2022 Winner and Honor Books
The last cuentista
Donna Barba Higuera
2021
ISBN: 9781646140893
"A girl named Petra Pena, who wanted nothing more than to be a storyteller, like her abuelita. But Petra's world is ending. Earth has been destroyed by a comet, and only a few hundred scientists and their children - among them Petra and her family - have been chosen to journey to a new planet. They are the ones who must carry on the human race. Hundreds of years later, Petra wakes to this new planet - and the discovery that she is the only person who remembers Earth. A sinister Collective has taken over the ship during its journey, bent on erasing the sins of humanity's past. They have systematically purged the memories of all aboard - or purged them altogether. Petra alone now carries the stories of our past, and with them, any hope for our future. Can she make them live again? " -- Publisher's description.
Red, white, and whole
Rajani LaRocca
2021
ISBN: 9780063047426
"Reha feels torn between two worlds: school, where she's the only Indian American student, and home, with her family's traditions and holidays. But Reha's parents don't understand why she's conflicted--they only notice when Reha doesn't meet their strict expectations. Reha feels disconnected from her mother, or Amma, although their names are linked--Reha means "star" and Punam means "moon"--but they are a universe apart. Then Reha finds out that her Amma is sick. Really sick. Reha, who dreams of becoming a doctor even though she can't stomach the sight of blood, is determined to make her Amma well again. She'll be the perfect daughter, if it means saving her Amma's life"-- Provided by publisher
A snake falls to Earth
Darcie Little Badger
2021
ISBN: 9781646140923
Fifteen-year-olds Nina and Oli come from different words--she is a Lipan Apache living in Texas and he is a cottonmouth from the Reflecting World--but their lives intersect when Oli journeys to Earth to find a cure for his ailing friend and they end up helping each other save their families.
Too bright to see
Kyle Lukoff
2021
ISBN: 9780593111154
In the summer before middle school, eleven-year-old Bug must contend with best friend Moira suddenly caring about clothes, makeup, and boys; a ghost haunting; and the truth about Bug's gender identity.
Watercress
Andrea Wang ; illustrated by Jason Chin
2021
ISBN: 9780823446247
Embarrassed about gathering watercress from a roadside ditch, a girl learns to appreciate her Chinese heritage after learning why the plant is so important to her parents.
Past Winners
When you trap a tiger
Tae Keller
2020
ISBN: 9781524715700
"When Lily, her sister Sam, and their mother move in with her sick grandmother, Lily traps a tiger and makes a deal with him to heal Halmoni." -- (Source of summary not specified)
Merci Suárez changes gears
Meg Medina
2018
ISBN: 9780763690496
Merci Suárez knew that sixth grade would be different, but she had no idea just how different. For starters, Merci has never been like the other kids at her private school in Florida, because she and her older brother, Roli, are scholarship students. They don't have a big house or a fancy boat, and they have to do extra community service to make up for their free tuition. So when bossy Edna Santos sets her sights on the new boy who happens to be Merci's school-assigned Sunshine Buddy, Merci becomes the target of Edna's jealousy. Things aren't going well at home, either: Merci's grandfather and most trusted ally, Lolo, has been acting strangely lately -- forgetting important things, falling from his bike, and getting angry over nothing. No one in her family will tell Merci what's going on, so she's left to her own worries, while also feeling all on her own at school.
Hello, universe
Erin Entrada Kelly
2017
ISBN: 9780062414151
Virgil feels out of place in his crazy-about-sports family. Valencia is deaf, smart, and loves everything about nature. Kaori is a self-proclaimed psychic, whose little sister, Gen, is always following her around. And Chet wishes the weird kids would just stop being so different so that he can concentrate on basketball. They aren't friends. But when Chet pulls a prank that traps Virgil and his pet guinea pig at the bottom of a well, Kaori, Gen, and Valencia begin a quest to find the missing Virgil.
The girl who drank the moon
Kelly Barnhill
2016
ISBN: 9781616205676
"An epic fantasy about a young girl raised by a witch, a swamp monster, and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon, who must unlock the powerful magic buried deep inside her. Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the forest, Xan, is kind and gentle. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster named Glerk and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon, Fyrian. Xan rescues the abandoned children and delivers them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey. One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this enmagicked girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own. To keep young Luna safe from her own unwieldy power, Xan locks her magic deep inside her. When Luna approaches her thirteenth birthday, her magic begins to emerge on schedule--but Xan is far away. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch. Soon, it is up to Luna to protect those who have protected her--even if it means the end of the loving, safe world she's always known. The acclaimed author of The Witch's Boy has created another epic coming-of-age fairy tale destined to become a modern classic"-- Provided by publisher.
Last stop on Market Street
words by Matt de la Peña ; pictures by Christian Robinson
2015
ISBN: 9780605851269
A young boy rides the bus across town with his grandmother and learns to appreciate the beauty in everyday things.
The crossover
by Kwame Alexander
2014
ISBN: 9780544107717
Fourteen-year-old twin basketball stars Josh and Jordan wrestle with highs and lows on and off the court as their father ignores his declining health.
Flora & Ulysses : the illumated adventures
Kate DiCamillo ; illustrated by K.G. Campbell
2013
ISBN: 9780763660406
The one and only Ivan
Katherine Applegate ; illustrations by Patricia Castelao
2014
ISBN: 9780061992254
When Ivan, a gorilla who has lived for years in a down-and-out circus-themed mall, meets Ruby, a baby elephant that has been added to the mall, he decides that he must find her a better life.
Dead end in Norvelt
Jack Gantos
2011
ISBN: 9780374379933
In the historic town of Norvelt, Pennsylvania, twelve-year-old Jack Gantos spends the summer of 1962 grounded for various offenses until he is assigned to help an elderly neighbor with a most unusual chore involving the newly dead, molten wax, twisted promises, Girl Scout cookies, underage driving, lessons from history, typewriting, and countless bloody noses.
Moon over Manifest
Clare Vanderpool
2010
ISBN: 9780385907507
Twelve-year-old Abilene Tucker is the daughter of a drifter who, in the summer of 1936, sends her to stay with an old friend in Manifest, Kansas, where he grew up, and where she hopes to find out some things about his past.
When you reach me
Rebecca Stead
2010
ISBN: 9780385737425
Miranda's world is turning upside down. Her best friend Sal shuts her out of his life when he's punched by a new kid for no apparent reason. Her mom is about to be a contestant on a TV game show. A key goes missing, then a pair of shoes. And Miranda finds a mysterious note scrawled on a tiny piece of paper: I am coming to save your friend's life, and my own. I ask two favours. First, you must write a letter. Then she finds other notes left in strange places and she realises that whoever is leaving them knows all about her, including things that haven't even happened yet ...
The graveyard book
Neil Gaiman ; with illustrations by Dave McKean
2008
ISBN: 9780060530921
After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own.
Good masters! Sweet Ladies! : voices from a medieval village
Laura Amy Schlitz ; illustrated by Robert Byrd
2007
ISBN: 9780763615789
A collection of short one-person plays featuring characters, between ten and fifteen years old, who live in or near a thirteenth-century English manor.
The higher power of Lucky
by Susan Patron ; with illustrations by Matt Phelan
2006
ISBN: 9781416901945
Fearing that her legal guardian plans to abandon her to return to France, ten-year-old aspiring scientist Lucky Trimble determines to run away while also continuing to seek the Higher Power that will bring stability to her life.
Criss cross
by Lynne Rae Perkins
2008
ISBN: 9780060092740
Teenagers in a small town in the 1960s experience new thoughts and feelings, question their identities, connect, and disconnect as they search for the meaning of life and love.
Kira-Kira
Cynthia Kadohata
2004
ISBN: 9780689856396
Chronicles the close friendship between two Japanese-American sisters growing up in rural Georgia during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the despair when one sister becomes terminally ill.
The tale of Despereaux : being the story of a mouse, a princess, some soup, and a spool of thread
Kate DiCamillo ; illustrated by Timothy Basil Ering
2003
ISBN: 9780763692797
The adventures of Despereaux Tilling, a small mouse of unusual talents, the princess that he loves, the servant girl who longs to be a princess, and a devious rat determined to bring them all to ruin.
Crispin : the cross of lead
Avi
2002
ISBN: 9780786808281
Falsely accused of theft and murder, an orphaned peasant boy in fourteenth-century England flees his village and meets a larger-than-life juggler who holds a dangerous secret.
A single shard
Linda Sue Park
2001
ISBN: 9780395978276
Tree-ear, a thirteen-year-old orphan in medieval Korea, lives under a bridge in a potters' village, and longs to learn how to throw the delicate celadon ceramics himself.
A Year Down Yonder
Peck,Richard.
2000
ISBN: 9780803725188
Bud, not Buddy
Christopher Paul Curtis
1999
ISBN: 9780385323062
Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father--the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids.
Holes
Louis Sachar
2000
ISBN: 9780374332655
As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.
Out of the dust
Karen Hesse
1997
ISBN: 9780590360807
In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.
The view from Saturday
E.L. Konigsburg
1996
ISBN: 9780689809934
Four students, with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a paraplegic, who chooses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition. Mrs. Eva Marie Olinski always gave good answers. Whenever she was asked how she had selected her team for the Academic Bowl, she chose one of several good answers. Most often she said that the four members of her team had skills that balanced one another. That was reasonable. Sometimes she said that she knew her team would practice. That was accurate. To the district superintendent of schools, she gave a bad answer, but she did that only once, only to him, and if that answer was not good, her reason for giving it was. The fact was that Mrs. Olinski did not know how she had chosen her team, and the further fact was that she didn't know that she didn't know until she did know. Of course, that is true of most things you do not know up to and including the very last second before you do. And for Mrs. Olinski that was not until Bowl Day was over and so was the work of her four sixth graders. They called themselves The Souls. They told Mrs. Olinski that they were The Souls long before they were a team, but she told them that they were a team as soon as they became The Souls. Then after a while, teacher and team agreed that they were arguing chicken-or-egg. Whichever way it began -- chicken-or-egg, team-or-The Souls -- it definitely ended with an egg. Definitely, an egg.
The midwife's apprentice
by Karen Cushman
2019
ISBN: 9780395692295
In medieval England, a nameless, homeless girl is taken in by a sharp-tempered midwife and, in spite of obstacles and hardship, eventually gains the three things she wants most: a full belly, a contented heart, and a place in the world.
Walk two moons
by Sharon Creech
1994
ISBN: 9780060233341
After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left.
The giver
Lois Lowry
1994
ISBN: 9780395645666
Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives.
Missing May
by Cynthia Rylant
1992
ISBN: 9780531059968
After the death of the beloved aunt who has raised her, twelve-year-old Summer and her uncle Ob leave their West Virginia trailer in search of the strength to go on living. Twelve-year-old Summer, her classmate Cletus, and her grieving Uncle Ob set off across West Virginia in search of a "Small Medium at Large" in fond hopes of reaching Aunt May beyond the grave. Their journey is heartening, funny, and altogether unforgettable.
Shiloh
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
1991
ISBN: 9780689316142
When he finds a lost beagle in the hills behind his West Virginia home, Marty tries to hide it from his family and the dog's real owner, a mean-spirited man known to shoot deer out of season and to mistreat his dogs.
Maniac Magee : a novel
by Jerry Spinelli
1990
ISBN: 9780316807227
After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries.
New kid
Jerry Craft ; with color by Jim Callahan
2019
ISBN: 9780062691200
"Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade. As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds--and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighborhood friends and staying true to himself?" Provided by publisher.