Middle School Nominees

One Crazy Summer

By Rita Williams-Garcia

This is the story of an incredibly mature 11-year-old Delphine, who, along with her two younger sisters, is being sent from Brooklyn by their father, to spend time with their estranged mother in Oakland, California. The younger girls don't remember their mother and don't know that she abandoned them, so they are excited to be visiting, and are certain she will welcome them with open arms. Instead of taking her children to Disneyland as they had hoped, Cecile shoos them off to the neighborhood People's Center, run by members of the Black Panthers. Delphine doesn't buy into all of the group's ideas, but she does come to understand her mother a little better over the summer.

Rita Williams-Garcia

Wonderstruck

By Brian Selznick

Ben Wilson lives in Gunflint, MN. His mother has just died, and he doesn't know the whereabouts of his father. Disaster ensues when Ben is struck by lightning and loses the hearing in his one good ear. He runs away from his aunt and uncle and goes in search of his father. Parallel to Ben's story, and told through illustrations, is the story of Rose, a deaf child who lives in Hoboken, NJ, in 1927, with her overbearing father. She lives in a room that feels more like a prison, where she keeps a scrapbook of her silent-film star mother and builds models of New York City. Both Ben and Rose escape to New York and are drawn to the American Museum of Natural History. It is there that they find the connections they are seeking. The way that the stories of Ben and Rose echo one another, and then finally connect, is a thing of wonder to behold.

Brian Selznick

Faith, Hope, and Ivy June

By Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Ivy June Mosely and Catherine Combs, two girls from different parts of Kentucky, are participating in the first seventh-grade student exchange program between their schools. The girls will stay at each other's homes, attend school together, and record their experience in their journals. Catherine and her family have a beautiful home with plenty of space. Since Ivy June's house is crowded, she lives with her grandparents. Her Pappaw works in the coal mines supporting four generations of kinfolk. Ivy June can't wait until he leaves that mine forever and retires. As the girls get closer, they discover they're more alike than different, especially when they face the terror of not knowing what's happening to those they love most.

Young Adult Nominees

The Running Dream

By Wendelin Van Draanen

Sixteen-year-old Jessica lives to run. She's a track star, but she loses her leg when an uninsured driver hits her school bus. The tale follows Jessica's initial despair and growing confidence as she struggles to cope with her disability and her father works to pay medical bills. At last the community rallies round her with a fund drive to buy her a prosthetic running leg. Meanwhile, Jessica makes friends with Rosa, a bright girl with cerebral palsy whom she had never noticed before. She decides to help Rosa as her friends have helped her, but Jessica's decision to push the wheelchair-bound girl through a 10-mile race might be too ambitious.  How Jessica orchestrates putting Rosa in the forefront of a community race and pushing her wheelchair across a finish line is a study in faith and determination. Readers will cheer for Jessica's recovery and be reminded to recognize people for their strengths and not overlook them because of their disabilities.

Wendelin Van Draanen

Revolution

By Jennifer Donnelly

An angry, grieving seventeen-year-old musician facing expulsion from her prestigious Brooklyn private school travels to Paris to complete a school assignment and uncovers a diary written during the French revolution by a young actress attempting to help a tortured, imprisoned little boy--Louis Charles, the lost king of France.

Jennifer Donnelly