The Kentucky Book Award

2005 6-8 Master List

Battle of Jericho / Sharon M. Draper.
Atheneum, 2003. 297p.
After joining what seems to be a reputable school club, a high school junior and his cousin suffer the tragic ramifications of acceptance through hazing.
The Beast / Walter Dean Myers.
Scholastic Press, 2003. 170p.
A visit to his Harlem neighborhood and the discovery that the girl he loves is using drugs give sixteen-year-old Anthony Witherspoon a new perspective both on his home and on his life at a Connecticut prep school.
Brian's Hunt / Gary Paulsen.
Wendy Lamb Books, 2004. 103p.
Two years after having a plane crash into the Canadian wilderness, sixteen-year-old Brian Robeson returns to the wild to befriend a wounded dog and hunt a treacherous bear. Final book in the Hatchet series.
Dead Girls Don't Write Letters / Gail Giles.
Roaring Brook Press, 2003. 136p.
Fourteen-year-old Sunny is stunned when a total stranger shows up at her house posing as her older sister, Jazz, who supposedly died out of town in a fire months earlier.
Eragon / Christopher Paolini.
Knopf, 2003. 509p.
In Aagaesia, a fifteen-year-old boy of unknown lineage finds a mysterious stone that weaves his life into an intricate tapestry of destiny, magic, and power. Story is peopled with dragons, elves, and monsters.
Kissing the Rain / Kevin Brooks.
Scholastic, 2004. 320p.
Fifteen-year-old Moo Nelson, shy, overweight, and bullied by his classmates, finds his life spinning out of control after he witnesses a car chase and fight that results in a murder.
Olive's Ocean / Kevin Henkes.
Greenwillo, 2003. 217p.
On a summer visit to her grandmother's cottage by the ocean, twelve-year-old Martha gains perspective on the death of a classmate, on her relationship with her grandmother, on her feelings for an older boy, and on her plans to be a writer.
The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place / E. L. Konigsburg.
Atheneum, 2004. 296p.
Upon leaving an oppressive summer camp, twelve-year-old Margaret Rose Kane spearheads a campaign to preserve three unique towers her great-uncles have been building in their backyard for over forty years.
Pirates!: The True and Remarkable Adventures of Minerva Sharpe and Nancy Kington, Female Pirates / Celia Rees.
Bloomsbury, 2003. 379p.
In 1722, after arriving with her brother at the family's Jamaican plantation where she is to be married off, sixteen-year-old Nancy Kington escapes with her slave friend, Minerva Sharpe, and together they become pirates traveling the world in search of treasure.
The River Between Us / Richard Peck.
Dial Books, 2003. 164p.
During the early days of the Civil War, the Pruitt family takes in two mysterious young ladies who have fled New Orleans to come north to Illinois.
Ruby Electric / Theresa Nelson.
Atheneum, 2003. 264p.
Twelve-year-old Californian Ruby Miller, movie buff and aspiring screen writer, tries to resolve the mysteries surrounding her little brother's stuffed woolly mammoth and their father's five year absence.
The Silent Boy / Lois Lowry.
Houghton Mifflin, 2003. 178p.
Katy, the precocious ten-year-old daughter of the town doctor, befriends Jacob, a gentle, retarded boy when events cause their lives to take a tragic and unexpected turn.
Spitting Image / Shutta Crum.
Clarion, 2003. 218p.
Kentucky author, Shutta Crum, tells the intriguing story of twelve-year-old Jessie K. Bovey as she confronts the mysteries of her past in small town Baylor, Kentucky during the late 1960s.
Surviving the Applewhites / Stephanie S. Tolan.
HarperCollins, 2002. 216p.
Jake, a budding juvenile delinquent, is sent for home schooling to the arty and eccentric Applewhite family's Creative Academy, where he discovers talents and interests he never knew he had.
Swear to Howdy / Wendelin Van Draanen.
Thorndike Press, 2004. 126p.
Two thirteen-year-old boys share neighborhood adventures, complaints about their older sisters, family secrets, and even guilt that bind them together in a special friendship full of laughter and tears.

updated: Thursday, 03-Aug-2006 14:18:24 EDT