The Georges and the Jewels by Jane Smiley

"Sometimes when you fall off your horse, you just don't want to get
right back on."

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Abstract: Seventh-grader Abby Lovitt grows up on her family's California horse ranch in the 1960s, learning to train the horses her father sells and trying to reconcile her strict religious upbringing with her own ideas about life.

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf; 232 pages

Eli the Good by Silas House

"That was the summer of the bicentennial, when all these things happened: my sister, Josie, began to hate our country and slapped my mother's face; my wild aunt, Nell, moved in with us, bringing along all five thousand or so of her records and a green record player that ran on batteries; my father started going back to Vietnam in his dreams, and I saw him cry; my mother did the Twist in front of the whole town and nearly lost us all."

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Abstract: In the summer of 1976, ten-year-old Eli Book's excitement over Bicentennial celebrations is tempered by his father's flashbacks to the Vietnam War and other family problems, as well as concern about his tough but troubled best friend, Edie.

Publisher: Candlewick Press; 295 pages

Mock Newbery List 3 will be announced early next week

Wow! We've been seeing lots of great books -- both fiction and nonfiction -- this year, and it's time to decide which we want to include on our third "official" reading list. Which titles would YOU like to see included? Which titles do YOU think deserve to be discussed in-person in January? Let us know by responding to this post, or to the individual titles' posts.

If you want to see which titles are already on our reading list, click here.

We'll be looking forward to your responses!

Leo and the Lesser Lion by Sandra Forrester

"I don't remember dying."

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Abstract: In Depression-era Alabama, twelve-year-old Mary Bayliss Pettigrew struggles to understand why her beloved older brother, Leo, died and whether she, miraculously, survived for some special purpose.

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf; 296 pages

Faith, Hope, and Ivy June by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

"They'll probably be polite -- crisp as a soda cracker on the outside, hard as day-old biscuits underneath."

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Abstract: During a student exchange program, seventh-graders Ivy June and Catherine share their lives, homes, and communities, and find that although their lifestyles are total opposites they have a lot in common.

Publisher: Delacorte Press; 280 pages

The Day of the Pelican by Katherine Paterson

"Terrible things should never happen in springtime,
and it was almost spring."

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Abstract: In 1998 when the Kosovo hostilities escalate, thirteen-year-old Meli's life as an ethnic Albanian, changes forever after her brother escapes his Serbian captors and the entire family flees from one refugee camp to another until they are able to immigrate to America.

Publisher: Clarion Books; 144 pages

Kaleidoscope Eyes by Jen Bryant

"I wake up every morning to Janis Joplin."

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Abstract: In 1968, with the Vietnam War raging, thirteen-year-old Lyza inherits a project from her deceased grandfather, who had been using his knowledge of maps and the geography of Lyza's New Jersey hometown to locate the lost treasure of Captain Kidd.

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf; 264 pages

Operation Redwood by S. Terrell French

"Julian Carter-Li opened his eyes and immediately knew he was somewhere he'd never woken up before."

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Abstract: In northern California, Julian Carter-Li and his friends old and new fight to save a grove of redwoods from an investment company that plans to cut them down.

Publisher: Amulet Books; 353 pages

Unfinished Angel by Sharon Creech

"Peoples are strange!"

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Abstract: In a tiny village in the Swiss Alps, an angel meets an American girl named Zola who has come with her father to open a school, and together Zola and the angel rescue a group of homeless orphans, who gradually change everything.

Publisher: Harper Collins; 164 pages

Crossing Stones by Helen Frost

"You'd better straighten out your mind, Young Lady."

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Summary: In their own voices, four young people, Muriel, Frank, Emma, and Ollie, tell f 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.

Publisher: Frances Foster Books, 184 pages

The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

"At the end of the century before last, in the market square of the city of Baltese, there stood a boy with a hat on his head and a coin in his hand."

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Abstract: When ten-year-old orphan Peter Augustus Duchene encounters a fortune teller in the marketplace one day and she tells him that his sister, who is presumed dead, is in fact alive, he embarks on a remarkable series of adventures as he desperately tries to find her.

Publisher: Candlewick Press, 201 pages

Mare's War by Tanita S. Davis

"It's just a sporty red car parked across our driveway, but when I see it,
my stomach plummets."

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Abstract: Teens Octavia and Tali learn about strength, independence, and courage when they are forced to take a car trip with their grandmother, who tells about growing up Black in 1940s Alabama and serving in Europe during World War II as a member of the Women's Army Corps.

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf; 341 pages

Umbrella Summer by Lisa Graff

"If you started to squeeze your brakes right in the middle of heading down Maple Hill, just as you're passing old Mr. Normor's mailbox, you could coast into the bike rack in front of Lippy's Market without making a single tire squeak."

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Abstract: After her brother Jared dies, ten-year-old Annie worries about the hidden dangers of everything, from bug bites to bicycle riding, until she is befriended by a new neighbor who is grieving her own loss.

Publisher: Laura Geringer Books; 235 pages

Season of Gifts by Richard Peck

"You could see from here the house was haunted."

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Summary: The eccentric, forceful, big-hearted Grandma Dowdel--the star of Peck's Newbery Medal-winning "A Year Down Yonder"--is back in this new story set during Christmas of 1958. A new family has moved in next door to Mrs. Dowdel, and soon she will work her particular brand of charm on all of them.

Publisher: Dial Books for Young Readers; 164 pages

Thirteenth Child by Patricia Wrede

"Everybody knows that a seventh son is lucky."

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Abstract: Eighteen-year-old Eff must finally get over believing she is bad luck and accept that her special training in Aphrikan magic, and being the twin of the seventh son of a seventh son, give her extraordinary power to combat magical creatures that threaten settlements on the western frontier.

Publisher: Scholastic Press; 344 pages