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GMBA Book Awards and Forum 2009/2010
Green Mountain Book Award Master List 2009-2010
This is the fifth year of the Green Mountain Book Award, a reader's choice award for students in grades 9-12. Co-sponsored by the Vermont School Library Association, Vermont Library Association and the Vermont Department of Libraries, this program is designed to introduce to high school students some excellent books for their pleasure reading. To participate in blogs about the books, click this sentence for link. (This takes you to an external site.)
These books, to be read during the 2009-2010 school year, comprise the master list for the award to be made in 2010. Voting forms will be made available to all Vermont schools and public libraries in the spring so that young adults can vote for their favorite book. The master list titles have been selected to satisfy the reading interests of young adults in grades 9-12, and include both adult and young adult books. All books on the list were first published in 2004-2008 and are available in paperback.
Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Little, Brown, 2009. $8.99. ISBN 978-0-3160-1369-7 (pap.); Little, Brown, 2007. $16.99. ISBN 978-0-3160-1368-0.
Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
Anderson, Laurie Halse. Twisted. Puffin, 2008. $9.99. ISBN 978-0-1424-1184-1 (pap.); Viking, 2007. $16.99. ISBN 978-0-6700-6101-3. After finally getting noticed by someone other than school bullies and his ever-angry father, seventeen-year-old Tyler enjoys his tough new reputation and the attentions of a popular girl, but when life starts to go bad again, he must choose between transforming himself or giving in to his destructive thoughts.
Benanav, Michael. Men of Salt: Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold. Lyons Press, 2008. $14.95. ISBN 978-1-5992-1164-0 (pap.); Lyons Press, 2006. $23.95. ISBN 978-1-5922-8772-7.
Benanav joined the “Caravan of White Gold” -- so-called because the salt was once literally worth its weight in gold -- on its mission into the deadly heart of the Sahara to haul back gleaming slabs of solid salt for sale at market. He lived for weeks among the camel drivers as they traveled eighteen hours a day for nearly a thousand miles without a map or landmark in sight, through sandstorms and searing heat on a trek worthy of Indiana Jones.
Brooks, Kevin. The Road of the Dead. Push, 2007. $7.99. ISBN 978-0-4397-8624-9 (pap.); Chicken House, 2006. $16.99. ISBN 978-0-7397-8623-2.
Two brothers, sons of an incarcerated gypsy, leave London and travel to an isolated and desolate village, in search of the brutal killer of their sister.
Ellis, Ann Dee. This is What I Did. Little, Brown, 2009. $7.99. ISBN 978-0-3160-1362-8 (pap.); Little, Brown, 2007. $16.99. ISBN 978-0-3160-1363-5.
Bullied because of an incident in his past, eighth-grader Logan is unhappy at his new school and has difficulty relating to others until he meets a quirky girl and a counselor who believe in him.
Green, John. An Abundance of Katherines. Penguin, 2008. $7.99. ISBN 978-0-1424-1070-7 (pap.); Dutton, 2006. $16.99. ISBN 978-0-5254-7688-7.
Having been recently dumped for the nineteenth time by a girl named Katherine, recent high school graduate and former child prodigy Colin sets off on a road trip with his best friend to try to find some new direction in life while also trying to create a mathematical formula to explain his relationships.
McCormick, Patricia. Sold. Hyperion, 2008. $8.99. ISBN 978-0-7868-5172-0 (pap.); Hyperion, 2006. $15.99. ISBN 978-0-7868-5171-3.
Thirteen-year-old Lakshmi leaves her poor mountain home in Nepal thinking that she is to work in the city as a maid, only to find that she has been sold into the sex slave trade in India and that there is almost no hope of escape.
Nelson, Marilyn. A Wreath for Emmett Till. Illustrated by Philippe Lardy. Graphia, 2009. $7.99. ISBN 978-0-5470-7636-2 (pap.); Houghton Mifflin, 2005. $17.00. ISBN 978-0-6183-9752-5.
In 1955 people all over the United States knew that Emmett Louis Till was a fourteen-year-old African American boy lynched for supposedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. The brutality of his murder, the open-casket funeral held by his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, and the acquittal of the men tried for the crime drew wide media attention. In a profound and chilling poem, Marilyn Nelson tells us of the boy whose fate helped spark the civil rights movement.
O’Neill, Heather. Lullabies for Little Criminals. HarperPerennial, 2006. $13.95. ISBN 978-0-0608-7507-7 (pap.).
Motherless, thirteen year old Baby lives with her father, Jules, who takes better care of his heroin habit than he does of his daughter, but her blossoming beauty has captured the attention of a charismatic and dangerous local pimp who runs an army of sad, slavishly devoted girls-a volatile situation even the normally oblivious Jules cannot ignore.
Pfeffer, Susan Beth. Life as We Knew It. Harcourt, 2008. $6.95. ISBN 978-0-1520-6154-8 (pap.); Harcourt, 2006. $17.00. ISBN 978-0-1520-5826-5.
Through journal entries, sixteen-year-old Miranda describes her family’s struggle to survive after a meteor hits the moon, causing worldwide tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.
Sharenow, Robert. My Mother the Cheerleader. HarperTeen, 2009. $8.99. ISBN 978-0-0611-4898-9 (pap.); HarperTeen, 2006. $16.99. ISBN 978-0-0611-4896-5.
Thirteen-year-old Louise uncovers secrets about her family and her neighborhood during the violent protests over school desegregation in 1960 New Orleans.
Shusterman, Neal. Unwind. S & S, 2009. $8.99. ISBN 978-1-4169-1205-7 (pap.); S & S, 2007. $16.99. ISBN 978-1-4169-1204-0. In a future world where those between the ages of thirteen and eighteen can have their lives “unwound” and their body parts harvested for use by others, three teens go to extreme lengths to uphold their beliefs--and, perhaps, save their own lives.
Smith, Roland. Peak. Harcourt, 2008. $6.95. ISBN 978-0-1520-6268-8 (pap.); Harcourt, 2007. $17.00. ISBN 978-01-5450-3813-3. A fourteen-year-old boy attempts to be the youngest person to reach the top of Mount Everest.
Tharp, Tim. Knights of the Hill Country. Laurel Leaf, 2008. $6.99. ISBN 978-0-5534-9513-3 (pap.); Knopf, 2006. $16.95. ISBN 978-0-3758-3653-4.
In his senior year, high school star linebacker Hampton Greene finally begins to think for himself and discovers that he might be interested in more than just football.
Vaughan, Brian K. Pride of Baghdad. Illustrated by Niko Henrichon. Vertigo, 2008. $12.99. ISBN 978-1-4012-0315-3 (pap.); Vertigo, 2006. $19.99. ISBN 978-1-4012-0314-6.
. Based on an actual event, this graphic novel tells the story of a pride of lions who in 2003 escaped from the Baghdad Zoo during an American bombing raid. Lost and confused, hungry but finally free, the four lions roamed the decimated streets of Baghdad in a desperate struggle for their lives.
Green Mountain Book Award Committee Chair: Hannah Peacock Burnham Memorial Library 898 Main Street Colchester, VT 05446
Department of Libraries Contact: Grace W. Greene Children's Services Consultant VT Dept. of Libraries 109 State St. Montpelier, VT 05609