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
• Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman
• 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

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

 

Peter and the Sword of Mercy by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

Summary: James, one of Peter’s original Lost Boys, is now working for Scotland Yard and suspects that the heir to England’s throne, Prince Albert Edward, is under the influence of shadow creatures who are after starstuff hidden in an underground vault which has only one key: the Sword of Mercy. Molly is determined to help, but when she suddenly goes missing, it’s up to her eleven-year-old daughter, Wendy, to keep the starstuff out of the creatures’ clutches … and Peter Pan may be her only hope in saving the world from a shadowy doom.  515 p., Disney/Hyperion Books.

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A Pearl Among Princes by Coleen Paratore

Summary:  As her sixteenth birthday approaches, Gracepearl feels her deceased mother guiding her toward a decision between life on a remote, agrarian island with her childhood love, or somewhere far away with a young man in training to be a prince.  195 p. Dial Books for Young Readers.

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The Islands of the Blessed by Nancy Farmer

Summary: Two years after their adventures in The Land of the Silver Apples, the apprentice bard Jack and his Viking companion Thorgil confront the malevolent spirit of a vengeful mermaid and begin a quest that casts them among the fin folk of Notland. 479 p., Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

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Back Home by Julia Keller

Summary: Thirteen-year-old Rachel Browning understands that her father will be different after being injured in the Iraq War, but no one is prepared for the impact that his traumatic brain injury and other wounds have on the entire family. 194 p., EgmontUSA.

Rapacia: The Second Circle of Heck by Dale E. Basye

Summary: Formerly dead Milton Fauster tries to save his older sister Marlo from “eternal darnation” when she is sent to another educational level of the Underworld reform school known as Heck. 362 p., Random House.

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Wild Things by Clay Carmichael

Summary: Stubborn, self-reliant, eleven-year-old Zoe, recently orphaned, moves to the country to live with her prickly half-uncle, a famous doctor and sculptor, and together they learn about trust and the strength of family. 241 p., Front Street.

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The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis by Barbara O’Connor

Summary:  In Fayette, South Carolina, the highlight of Popeye’s summer is learning vocabulary words with his grandmother until a motor home gets stuck nearby and Elvis, the oldest boy living inside, joins Popeye in finding the source of strange boats floating down the creek. 149 p., Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

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