Anokaberry 2009 Short List #1

Beanball by Gene Fehler
Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Chicken Foot Farm by Anne Estevis
Cicada Summer by Andrea Beaty
Comeback Season by Jennifer E. Smith
Deep Down Popular by Phoebe Stone
The Dragon's Child by Laurence Yep
Facttracker by Jason Carter Eaton
Ghost Letters by Stephen Alter
Go Big or Go Home by Will Hobbs
Greetings from Nowhere by Barbara O'Connor
Grow by Juanita Havill
Honeybee: Poems and Short Prose by Naomi Shibab Nye
I Am Scout: The Biography of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields
Jeremy Cabbage and the Living Museum of Human Oddballs and Quadruped Delights
by David Elliott
Kaline Klattermaster's Tree House by Haven Kimmel
Keeping Score by Linda Sue Park
Lulu Atlantis and the Quest for True Blue Love by Patricia Martin
Magic Half by Annie Barrows
Mr. Karp's Last Glass by Cary Fagan
Penderwick's on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall
Porcupine by Meg Tilly
The Red-Headed Princess: A Novel by Ann Rinaldi
Rex Zero, King of Nothing by Tim Wynne-Jones
Ringside, 1925: Views from the Scopes Trial by Jen Bryant
Seer of Shadows by Avi
Six Innings by James Preller
Waiting for Normal by Leslie Connor
When the Sergeant Came Marching Home by Don Lemna
Where the Steps Where by Andrea Cheng
The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry

Deep Down Popular: A Novel

Deep Down Popular: A Novel by Phoebe Stone
In a small, Virginia town, sixth-grader Jessie Lou Ferguson has a crush on the hugely popular Conrad Parker Smith, and when he suddenly develops a medical problem and the teacher asks Jessie Lou to help him, they become friends, to her surprise.
Find out more about the author Phoebe Stone.

Six Innings: A Game in the Life

Six Innings: A Game in the Life by James Preller
Earl Grubb's Pool Supplies plays Northeast Gas & Electric in the Little League championship game, while Sam, who has cancer and is in a wheelchair, has to call the play-by-play instead of participating in the game. Find out more about James Preller and his books.

Rex Zero: King of Nothing

Rex Zero: King of Nothing by Tim Wynne-Jones
Rex Norton-Norton (known as Rex Zero to his friends) has plenty of worries. He's in major trouble for skipping out on Armistice Day ceremonies to play football with his friends. His teacher Miss Garr is totally nuts. His sister Annie Oakley is convinced that their dad fathered a half-German kid during the war. But all of that fades when Rex finds a missing address book which leads him to adventure in the form of a beautiful woman in grave peril.

Jeremy Cabbage and the Living Museum of Human Oddballs and Quadruped Delights

Jeremy Cabbage and the Living Museum of Human Oddballs and Quadruped Delights by David Elliott
Jeremy Cabbage is an orphan stuck at Harpwitch’s Home for Mean Dogs, Ugly Cats, and Strey Children, where the dogs are treated better than the kids. And things aren’t much better on the outside: the city is ruled by the arrogant and foolish Baron Ignatius von Strompié, whose Wisdom Wagons ride the streets blaring out gems like “Ignorance is bliss,” and who’s on a campaign to stamp out anyone different. At the top of his list are the cloons, outlandish people who look and act like clowns. Jeremy’s only chance is a good adoption–but who would possibly adopt Jeremy, an unloved, unwanted 11-year-old? The answer sets Jeremy off on an outrageous, comical adventure that could bring him face to face with the Baron himself.
For more about this author and his books see David Elliott's Web Site

Grow: A Novel in Verse

Grow: A Novel in Verse by Juanita Havill
Everything about Berneetha is big her mouth, her size, and especially her dreams. And when Berneetha decides to create a community garden on a vacant lot, twelve-year-old Kate Sibley's just got to help make that dream a reality. At first the neighbors think Kate and Berneetha are crazy, but slowly they begin to come around. Graffiti gangster Harlan turns out to be pretty good with a rented tiller. Dr. Chitra Arockiasamy is willing to be in charge of tomatoes. Hank Glover would like to grow corn. And unsmiling Jacob Wasserman somehow manages to get some manure. Slowly, a community begins to grow, just as the garden does.But just as the garden and Kate are both beginning to bloom, a sign goes up; a parking garage will be built on the lot. Can Kate and Berneetha and their friends keep the garden and the dream alive?

Ringside 1925: Views from the Scopes Trial

Ringside 1925: Views from the Scopes Trial: A Novel by Jen Bryant

Visitors, spectators, and residents of Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925 describe, in a series of free-verse poems, the Scopes "monkey trial" and its effects on that small town and its citizens.

Dragon's Child: A Story of Angel Island

Dragon's Child: A Story of Angel Island by Laurence Yep with Dr. Kathleen S. Yep

Ten-year-old Gim Lew Yep knows that he must leave his home in China and travel to America with the father who is a stranger to him. Gim Lew doesn't want to leave behind everything that he's ever known. But he is even more scared of disappointing his father. He uses his left hand, rather than the "correct" right hand; he stutters; and most of all, he worries about not passing the strict immigration test administered at Angel Island.

The Seer of Shadows

The Seer of Shadows by Avi
In New York City in 1872, fourteen-year-old Horace, a photographer's apprentice, becomes entangled in a plot to create fraudulent spirit photographs, but when Horace accidentally frees the real ghost of a dead girl bent on revenge, his life takes a frightening turn.

Greetings from Nowhere

Greetings from Nowhere by Barbara O'Connor
In North Carolina's Great Smoky Mountains, a troubled boy and his mother, a happy family seeking adventure, a man and his lonely daughter, and the widow who must sell the run-down motel that has been her home for decades, meet and are transformed by their shared experiences.

Where the Steps Were

Where the Steps Were by Andrea Cheng
Verse from the perspectives of five students in Miss D.'s third grade class details the children's last year together before their inner city school is to be torn down.
ANTHONY
Cinderella!
Nobody forgot
their lines
and those stepsisters
were wicked.
You can't believe
all the clapping
in 103.
We had to come out and bow
four times
before they stopped....

Keeping Score

Keeping Score by Linda Sue Park
Maggie doesn't play baseball—but at almost ten years old, she is a dyed-in-the-wool fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Maggie can recite all the players' statistics and understands the subtleties of the game. Jim Maine is a Giants fan, but it's Jim who teaches Maggie the fine art of scoring a baseball game. Not only can she revisit every play of every inning, but by keeping score she feels she's more than just a fan: she's helping her team.Jim is drafted into the army and sent to Korea, and although Maggie writes to him often, his silence is just one of a string of disappointments—being a Brooklyn Dodgers fan in the early 1950s meant season after season of near misses and year after year of dashed hopes. But Maggie goes on trying to help the Dodgers, and when she finds out that Jim needs help, too, she's determined to provide it. Against a background of major league baseball and the Korean War on the home front, Maggie looks for, and finds, a way to make a difference.

Redheaded Princess

Redheaded Princess by Ann Rinaldi
For all her royal blood, Elizabeth's life is fraught with danger and uncertainty. Sometimes she is welcome in the royal court; other times she is cast out into the countryside. With her position constantly changing, the Princess must navigate a sea of shifting loyalties and dangerous affections. At stake is her life - for beheading is not uncommon among the factions that war for the crown.

The Facttracker

The Facttracker by Jason Carter Eaton
I picked it up this morning and read page after page because I wanted to know what would happen next. I read some parts twice because I knew they were important, and even laughed outloud! Here are a few quotes to give you an idea about this book:
"It's extremely easy to be mean to people you don't really know."

"...a good lie can be very convincing, even to a facttracker...sometimes factchecking is more important than facttracking..."

"When you've tracked facts as long as I have, you don't need a veriscope. My eyes are my veriscope."

"If you could weigh the United States, its center of gravity would be Friend, Nebraska..."

But, you might be wondering, what is this book about?

Here's just one more quote for you that might help with that question:

"There will always be lies, and there will always be liars...the true test of a society isn't how many lies it has; it's how many it believes..."