2006 6-8 Master List
- AL CAPONE DOES MY SHIRTS /Gennifer Choldenko
- Penguin Group ISBN: 0399238611 $15.99
- In this fictionalized account of life at Alcatraz Penitentiary, a twelve-year-old boy named Moose moves to Alcatraz Island in 1935 when guards' families were housed there, and has to contend with his extraordinary new environment in addition to life with his autistic sister. Includes an author's note, with references, about Alcatraz.
- BOUND /Donna Jo Napoli
- Thorndike Press ISBN: 0786274190 $21.95
- In a novel based on Chinese Cinderella tales, fourteen-year-old stepchild Xing-Xing endures a life of neglect and servitude, as her stepmother cruelly mutilates her own child's feet so that she alone might marry well.
- BUCKING THE SARGE /Christopher Paul Curtis
- Wendy Lamb Books (September 14, 2004) ISBN: 0385323077 $23.95
- Deeply involved in his cold and manipulative mother's shady business dealings in Flint, Michigan, fourteen-year-old Luther keeps a sense of humor while running the Happy Neighbor Group Home For Men, all the while dreaming of going to college and becoming a philosopher.
- DRAGON RIDER /Cornelia Funke
- Thorndike Press ISBN: 0786272635 $23.95
- After learning that humans are headed toward his hidden home, Firedrake, a silver dragon, is joined by a brownie and an orphan boy in a quest to find the legendary valley known as the Rim of Heaven, encountering friendly and unfriendly creatures along the way, and struggling to evade the relentless pursuit of an old enemy.
- FAMILY REUNION /Caroline B. Cooney
- Random House Children's Books ISBN: 0385731361 $9.95
- At a family reunion, Shelley comes to terms with her parents' divorce, her mother's absence, her new stepmother, and being the "stable" member of her colorful family.
- GOTTA GET SOME BISH BASH BOSH /M. E. Allen
- HarperCollins Children's Book Group ISBN: 0060731982 $15.99
- Possibility After getting dumped by his girlfriend, a fourteen-year-old English boy attempts to change his image.
- HERE TODAY /Ann M. Martin
- Scholastic Press (October 1, 2004) ISBN: 0439579449 $16.95
- In 1963, when her flamboyant mother abandons the family to pursue her dream of becoming an actress, eleven-year-old Ellie Dingman takes charge of her younger siblings, while also trying to deal with her outcast status in school and frightening acts of prejudice toward the "misfits" that live on her street.
- ME AND BILLY /James Lincoln Collier
- Marshall Cavendish Corporation ISBN: 0761451749 $ 15.95
- After escaping the orphanage where they have spent their lives together, two boys become assistants to a con artist, and while Possum objects to the lying, stealing, and cheating, Billy only cares about making money and taking life easy.
- MOLLY MCGINTY HAS A REALLY GOOD DAY /Gary Paulsen
- Random House Children's Books ISBN: 0385325886 $12.95
- When supremely organized seventh-grader, Molly McGinty, loses the notebook she relies on to keep her life in order she spends the day in chaos. Today, Molly learned her wacky grandma was coming to spend the day at school with her; lost her notebook with everything that matters in it, including her homework; got a black eye, tore her skirt. And it's only 9 a.m. Could things get any worse? You bet!
- THE SCHWA WAS HERE /Neal Shusterman
- Dutton Children's Books (October 25, 2004) ISBN: 0525471820 $15.99
- A Brooklyn eighth-grader nicknamed Antsy befriends the Schwa, an "invisible-ish" boy who is tired of blending into his surroundings and going unnoticed by nearly everyone. Anthony, also known as "Antsy," is fascinated by "The Schwa Effect"--the fact that no one ever sees Calvin Schwa.
- SO B. IT / Sarah Weeks
- HarperCollins Children's Book Group ISBN: 0066236231 $16.89
- After spending her life with her mentally retarded mother and agoraphobic neighbor, twelve-year-old Heidi sets out from Reno, Nevada, to New York to find out who she is.
- SONNY'S HOUSE OF SPIES / George Ella Lyon (Kentucky Author)
- Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing ISBN: 0689851685 $16.95
- In this coming-of-age story set in a small Alabama town in 1947-1956, Sonny searches for answers about his father's disappearance, "Uncle Marty," who looks after the family, and Mamby, their black housekeeper.
- THE TEACHER'S FUNERAL /Richard Peck
- Dial Books (September, 2004)ISBN: 0803727364 $16.99
- Russell Culver is fifteen in 1904, and he's raring to leave his tiny Indiana farm town for the endless sky of the Dakotas. To him, school has been nothing but a chain holding him back from his dreams. Maybe now that his teacher has passed on, they'll shut the one-room school down entirely and leave him free to roam.
- TRAVEL TEAM/Mike Lupica
- Philomel ISBN: 0399241507 $16.99
- Danny is a basketball fanatic. He is smart, talented, fast, and dedicated, but short. When he fails to make the seventh-grade travel team, he also fails to follow in the footsteps of his legendary father, Richie Walker, who led his own 12-year-old team to win the nationals and whose career was tragically ended by a car accident.
- THE YOUNG MAN AND THE SEA /Rodman Philbrick
- Blue Sky Press (February 1, 2004) ISBN: 0439368294 $5.99
- After his mother's death, twelve-year-old Skiff Beaman decides that it is up to him to earn money to take care of himself and his father, so he undertakes a dangerous trip alone out on the ocean off the coast of Maine to try to catch a huge blue fin tuna.
- WALT WHITMAN: WORDS FOR AMERICA /Barbara Kerley
- Scholastic, Incorporated ISBN: 0439357918 $16.95
- A biography of the American poet whose compassion led him to nurse soldiers during the Civil War, to give voice to the nation's grief at Lincoln's assassination, and to capture the true American spirit in verse.
updated: Thursday, 03-Aug-2006 14:19:02 EDT