GENTLE’S HOLLER

• In the early 1960s, twelve-year-old songwriter Livy Two Weems dreams of seeing the world beyond the Maggie Valley, North Carolina, the holler where she lives in poverty with her parents and eight brothers and sisters, but understands that she must put family first.

JUMPING THE SCRATCH

• After moving with his mother to a trailer park to care for an injured aunt, eleven-year-old Jamie Reardon struggles to cope with a deeply buried secret.

THE LEGEND OF BASS REEVES

• The story of Bass Reeves who was born a slave and later became one of the most respected federal marshals in Oklahoma and Texas.

LISTENING FOR LIONSLeft an orphan after the

influenza epidemic in British East Africa in 1919, thirteen-year-old Rachel is tricked into assuming a deceased neighbor's identity to travel to England, where her only dream is to return to Africa and rebuild her parents' mission hospital.

HEAT

• Pitching prodigy Michael Arroyo is on the run from social services after being banned from playing Little League baseball because rival coaches doubt he is only twelve years old and he has no parents to offer them proof.

WEEDFLOWER• After twelve-year-old

Sumiko and her Japanese-American family are relocated from their flower farm in southern California to an internment camp on a Mojave Indian reservation in Arizona, she helps her family and neighbors, becomes friends with a local Indian boy, and tries to hold on to her dream of owning a flower shop.

HATTIE BIG SKY

• Sixteen-year-old Hattie Brooks inherits her uncle's homesteading claim in Montana in 1917 and encounters some unexpected problems related to the war in Europe.

THE LIGHTHOUSE LAND• Shortly after moving

with his mother from Harlem to Ireland, teen cancer survivor Jamie O'Neill discovers a portal in a lighthouse that brings him to a distant planet, where he helps a community of aliens fight against invading warriors.

ALABAMA MOON• After the death of his

father, ten-year-old Moon Blake is removed from the Alabama forest where he was raised and sent to a boy's home, where, for the first time, he has contact with the outside world and learns about friendship, love, and humanity.

BLACK DUCK

• Years afterwards, Ruben Hart tells the story of how, in 1929 Newport, Rhode Island, his family and his best friend's family were caught up in the violent competition among groups trying to control the local rum-smuggling trade.

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

• Like her idol Sherlock Holmes, eighth grader Ingrid Levin-Hill uses her intellect to solve a murder case in her home town of Echo Falls.

ESCAPE

• A biography of the magician, ghost chaser, aviator, and king of escape artists whose amazing feats are remembered long after his death in 1926.

FAIREST

• In the Kingdom of Ayortha, Aza, an unattractive woman with a magical voice, learns to balance her appearance with her talent, meanwhile, her singing attracts both Prince Ijori, who cannot resist it, and Queen Ivi, who plots to use it to benefit herself.

THE LIGHTNING THIEFPercy, expelled from six

schools for being unable to control his temper, learns the truth from his mother that his father is the Greek god Poseidon, and is sent to Camp Half Blood where he is befriended by a satyr and the demigod daughter of Athena who join him in a journey to the Underworld to retrieve Zeus's lightning bolt and prevent a catastrophic war.

LA LINEA• When fifteen-year-old

Miguel's time finally comes to leave his poor Mexican village, cross the border illegally, and join his parents in California, his younger sister's determination to join him soon imperils them both.

OUTBREAK!• Examines some of

the world's worst diseases such as smallpox, tuberculosis, the Black Death, and Cholera, and describes how these epidemics helped to changed history.

PENNY FROM HEAVEN• As she turns twelve

during the summer of 1953, Penny gains new insights into herself and her family while also learning a secret about her father's death.

RUNAWAY• After running away

from her fifth foster home, Holly, a twelve-year-old orphan, travels across the country, keeping a journal of her experiences and struggle to survive.

YELLOW STAR

• From 1939, when Syvia is four and a half years old, to 1945 when she has just turned ten, a Jewish girl and her family struggle to survive in Poland's Lodz ghetto during the Nazi occupation.

Citations

“Title Detail.” Follett Library Services. 2008. 6 September 2008. <www.titlewave.com>

“Young Hoosier Book Award.” Indiana Library Federation. 2008. 6 September 2008. <http://www.ilfonline.org/Programs/yhba.htm>