Our 2010 Mock Newbery Winners

We made our final decision Friday (January 15)!!  The result represents our group well:

Our 2010 Mock Newbery Winner:

The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon
(Also the winner of the ALA’s  Coretta Scott King – John Steptoe New Talent Award)

Our 2010 Honors:

• The Amaranth Enchantment by Julie Berry
• The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
  (Also the winner of an ALA Newbery Honor award)
• Jane in Bloom by Deborah Lytton
• Watersmeet by Ellen Jensen Abbott

Powerless by Matthew Cody

Summary:  Soon after moving to Noble’s Green, Pennsylvania, twelve-year-old Daniel learns that his new friends have super powers that they will lose when they turn thirteen, unless he can use his brain power to protect them. 279 p., Alfred A. Knopf.

Find it at WCPL

Invisible Lines by Mary Amato

Summary: Coming from a poor, single-parent family, seventh-grader Trevor must rely on his intelligence, artistic ability, quick wit, and soccer prowess to win friends at his new Washington, D.C. school, but popular and rich Xander seems determined to cause him trouble. 319 p., Egmont USA.

Find it at WCPL

The Indigo Notebook by Laura Resau

Summary: Fifteen-year-old Zeeta comes to terms with her flighty mother and their itinerant life when, soon after moving to Ecuador, she helps an American teenager find his birth father in a nearby village. 324 p., Delacorte Press.

Find at WCPL

Curse of the Spider King by Wayne Thomas Batson and Christopher Hopper

Summary: With mysterious Sentinels revealing breathtaking secrets of the past, and dark strangers haunting their every move, seven young Elf Lords must decide whether to remain on Earth or return to their homeland of Allyra. 372 p., Thomas Nelson.

Find it at WCPL

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Summary:  In a small South Carolina town, where it seems little has changed since the Civil War, sixteen-year-old Ethan is powerfully drawn to Lena, a new classmate with whom he shares a psychic connection and whose family hides a dark secret that may be revealed on her sixteenth birthday.  563 p., Little, Brown and Co.

Find it at WCPL

The Shorter Short List

In anticipation of our final vote this coming Friday (January 15), we’ve pared down our short list to the real contenders.  Anyone care to speculate on our winners?

• Amaranth Enchantment by Julie Berry
• Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin
• Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner
• The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
• If the Witness Lied by Caroline Cooney
• Jane in Bloom by Deborah Lytton
• Just One Wish by Janette Rallison
• Mare’s War by Tanita Davis
• My Fair Godmother by Janette Rallison
• Operation Yes by Sara Lewis Holmes
• Peace, Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson
• The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon
• A Season of Gifts by Richard Peck
• Scat by Carl Hiaason
• Watersmeet by Ellen Jensen Abbott
• When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
• Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
• Wild Things by Clay Carmichael

Million-Dollar Throw by Mike Lupica

Summary: Eighth-grade star quarterback Nate Brodie’s family is feeling the stress of the troubled economy, and Nate is frantic because his best friend Abby is going blind, so when he gets a chance to win a million dollars if he can complete a pass during the halftime of a New England Patriot’s game, he is nearly overwhelmed by the pressure to succeed. 244 p., Philomel Books.

Find it at WCPL

Homestretch by Paul Volponi

Summary: Five months after losing his mother, seventeen-year-old Gas runs away from an abusive father and gets a job working at an Arkansas race track, surrounded by the illegal Mexican immigrants that he and his father blame for her death. 151 p., Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

Find it at WCPL

The Demon King: A Seven Realms Novel by Cinda Williams Chima

Summary: Relates the intertwining fates of former street gang leader Han Alister and headstrong Princess Raisa, as Han takes possession of an amulet that once belonged to an evil wizard and Raisa uncovers a conspiracy in the Grey Wolf Court.  506 p., Disney/Hyperion Books.

Find it at WCPL

Short List #4 – Our Top Six Vote

Following the official Newbery process as closely as we can, each of our club members has nominated his or her top six favorites of the year for our Mock Newbery Award.  This is the resulting “short” list – 30 books long.  We will be debating and comparing the merits of these books for the next few weeks.  Click on the title of a book to see the discussion of it.

• Alcatraz versus the Knights of Crystallia by Brandon Sanderson
• Amaranth Enchantment by Julie Berry
• Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin
• Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner
• Darkwood by M. E. Breen
• Distant Waves: A Novel of the Titanic by Suzanne Weyn
• The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
• Faith, Hope & Ivy June by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
• If the Witness Lied by Caroline Cooney
• Jane in Bloom by Deborah Lytton
• Just One Wish by Janette Rallison
• Kaleidoscope Eyes by Jen Bryant
• Mare’s War by Tanita Davis
• The Maze Runner by James Dashner
• Mike Stellar: Nerves of Steel by K. A. Holt
• Mudville by Kurtis Scaletta
• My Fair Godmother by Janette Rallison
• Operation Yes by Sara Lewis Holmes
• Peace, Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson
• The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon
• A Season of Gifts by Richard Peck
• Scat by Carl Hiaason
• The Secret of Zoom by Lynne Jonell
• Violet Wings by Victoria Hanley
• Watersmeet by Ellen Jensen Abbott
• When the Whistle Blows by Fran Slayton
• When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
• Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
• Wild Things by Clay Carmichael

Note:   We have removed Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman from our list.  It was written in 2008 and first published in the U.K., so is not eligible for the 2010 Newbery Awards.

Crossing Stones by Helen Frost

Summary:  In their own voices, four young people, Muriel, Frank, Emma, and Ollie, tell of their experiences during the first World War, as the boys enlist and are sent overseas, Emma finishes school, and Muriel fights for peace and women’s suffrage. 184 p., Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

 

Comfort by Joyce Hostetter

Summary: In 1945 Hickory, North Carolina, Ann Fay’s father is back from the war but she must still rely on her own strength and determination as she faces the problems of her polio-induced disability and her father’s failure to get a job. Includes facts about the disability rights movement. 306 p., Calkins Creek.

Find it at WCPL

The Sweetheart of Prosper County by Jill Alexander

Summary: In a small East Texas town largely ruled by prejudices and bullies, fourteen-year-old Austin sets out to win a ride in the next parade and, in the process, grows in her understanding of friendship and helps her widowed mother through her mourning. 212 p., Feiwel and Friends.

Find it at WCPL

Road to Tater Hill by Edith Morris Hemingway

Summary: At her grandparents’ North Carolina mountain home during the summer of 1963, eleven-year-old Annie Winters, grief-stricken by the death of her newborn sister and isolated by her mother’s deepening depression, finds comfort in holding an oblong stone “rock baby” and in the friendship of a neighbor boy and a reclusive mountain woman with a devastating secret. 213 p., Delacorte Press.