Rebecca Caudill Winner

The votes are in for this year's Rebecca Caudill Award, and the winner is.....All the Lovely Bad Ones by Mary Downing Hahn. Whereas Lincoln Junior High School's winner was Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham, All the Lovely Bad Ones was a close runner-up. If you haven't read this spooky chiller, I highly recommend it! I do suggest, though, that you read it with the lights on!!!

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt

"Meet Holling Hoodhood, a seventh-grader at Camillo Junior High, who must spend Wednesday afternoons with his teacher, Mrs. Baker, while the rest of the class has religious instruction. Mrs. Baker doesn't like Holling - he's sure of it. Why else would she make him read the plays of William Shakespeare outside class? But everyone has bigger things to worry about, like Vietnam. His father wants Holling and his sister to be on their best behavior: the success of his business depends on it. But how can Holling stay out of trouble when he has so much to contend with? A bully demanding cream puffs; angry rats; and a baseball hero signing autographs the very same night Holling has to appear in a play in yellow tights! As fate sneaks up on him again and again, Holling finds Motivation - the Big M - in the most unexpected places and musters up the courage to embrace his destiny, in spite of himself."

~ Rebecca Caudill website summary

The Thing About Georgie by Lisa Graff

"The thing about poodles is that Geogie Bishop hates to walk them. The thing about Jeanie the Meanie is that she would rather write on her shoe than help Georgie with their Abraham Lincoln project. The thing about Georgie's mom is that she's having a baby - a baby who will probably be taller than Georgie very, very soon. The thing about Georgie . . . well, what is the thing about Georgie?"

~ Rebecca Caudill website summary

The Mozart Question by Michael Morpurgo

"Like any young boy, Paolo becomes obsessed with what he can't have - in his case, a violin. Hidden away in his parents' room, it beckons the boy to release the music inside it. The music leads Paolo to a family secret, a story of World War II that changed the course of his parents' lives. But once the truth is told, the family is reunited in a way no one had thought possible. From Michael Morpurgo and Michael Foreman comes a story about sharing the joy of music from one generation to the next and about music's power to transofrm and heal."

~Recbecca Caudill website summary

Someone Named Eva by Joan M. Wolf

"On the night Nazi soldiers come to her home in Czechoslovakia, Miada's grandmother says, "Remember, Milada. Remember who you are. Always." Milada promises, but she doesn't understand her grandmother's words. After all, she is Milada, who lives with her mama and papa, her brother and sister, and her beloved Babichka. Milada, eleven-years-old, the fastest runner in school. How could she ever forget? Then the Nazis take Milada away from her family and send her to a Lebensborn center in Poland. There, she is told she fits the Aryan ideal: her blond hair and blue eyes are the right color; her head and nose, the right size. She is given a new name, Eva, and trained to become the perfect German citizen, to be the hope of Germany's future - and to forget she was ever a Czech girl named Milada."
~ Rebecca Caudill website summary

The White Giraffe by Lauren St. John

"The night Martine Allen turns eleven-years-old is the night her life changes completely. Martine's parents are killed in a fire, so she must leave her home to live on an African wildlife reserve with a grandmother she never even knew she had. When Martine arrives, she hears tales of a mythical animal living there - a white giraffe. They say no one has ever seen the animal, but it does leave behind footprints. Her grandmother insists that the white giraffe is just a legend, but then, one stormy night, Martine looks out her bedroom window straight into the eyes of the tall silvery animal. Could it be just Martine's imagination, or is the white giraffe real? And if so, why is everyone keeping its existence a secret?"

~ Rebecca Caudill website summary

Shooting the Moon by Frances O'Roark

"When twelve-year-old Jamie Dexter's brother joins the Army and is sent to Vietnam, Jamie is plum thrilled. She can't wait to get letters from the front lines describing the excitement of real-life combat: the sound of helicopters, the smell of gunpowder, the exhilaration of being right in the thick of it. After all, they've both dreamed of following in the footsteps of their father, the Colonel. But TJ's first letter isn't a letter at all. It's a roll of undeveloped film, the first of many. What Jamie sees when she develops TJ's photographs reveals a whole new side of the war. Slowly the shine begins to fade off of Army life - and the Colonol. How can someone she's worshipped her entire life be just as helpless to save her brother as she is?
~ Rebecca Caudill website summary