Transcript Document

Massachusetts Children’s
Book Award
nominees
2013-14
Peter Nimble and his
Fantastic Eyes, by
Jonathan Auxier
Raised to be a thief, blind orphan
Peter Nimble, age ten, steals from a
mysterious stranger three pairs of
magical eyes, that lead him to a
hidden island where he must decide
to become a hero or resume his life
of crime.
Tango: The Tale of an
Island Dog, by Eileen
Beha
Lost at sea while sailing with his
wealthy owners, a Yorkshire terrier
washes up, nearly dead, in a
village on Prince Edward Island.
He is nursed back to health by a
lonely widow and is befriended by
a fox and an abandoned waif who
is also struggling to find a home for
herself somewhere.
The Red Blazer Girls:
The Vanishing Violin,
by Michael Beil
Seventh-graders Sophie,
Margaret, Rebecca, and Leigh Ann
follow a trail of cryptic clues to
locate a rare violin, catch the
person sneaking into St. Veronica's
School for late-night cleaning and
redecorating, and outsmart a
conniving classmate.
Perfect Game,
by Fred Bowen
Isaac is a perfectionist,
especially when it comes to
baseball. He is unable to
cope when things go wrong
until his coach asks him to
help out with a Unified Sports
basketball team on which
intellectually-disabled and
other children play together.
World Cup,
by Matt Christopher
This non-fiction book describes
World Cup games played since
1930, discussing significant
moments and players and includes
details on the Women's World Cup
since 1991.
We the Children,
by Andrew Clements
Ben and his friend Jill find
themselves in danger when they
discover the secret history of their
Massachusetts school and set out
to derail a developer's plan to level
the building to make way for an
amusement park.
The Lost Children,
by Carolyn Cohagan
When twelve-year-old Josephine
falls through a wormhole in her
garden shed into another time
and place, she realizes the
troubles she has at home are
minor compared to what she has
to tackle in the world where she
has landed.
The Trouble with
Chickens, by Doreen
Cronin
A hard-bitten former search-andrescue dog helps solve a
complicated missing chicken
case.
The Mighty Miss
Malone, by
Christopher Paul
Curtis
Deza Malone, the smartest
girl in her class in Gary,
Indiana, accompanies her
mother and older brother on a
trip to find her father, an
African American man who
left to find work after the
Great Depression hit. They
end up in a Hooverville
outside of Flint, Michigan,
and her brother attempts to
be a performer while Deza
and her mother search for a
home.
The Total Tragedy of a
Girl Named Hamlet,
by Erin Dionne
Hamlet's attempts to be a
"normal" eighth grader become
increasingly difficult when her
genius seven-year-old sister
and her eccentric Shakespeare
scholar parents both begin to
attend her school.
Out of my Mind,
by Sharon Draper
Considered by many to be
mentally challenged, a brilliant,
impatient fifth-grader with
cerebral palsy discovers a
technological device that will
allow her to speak for the first
time.
90 Miles to Havana,
by Enrique FloresGalbis
Julian's parents, hoping to
protect him from the dangers of
the turmoil in Cuba, send him to
the United States in 1961 as part
of Operation Pedro Pan, not
realizing that life in a Miami
refugee camp holds its own
perils.
The Other Half of my Heart,
by Sundee Frazier
Twin daughters of interracial parents,
eleven-year-olds Keira and Minni have
very different skin tones and
personalities. It is not until their African
American grandmother enters them in
the Miss Black Pearl Pre-Teen
competition in North Carolina that redhaired and pale-skinned Minni realizes
what life in their small town in the
Pacific Northwest has been like for her
more outgoing, darker-skinned sister.
Chomp,
by Carl Hiaasen
The difficult star of the reality
television show, "Expedition
Survival," disappears on location
in the Florida Everglades, where
they were filming animals from
the wildlife refuge run by Wahoo
Crane's family. Wahoo and
classmate Tuna Gordon set out
to find him, but they must avoid
Tuna's gun-happy father.
Small as an Elephant,
by Jennifer Jacobson
Abandoned by his mother in an
Acadia National Park campground,
Jack tries to make his way back to
Boston before anyone figures out
what is going on, with only a small
toy elephant for company.
Inside Out & Back Again,
by Thanhha Lai
Through a series of poems, a
young girl chronicles the lifechanging year of 1975, when she,
her mother, and her brothers leave
Vietnam and resettle in Alabama.
Hero,
by Mike Lupica
Fourteen-year-old Zach learns he
has the same special abilities as his
father, who was the president's
globe-trotting troubleshooter until
"the Bads" killed him. Now Zach
must decide whether to use his
powers in the same way at the risk
of his own life.
The Unwanteds,
by Lisa McMann
In a society that purges thirteen-yearolds who are creative, identical twins
Aaron and Alex are separated. One
goes to attend University while the
other, supposedly Eliminated, finds
himself in a wondrous place where
youths hone their abilities and learn
magic.
Summer of the Gypsy
Moths,
by Sara Pennypacker
A foster child named Angel and
twelve-year-old Stella are living
with Stella's great-aunt Louise at
the Linger Longer Cottage
Colony on Cape Cod. When
Louise unexpectedly dies, the
girls are afraid of being returned
to the foster care system so they
secretly assume responsibility
for the vacation rentals
The Yggyssey,
by Daniel Pinkwater
In the mid-1950s, Yggdrasil
Birnbaum and her friends,
Seamus and Neddie, journey to
Old New Hackensack, which is
on another plane, to try to learn
why ghosts are disappearing
from the Birnbaum's hotel and
other Hollywood, California,
locations.
The Lost Hero,
by Rick Riordan
Jason, Piper, and Leo, three
students from a school for
"bad kids," find themselves
at Camp Half-Blood. There
they learn that they are
demigods and begin a
quest to free Hera, who has
been imprisoned by Mother
Earth herself.
Emma on Thin Icing,
by Coco Simon
The girls in the Cupcake Club are
ecstatic when Mia asks them to be
junior bridesmaids in her mother's
wedding and they find the perfect
dress. While trying to pay for the
dress without the help of her
parents, Emma must balance
babysitting her brother, a dogwalking business, flute practice,
and baking for the Cupcake Club.
Jake and Lily,
by Jerry Spinelli
Twins Jake and Lily have a very
close relationship, but when
they turn eleven, their parents
give them separate bedrooms
and Jake begins to spend time
with a group of neighborhood
boys. Lily is devastated as she
struggles to make friends, and
Jake is faced with a bully.
I Survived: Hurricane
Katrina, 2005,
by Lauren Tarshis
Barry's family prepares to evacuate
before Hurricane Katrina hits, but
when his little sister gets very sick,
they are forced to stay home and
face the floodwater that sweeps
Barry away.
Dragonbreath,
by Ursula Vernon
Danny Dragonbreath and his
friend Wendell get an upclose underwater tour of the
Sargasso Sea from Danny's
sea-serpent cousin. They
encounter a giant squid and
mako sharks--and learn
about standing up to bullies
in the process.
Sources Used
Cover photos courtesy of Titlewave.com
and Goodreads.com
Blurbs adapted from card catalog
description provided by the publisher.