2014-2015 Master Lists

K-2
Winner - Trooper by Meg Kearney, E.B. Lewis, ill.

Flight of the Honey Bee / Raymond Huber; Brian Lovelock, ill. Candlewick Press, 2013
Demonstrates how Scout the bee searches for nectar to sustain her hive and pollinates flowers to produce seeds and fruits.

A Good Trade / Alma Fullerton; Karen Patkau, ill. Pajama Press, 2013.
Early morning in Uganda sees a small boy struggle with jerry cans filled with the day’s supply of water. At the village square he spies an aid truck filled with something amazing. What can such a small, barefoot boy do to earn the treasure inside that truck?

Hi, Koo! A Year of Seasons / Jon J. Muth Scholastic Press, 2014.
Jon J. Muth – and his delightful little panda bear, Koo – challenge readers to stretch their minds and imaginations with twenty-six haiku about the four seasons.

The Invisible Boy / Trudy Ludwig; Patrice Barton, ill. Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.
Brian has always felt invisible at school, but when a new student, Justin, arrives, everything changes.

Ribbit! / Rodrigo Folgueira; Poly Bernatene, ill. Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.
When a pig visits a frog pond, sits on a rock, and says only “Ribbit!,” news spreads fast but only the wise old beetle has an explanation.

Tap the Magic Tree / Christie Matheson. Greenwillow Books, 2013.
Invites the reader to tap, rub, touch, and wiggle the illustrations to make an apple tree bloom, produce fruit, and lose its leaves.

This is the Rope: A Story from the Great Migration / Jacqueline Woodson; James Ransome, ill. Nancy Paulsen Books, 2013.
A rope passed down through the generations frames an African American family’s story as they journey north during the time of the Great Migration.

The Tree Lady: The True Story of How One Tree-Loving Woman Changed a City Forever / H. Joseph Hopkins; Jill McElmurry, ill. Beach Lane Books, 2013.
Learn about horticulturalist Katherine Olivia Sessions who brought trees to San Diego and created what eventually became Balboa Park.

Trouper / Meg Kearney; E.B. Lewis, ill. Scholastic Press, 2013.
Trouper, a three-legged dog, remembers his life as a stray, before he was adopted.

The Watermelon Seed / Greg Pizzoli Disney Hyperion, 2013
After swallowing a watermelon seed, a crocodile imagines a scary outcome.

3-5
Winner - Giants Beware by Jorge Aguirre; Rafael Rosado, ill.​

Flora and Ulysses: the Illuminated Adventures / Kate DiCamillo; K.G. Campbell, ill. Candlewick Press, 2013.
A girl named Flora and a squirrel named Ulysses, whose life was saved by Flora after he was involved in an incident with a vacuum cleaner, team up to use Ulysses' superpowers to conquer villains and protect the weak.

Fortunately, the Milk/ / Neil Gaiman; Skottie Young, ill. Harper, 2013.
What seems to be a quick trip for milk for his children’s cereal turns into a whimsical adventure for a father who is abducted by aliens in this hilarious story involving traveling through time and space.

Giants Beware / Jorge Aguirre; Rafael Rosado, ill. First Second Books, 2012.
Tough and spunky, Claudette, who has big goals of becoming a giant slayer, sets off on a super-secret quest outside of the safe walls of her city with her best friend and her brother in order to kill the rumored local giant.

Gone Fishing: a Novel in Verse / Tamera Will Wissinger; Matthew Cordell, ill. Houghton Mifflin, 2013
In this novel told through poems, nine-year-old Sam loves fishing with his dad, so when his pesky little sister horns in on their fishing trip, he is none too pleased.

The Matchbox Diary / Paul Fleischman; Bagram Ibatoulline, ill. Candlewick Press, 2013
A young girl visits her great-grandfather and explores his collection of matchboxes and small curios that document his poignant immigration journey from Italy to a new country.

A Tangle of Knots / Lisa Graff. Philomel Books, 2013.
Destiny leads 11-year-old Cady to a slightly magical world, including a peanut butter factory, a family of children searching for their own Talents, and a Talent Thief who will alter her life forever.

Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made / Stephan Pastis. Candlewick Press, 2013.
Timmy Failure, the founder, president, and CEO of the best detective agency in town, probably the nation, and his lazy, polar bear sidekick, Total, seek to become rich off the earnings of Total Failure, Inc., but Timmy has to face his own problems at home and at school.

The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp / Kathi Appelt. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2013.
Twelve-year-old Chap Brayburn, the ancient Sugar Man, and the raccoon-brother Swamp Scouts Bingo and J'miah try to save Bayou Tourterelle from feral pigs Clydine and Buzzie, greedy Sunny Boy Beaucoup, and world-class alligator wrestler and would-be land developer Jaeger Stitch.

The Water Castle / Megan Frazer Blakemore. Walker Books for Young Readers, 2013.
Moving into an inherited mansion in Maine with their mother and stroke-afflicted father, three siblings uncover a mystery involving hidden passageways, family rivalries, and healing waters.

​White Fur Flying / Patricia MacLachlan. Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2013.
A sad and silent nine-year-old boy finds his voice when he moves next to Zoe and her family who rescue dogs in need.

6-8
Winner - Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

The Boy on the Wooden Box: How the Impossible Became Possible…on Schindler’s List: A Memoir / / Leon Leyson, with Marilyn J. Harran and Elisabeth B. Leyson Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2013.
Leon Leyson describes growing up in Poland, being forced from home to ghetto to concentration camps by the Nazis, and being saved by Oskar Schindler. A powerful work of literary nonfiction.

Counting by 7s / Holly Goldberg Sloan Dial Books for Young Readers, 2013.
Twelve-year-old genius and outsider Willow Chance must figure out how to connect with other people and find a surrogate family for herself after her parents are killed in a car accident.

Doll Bones / Holly Black. Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2013.
Zach, Alice, and Poppy, friends from a Pennsylvania middle school who have long enjoyed acting out imaginary adventures with dolls and action figures, embark on a real-life quest to Ohio to bury a doll made from the ashes of a dead girl.

Foul Trouble / John Feinstein. Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.
College recruiters are clamoring to sign up Terrell Jamerson, the #1 high school basketball player in the country. But not all of these recruiters are straight shooters, and Terrell will have to think fast if he wants to stay in the game.

The Great Trouble: A Mystery of London, the Blue Death, and a Boy Called Eel / Deborah Hopkinson. Alfred A. Knopf, 2013
Eel, an orphan, and his best friend Florrie must help Dr. John Snow prove how cholera is spread when anepidemic sweeps across their London neighborhood in 1854.

Paperboy / Vince Vawter. Delacorte Press, 2013.
When an eleven-year-old boy takes over a friend's newspaper route in July, 1959, in Memphis, his debilitating stutter makes for a memorable month. A run-in with the neighborhood junkman stirs up real trouble--and puts the boy's life, as well as that of his family's devoted housekeeper, in danger.

Rump / Leisl Shurtliff. Alfred A. Knopf, 2013
Tells the tale of Rumpelstiltskin's childhood and youth, explaining why his name is so important, how he isable to spin straw into gold, and why a first-born child is his reward for helping the miller's daughter-turned-queen.

Soldier Dog / Sam Angus. Feiwel and Friends, 2013.
Thirteen-year-old Stanley joins the army during World War I after running away from home and is assigned to the War Dog School, where he is partnered with a messenger dog named Bones and the two of them are sent to France.

Steelheart / Brandon Sanderson. Delacorte Press, 2013.
At age eight, David watched as his father was killed by an Epic, a human with superhuman powers, and now, ten years later, he joins the Reckoners--the only people who are trying to kill the Epics and end their tyranny.

​Sure Signs of Crazy / Karen Harrington. Little, Brown and Co., 2013.
Twelve-year-old Sarah writes letters to her hero, To Kill a Mockingbird's Atticus Finch, for help understanding her mentally ill mother, her first real crush, and life in her small Texas town, all in the course of one momentous summer.

9-12
Winner - I Am the Weapon by Allen Zadoff

​​The 5th Wave / Rick Yancy. Putnam Juvenile, 2013; ISBN: 978-0399162411
Aliens sent waves of destructive forces to eradicate the humans. Cassie Sullivan, a survivor of the invasion, must rescue her young brother from the enemy with help from a boy who may be one of them.

The Beginning of Everything / Robyn Schneider. Katherine Tegan Books, 2013; ISBN: 978-0062217134
The way Ezra Faulkner sees it, everyone gets one great tragedy, after which life should roll on predictably. Star athlete and prom king, his life is irreparably transformed by a tragic accident and the arrival of eccentric new girl Cassidy Thorpe.

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea / April Genevieve Tucholke. Dial, 2013; ISBN: 978-0803738898
Violet is in love with River, a mysterious seventeen-year-old stranger renting the guest house behind the rotting seaside mansion where Violet lives. When eerie, grim events begin to happen, Violet recalls her grandmother's frequent warnings about the devil and wonders if River is evil.

I am the Weapon previously titled Boy Nobody / Allen Zadoff. Little Brown, 2013; ISBN: 978-0316199681
Boy Nobody is a coldly dispassionate teenage assassin working for a mysterious organization called the Program. When it assigns him his next mission—to assassinate the mayor of New York—it seems at first like business as usual. But then he meets Sam, the mayor’s beautiful daughter.

If You Find Me / Emily Murdoch. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2013; ISBN: 978-1250021526
Carey’s little sister, Jenessa, has not spoken since the white starry night and now depends on Carey for her very survival. All they have is each other as their mentally ill mother comes and goes with greater frequency until that one fateful day she disappears for good. Two strangers arrive and suddenly the girls are taken from the woods and thrust into a bright and perplexing new world where they must face the truth of why their mother abducted them and kept them hidden for ten years.

The Impossible Knife of Memory / Laurie Halse Anderson. Viking Juvenile, 2014; ISBN: 978-0670012091
For the past five years, Hayley Kincaid and her father, Andy, have been on the road, never staying long in one place as he struggles to escape the demons that have tortured him since his return from Iraq. Now they are back in the town where he grew up so Hayley can attend high school.

How to Love / Katie Cotugno. Balzer & Bray, 2013; ISBN: 978-0062216359
Sawyer LaGrande's unexplained disappearance rocked Serena Montero's world; it had been love at first sight, and then he ran away and left her pregnant. Now he's back in town and ready to pick up where they left off. Serena, however, has a steady boyfriend and is now the mother of a two-year-old. Will she make the same mistake twice?

The Rithmatist / Brandon Sanderson. Tor Teen, 2013; ISBN: 978-0765320322
Wild Chalklings threaten the American Isles and Rithmatists are humanity’s only defense. Joel longs to be a Rithmatist with the magical power to bring the two-dimensional Chalklings to life. But he is 16, and Rithmatists are chosen at age 8. Surely he has missed his chance, or has he?

Thousand Words / Jennifer Brown. Little Brown, 2013; ISBN: 978-0316209724
Ashleigh feels madly in love with her boyfriend, Kaleb, even though he has barely paid attention to herall summer. To make sure Kaleb remembers her when he leaves for college, Ashleigh snaps a photo of herself posing naked and sends it to him. That gets his attention. However, they soon break up and Kaleb sends the photo to a friend, who shares it with the world. Ashleigh is arrested for distributing child pornography and Kaleb, at 18, may go to prison.

The Tragedy Paper / Elizabeth Laban. Knopf Books, 2013; ISBN: 978-0375870408
While preparing for the most dreaded assignment at the prestigious Irving School, the Tragedy Paper, Duncan gets wrapped up in the tragic tale of Tim Macbeth, a former student who had a clandestine relationship with the wrong girl, and his own ill-fated romance with Daisy.