Abraham Lincoln Illinois High School Book Award 2005 Nominees
(Note: JPL will be a voting location this coming spring!)
Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging
by Louise Rennison
J REN
Presents the humorous journal of a year in
the life of fourteen-year-old British girl who tries to reduce the
size of her nose, stop her mad cat from terrorizing the
neighborhood animals, and win the love of handsome hunk Robbie.
Born Confused
by Tanuja Desai Hidier J HID Dimple's parents are from India, and
she's has spent years rebelling against their customs. Now
everything from India is hip--even her best friend wears a bindi
dot as an accessory. She also resents her parents setting her up
with a "suitable" boy. Their first meeting is a disaster. But when
they meet again in a club where he's the the DJ, Dimple suddenly
finds him suitable because of his sheer unsuitability.
Breathing Underwater by Alex Flinn J FLI
Nick is one of the chosen few at his high
school: intelligent, popular, and wealthy. While everyone thinks
Nick has it easy, he has never told anyone of his father's violent
temper. When Nick meets Caitlin, she's all he's ever wanted. But
then everything changes.
Bronx Masquerade
by Nikki Grimes J GRI
Eighteen students in a high school English
class open up and take the risky challenge of self-revelation in
weekly poetry sessions. Through their poetry and narratives, they
share their most intimate thoughts about themselves and one
another, their lives, and what lies beneath the skin and beyond
the masquerade.
A Child Called "IT" by
Dave Pelzer
362.76092 PEL
Dave Pelzer shares his unforgettable story
of the many abuses he suffered at the hands of his alcoholic
mother and the averted eyes of his neglectful father. Someone with
no one to turn to, his dreams barely kept him alive. Through each
of his struggles, readers will find themselves enduring his pain,
comforting his loneliness and fighting for his will to survive.
Cut
by Patricia McCormick
J MCC
Callie's parents and doctors have placed her
in a "residential treatment facility" after discovering she
obsessively cuts herself. But when the threat of expulsion
precipitates another cutting incident that frightens her, Callie
finally begins her healing process.
Ender's Shadow by Orson
Scott Card
Fiction Card In this new parallel novel to "Ender's
Game, " Card tells the story of another child in the Battle
School--a boy named Bean, whose past was a fight just to survive
and whose mind was leagues beyond anyone else's.
The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon
by Stephen King
Fiction King
A young girl who lost in the woods with only
her Walkman for comfort listens to a Boston Red Sox game for
comfort while a multitude of thoughts concerning her parents'
newly divorced status runs through her mind. There may be
something threatening in the woods, then again, there may not be.
. . .
The Golden Compass
by Philip Pullman
J PUL
Pullman introduces readers to a world as
convincing and thoroughly realized as Narnia, Earthsea, of Redwall,
wherein lives a half-wild, half-civilized girl named Lyra Belacqua,
whose carefree life among the scholars of Jordan College is about
the shattered by the arrival of two powerful visitors.
Hanging Onto Max by Margaret Bechard J
BEC When
his girlfriend decides to give their baby away, seventeen-year-old
Sam is determined to keep him and raise him alone.
Imani All Mine by Connie Rose Porter
Fiction Porter ”Mama
say I'm grown now because I got Imani. She say Imani all mine. I
know she all mine, and I like it just like that, not having to
share my baby with no one. Imani even look like me. I know she do,
got my nose on her face, and my lips, my hands. Her fingers shaped
just like mine, wide and flat. I don't care what nobody say, who
they say they might see in her. It's only me in her.” (excerpt)
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Fiction Martel ”My
suffering left me sad and gloomy.
Academic study and the steady, mindful practice of religion slowly
brought me back to life. I have remained a faithful Hindu,
Christian and Muslim. I decided to stay in Toronto. After one year
of high school, I attended the University of Toronto and took a
double-major Bachelor's degree. My majors were religious studies
and zoology. My fourth-year thesis for religious studies concerned
certain aspects of the cosmogony theory of Isaac Luria, the great
sixteenth-century Kabbalist from Safed. My zoology thesis was a
functional analysis of the thyroid gland of the three-toed sloth.
I chose the sloth because its demeanour-calm, quiet and
introspective-did something to soothe my shattered self. “
(excerpt)
The Lovely Bonesby Alice
Sebold
Fiction Sebold
This is the tale of family, memory, love, and living told by
14-year-old Susie Salmon, who is already in heaven. Through the
voice of a precocious teenage girl, Susie relates the awful events
of her death and builds out of her family's grief a hopeful and
joyful story.
Monsterby Walter Dean
Myers
J MYE
While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old
Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the
courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to
terms with the course his life has taken.
Sabrielby Garth Nix
J NIX Sabriel, daughter of the
necromancer Abhorsen, must journey into the mysterious and magical
Old Kingdom to rescue her father from the Land of the Dead.
Secret Life of Beesby Sue Monk Kidd Fiction Kidd Living on a
peach farm in South Carolina with her harsh, unyielding father,
Lily Owens has shaped her entire life around one devastating,
blurred memory - the afternoon her mother was killed, when Lily
was four. Since then, her only real companion has been the
fierce-hearted, and sometimes just fierce, black woman Rosaleen,
who acts as her "stand-in mother." When Rosaleen insults three of
the deepest racists in town, Lily knows it's time to spring them
both free. They take off in the only direction Lily can think of,
toward a town called Tiburon, South Carolina - a name she found on
the back of a picture amid the few possessions left by her mother.
Soldier's Heart
by Gary Paulsen
J PAU Eager
to enlist, fifteen-year-old Charley has a change of heart after
experiencing both the physical horrors and mental anguish of Civil
War combat.
Son of the Mobby Gordon
Korman
J KOR
Seventeen-year-old Vince's life is constantly complicated by the
fact that he is the son of a powerful Mafia boss, a relationship
that threatens to destroy his romance with the daughter of an FBI
agent
Speak by
Laurie Halse
Anderson J AND
A traumatic event near the end of the summer has a devastating
effect of Melinda's freshman year in high school.
Squared Circle by
James Bennett
J BEN
Sonny, a university freshman and star basketball player, finds
that the pressures of college life, NCAA competition, and an
unsettling relationship with his feminist cousin bring up
painful memories that he must face before he can decide what is
important in his life.
Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman
J TRU
Fourteen-year-old Shawn McDaniel, who suffers from severe
cerebral palsy and cannot function, relates his perceptions of
his life, his family, and his condition, especially as he
believes his father is planning to kill him.
Year of Wonders
by Geraldine Brooks
Fiction Brooks
”To be
sure, there wasn't much there that was him. But what there was,
I tended. That was two years ago. Since then, I've tended so
many bodies, people I loved and people I barely knew. But Sam's
was the first. I bathed him with the soap he liked, because he
said it smelled of the children. Poor slow Sam. He never quite
realized that it was the children who smelled of the soap. I
washed them in it every night before he came home. I made it
with heather blooms, a much gentler soap than the one I made for
him. His soap was almost all grit and lye. It had to be, to
scrape that paste of sweat and soil from his skin. He would bury
his poor tired face in the babies' hair and breathe the fresh
scent of them. It was the closest he got to the airy hillsides.
Down in the mine at daybreak, out again after sundown. A life in
the dark. And a death there, too. “ (excerpt)
