented with a citation and cash prize of $2,000 during the 2009 ALA Annual Conference to be held in Chicago, July 9th through July 15th.
2009 William C. Morris YA Debut Award Winner
 A CURSE DARK AS GOLD
Elizabeth C. Bunce
Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic
ISBN: 9780439895767
Ages 12-up
400 pages
March 2008
• Read a Review
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Charlotte Miller has always scoffed at talk of a curse on her family's woolen mill, which holds her beloved small town together. But after her father's death, the bad luck piles up: departing workers, impossible debts, an overbearing uncle. Then a stranger named Jack Spinner offers a tempting proposition: He can turn straw into gold thread, for the small price of her mother's ring.
As Charlotte is drawn deeper into her bargains with Spinner --- and a romance with the local banker --- she must unravel the truth of the curse on the mill and save the community she's always called home.
In addition to A CURSE DARK AS GOLD, the Morris Award finalists include GRACELING by Kristin Cashore, ABSOLUTE BRIGHTNESS by James Lecesne, MADAPPLE by Christina Meldrum and ME, THE MISSING, AND THE DEAD by Jenny Valentine.
2009 Schneider Family Picture Book Winner
 PIANO STARTS HERE: The Young Art Tatum
written and illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker
Schwartz & Wade
ISBN: 9780375839658
Ages 4-8
40 pages
January 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Regardless of whether they’ve heard of jazz or Art Tatum, young readers will appreciate how Robert Andrew Parker uses simple, lyrical storytelling and colorful and energetic ink-and-wash illustrations to show the world as young Art Tatum might have seen it. Tatum came from modest beginnings and was nearly blind, but his passion for the piano and his acute memory for any sound that he heard drove him to become a virtuoso who was revered by both classical and jazz pianists alike.
2009 Schneider Family Middle School Award Winner
 WAITING FOR NORMAL
Leslie Connor
HarperCollins Children’s Books
ISBN: 9780060890889
Ages 10-up
304 pages
February 2008
• Read a Review
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Twelve-year-old Addie's mother is a complete mess, even disappearing for days on end. Addie adores her stepfather, but then her mom divorces him, too. Despite all of the hardships she suffers, Addie always tries to keep hope in her heart. Someday life will get better. Won't it?
2009 Schneider Family Teen Award Winner
 JERK, CALIFORNIA
Jonathan Friesen
Puffin/Penguin Young Readers Group
ISBN: 9780142412039
Ages 12-up
352 pages
September 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Twitch, Jerk, Freak. Sam Carrier has been called them all. Because of his Tourette’s syndrome, Sam is in near constant motion with tics and twitches and verbal outbursts. So, of course, high school is nothing but torment. Forget friends; forget even hoping that beautiful, perfect Naomi will look his way. And home isn’t much better with his domineering stepfather reminding him that the only person who was more useless than Sam was his dead father, Jack. But then an unexpected turn of events unearths the truth about his father. And suddenly Sam doesn’t know who he is, or even where he’ll go next.
2009 Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production Winner
 THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN
written and narrated by Sherman Alexie
Recorded Books
ISBN: 9781436124904
Ages 12-up
January 2008
• Read a Review
• Read an Excerpt
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
In his first book for young adults, bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, an aspiring cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the reservation to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
2009 Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production Honors
 CURSE OF THE BLUE TATTOO: Being an Account of the Misadventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman and Fine Lady
written by L.A. Meyer
narrated by Katherine Kellgren
Listen & Live Audio
ISBN: 9781593161347
Ages 12-up
April 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
After being forced to leave HMS Dolphin and Jaimy, her true love, Jacky Faber is making a new start at the elite Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls in Boston. But growing up on the streets of London and fighting pirates never prepared Jacky for her toughest battle yet: learning how to be a fine lady.
Everything she does is wrong. Her embroidery is deplorable, her French is atrocious, and her table manners --- disgusting! Then there's the small matter of her blue anchor tattoo…
Despite her best efforts, Jacky can't seem to stay out of trouble long enough to dedicate herself to being ladylike. But what fun would that be, anyway?
 ELIJAH OF BUXTON
written by Christopher Paul Curtis
narrated by Mirron Willis
Listening Library
ISBN: 9780739367193
Ages 9-up
March 2008
• Read a Review
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Eleven-year-old Elijah is the first child born into freedom in Buxton, Canada, a settlement of runaway slaves just over the border from Detroit. He’s best known in his hometown as the boy who made a memorable impression on Frederick Douglass. But things change when a former slave steals money from Elijah’s friend, who has been saving to buy his family out of captivity in the South. Elijah embarks on a dangerous journey to America in pursuit of the thief, and he discovers firsthand the unimaginable horrors of the life his parents fled --- a life from which he’ll always be free, if he can find the courage to get back home.
 I’M DIRTY!
written by Kate and Jim McMullan
narrated by Steve Buscemi
Weston Woods Studios
ISBN: 9780545094498
Ages 4-7
January 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Clank! Rattle! Bang!
Who's making all that noise?
"Backhoe Loader, reporting for duty."
Cleaning up a mess? Easy as pie.
Make that a mud pie.
RRRRRM! RRRRRM!
Who wants to be clean when it's so much fun being dirty?
Clunk!
I just LOVE my job!
 MARTINA THE BEAUTIFUL COCKROACH: A Cuban Folktale
written and narrated by Carmen Agra Deedy
Peachtree Publishers
ISBN: 9781561454679
Ages 4-8
September 2008
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Martina the beautiful cockroach doesn’t know coffee beans about love and marriage. That’s where her Cuban family comes in. While some of the Cucarachas offer her gifts to make her more attractive, only Abuela, her grandmother, gives her something really useful: un consejo increíble, some shocking advice.
At first, Martina is skeptical of her Abuela’s unorthodox suggestion, but when suitor after suitor fails the Coffee Test, she wonders if a little green cockroach can ever find true love. Soon, only the gardener Pérez, a tiny brown mouse, is left. But what will happen when Martina offers him café cubano?
NATION
written by Terry Pratchett
narrated by Stephen Briggs
Harper Children’s Audio
ISBN: 9780061658211
Ages 12-up
September 2008
• Read a Review
• Read an Excerpt
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Mau is the only one left after a giant wave sweeps his island village away. But when much is taken, something is returned, and somewhere in the jungle, Daphne --- a girl from the other side of the globe --- is the sole survivor of a ship destroyed by the same wave. Together the two confront the aftermath of catastrophe. Drawn by the smoke of Mau and Daphne's sheltering fire, other refugees slowly arrive: children without parents, mothers without babies, husbands without wives --- all of them hungry and all of them frightened. As Mau and Daphne struggle to keep the small band safe and fed, they defy ancestral spirits, challenge death himself and uncover a long-hidden secret that literally turns the world upside down.
Back to top. |
