Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson

"Can you walk?" someone asked me.

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Summary: Separated from his friend Isabel after their daring escape from slavery, fifteen-year-old Curzon serves as a free man in the Continental Army at Valley Forge until he and Isabel are thrown together again, as slaves once more.

Publisher: Atheneum; 297 pages

Keeper by Kathi Appelt

"Keeper leaned over the edge of the boat."

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Summary: On the night of the blue moon when mermaids are said to gather on a sandbar in the Gulf of Mexico, ten-year-old Keeper sets out in a small boat, with her dog BD and a seagull named Captain, determined to find her mother, a mermaid, as Keeper has always believed, who left long ago to return to the sea.

Publisher: Atheneum; 399 pages

Falling In by Frances O'Roark Dowell

"On the morning this story begins, Isabelle Bean was convinced she was teetering on the edge of the universe."

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Summary: Middle-schooler Isabelle Bean follows a mouse's squeak into a closet and falls into a parallel universe where the children believe she is the witch they have feared for years, finally come to devour them.

Atheneum Books; 245 pages

Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper

"Words. I'm surrounded by thousands of words. Maybe millions."

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Summary: Eleven-year-old Melody has a photographic memory. Her head is like a video camera that is always recording. Always. And there's no delete button. She's the smartest kid in her whole school—but no one knows it. Most people—her teachers and doctors included—don't think she's capable of learning, and up until recently her school days consisted of listening to the same preschool-level alphabet lessons again and again and again. If only she could speak up, if only she could tell people what she thinks and knows . . . but she can't, because Melody can't talk. She can't walk. She can't write.Being stuck inside her head is making Melody go out of her mind—that is, until she discovers something that will allow her to speak for the first time ever. At last Melody has a voice . . . but not everyone around her is ready to hear it.

Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers; 288 pages

A Million Shades of Gray by Cynthia Kadohata

"Y'Tin Eban watched Tomas fasten the rope around Lady's neck."

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Summary: In 1975 after American troops pull out of Vietnam, a thirteen-year-old boy and his beloved elephant escape into the jungle when the Viet Cong attack his village.

Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 216 pages.

Lucky Breaks by Susan Patron

"Eleven, Lucky thought from her seat at the back of the school bus, eleven, eleven, eleven, and the idea of it, the sound of it, threw off sparks in her head."

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Abstract: Having reached the mature age of eleven in the tiny California town of Hard Pan (population 43), Lucky discovers that there is still much to learn about friendship, parental trust, and the Milky Way galaxy.

Publisher: Ginee Seo Books - Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 179 page

Phineas L. MacGuire Blasts Off! by Frances O'Roark Dowell

"My name is Phineas Listerman MacGuire. Feel free to call me Mac."

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Summary: Hoping to earn money to attend Space Camp, fourth-grade science whiz Phineas MacGuire gets a job as a dog walker, then enlists the aid of his friends Ben and Aretha to help with experiments using the dog's "slobber."

Publisher: Atheneum Books; 189 pages

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt

"There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for a while, and then abandoned on the side of the road."

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Summary: An old hound that has been chained up at his hateful owner's run-down shack, and two kittens born underneath the house, endure separation, danger, and many other tribulations.


Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers; 311 pages

Outside Beauty by Cynthia Kadohata

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"Please?" my little Sister Said. "Pleeeeease?"

Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers; 265 pages

Hush - An Irish Princess' Tale by Donna Jo Napoli

"Mel, hurry up!" Brigid calls, splashing through puddles, heedless of the mud that has come up through the wooden-plank paving of the road.

LC CIP Summary: Fifteen-year-old Melkorka, an Irish princess, is kidnapped by Russian slave traders and not only learns how to survive but to challenge some of the brutality of her captors, who are fascinated by her apparent muteness and the possibility that she is enchanted.

Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers; 308 pages (Alternate spellings of this award include: Newberry, Newbury, & Newbary)

Shooting the Moon by Frances O'Roark Dowell

"The day after my brother left for Vietnam, me and Private Hollister played thirty-seven hands of gin rummy, and I won twenty-one."

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LC CIP Summary: "When her brother is sent to fight in Vietnam, twelve-year-old Jamie begins to reconsider the army world that she has grown up in."


Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers; 163 pages (Alternate spellings of this award include: Newberry, Newbury, & Newbary)