Transcript Black-Eyed Susan Nominees

Black-Eyed
Susan Award
Nominees
2009-2010
Brendan Buckley’s universe and everything in it
By Sundee T. Frazier
Ten-year-old Tae Kwon Do blue belt and
budding rock hound Brendan Buckley keeps
a "Confidential" notebook for his top-secret
scientific discoveries. And he's found
something totally top secret. The grandpa
he's never met, who his mom refuses to
talk about or see, is an expert mineral
collector and lives nearby! Secretly,
Brendan visits Ed DeBose, whose skin is
pink, not brown like Brendan's, his dad's, or
that of Grampa Clem's, who recently died.
Brendan sets out to find the reason behind
Ed's absence, but what he discovers can't
be explained by science, and now he wishes
he'd never found him at all. . . .
Diamond Willow
By Helen Frost
Twelve-year-old Willow, the daughter of
an Anglo father and an Athabascan mother,
lives in a remote area of Alaska. She loves
running their sled dogs and would love to
use them to visit her grandparents' cabin.
With her parents' permission, she sets out.
Everything goes well until a downed tree
unexpectedly appears around a blind curve,
and Roxy, the lead dog, cannot stop in time.
The dog is permanently blinded, and
Willow feels very guilty about the accident.
When it seems that the dog might be put
down, Willow heads out again to her
grandparents' place, taking Roxy along as a
passenger.
As it starts to snow, Willow realizes that
she might be in trouble. With familiar
landmarks hidden by blowing snow and
temperatures plummeting below zero,
Willow fears that no one will be able to find
her in the storm. She doesn't realize,
however, that someone is watching her.
Igraine the brave
By Cornelia Funke
Princess Igraine dreams of becoming
a famous knight just like her great
grandfather, but the truth is, life at
the family castle is rather boring.
Until the nephew of the baronessnext-door shows up. He's got a
dastardly plan to capture the castle
and claim as his own the wonderful
singing spell books that belong to
Igraine's magician parents. To make
matters worse, at the very moment
of the siege, her mom and dad botch
a spell, turning themselves into pigs!
Aided by a Gentle Giant and a
Sorrowful Knight, it's up to Igraine to
be brave and save the day--and the
books!
Samuel Blink and the forbidden forest
By Matt Haig
When Samuel and Martha are sent to
Norway to live with their Aunt Eda after
their parents' deaths, they soon learn her
most important rule: NEVER--UNDER ANY
CIRCUMSTANCES--GO INTO THE FOREST.
She doesn't offer an explanation, but
Samuel suspects it might have something to
do with a strange guidebook he finds in her
attic: The Creatures of Shadow Forest. And
when Martha wanders into the trees and is
captured by some of the creatures, Samuel
has no choice but to go in after her. What
he finds there is an eerie world populated
by trolls, truth pixies and other fantastical
creatures.
Swindle
By Gordon Korman
After a mean collector named Swindle
cons him out of his most valuable baseball
card, Griffin Bing must put together a band
of misfits to break into Swindle's
compound and recapture the card. There
are many things standing in their way -- a
menacing guard dog, a high-tech security
system, a very secret hiding place, and
their inability to drive -- but Griffin and his
team are going to get back what's rightfully
his . . . even if hijinks ensue.
Savvy
By Ingrid Law
Mibs Beaumont is about to turn thirteen, which in the
Beaumont family means her "savvy"-her special
power-is about to strike. Her brothers' savvies let
them create hurricanes and spark electricity, but Mibs
has yet to learn what her savvy is. Then, two days
before her birthday, her father is in a terrible car
accident. He is sent to a hospital two hours from their
isolated small town, and Mibs determines that she
must get there, adamant that her savvy is going to
help save him. She ends up on a traveling bible
salesman's pink bus with all her siblings and the
preacher's children, including the preacher's son, Will,
who has a crush on her. The story chronicles the ups
and downs of their journey to the hospital-where, in
the end, Mibs's savvy (she can hear the thoughts and
feelings of people with ink on their skin) helps her
hear Poppa's tattoo speak and, ultimately, save his
life.
Paint the wind
By Pam Munoz Ryan
Maya lives like a captive. At Grandmother's
house in California, everything is forbidden:
friends, fun, even memories. And her life is
built on lies: lies Grandmother tells her
about her dead mother, lies Maya tells to
impress or manipulate. But then she moves
to the vast Wyoming wilderness where her
mother's family awaits - kind, rugged
people who have no tolerance for lies. They
challenge Maya to confront the truth about
who she is. And a mysterious mustang
called Artemisia waits, too. She holds the
key to Maya's freedom. But to find it, Maya
will have to risk everything, including her
life.
Dragon’s egg
By Sarah Thomson
Mella is a dragon keeper. It is a rare
talent, and only she can care for the Inn's
herd. She feeds them, gathers their eggs,
and tends to their injuries. But Mella
dreams about the dragons of legend, even
though hardly anyone believes they still
exist. Dragons are small farm animals, not
huge fire-breathing monsters. Everyone
knows that. Until one day changes
everything. Mella finds a real dragon egg,
and when the dragon mother is slain she
promises to deliver the precious egg to its
hatching ground far away in the
mountains. Accompanied by a new friend,
a squire named Roger, Mella sets off to
keep her promise.
A crooked kind of perfect
By Linda Urban
Ten-year-old Zoe Elias can’t wait to start
playing the piano her dad will be buying her. She
longs to play classical music at Carnegie Hall. But
when a trip to the mall sends her anxious father
into a panic, he buys a wheezy electric organ
instead of a piano.
To make things worse, her best friend dumps
her, her mother is always at work, and Wheeler
Diggs, the odd boy at school, has been following
her home from school every day. Zoe begins to
learn how to play the organ as she prepares for
the Perform-O-Rama, where young organ
players compete. But music just doesn’t sound
the same on the organ.
Can she accept playing old show tunes
instead of her favorite classical music?
Fearless
By Elvira Woodruff
In 1703 when a storm brings down his father's
boat, 12-year-old Digory Beale sets off alone,
walking across the wilds of Cornwall. He must get
word of his father's fate--and his own. For if
Father is dead, Digory can never go home again.
With no guide, no money, and no prospects,
Digory's journey is beset with problems--and
plagued with nightmares of drowning on the
treacherous Eddystone Reef. But all that is about
to change when a stranger, Henry Winstanley,
takes him on as an apprentice. A fun-loving
daredevil, inventor, and gadgeteer, Henry lives in
a fun house filled with robots, a roller coaster,
and a dragon who snores. As a monster storm-part hurricane, part cyclone, and part tornado-threatens Cornwall's coast, Digory finds himself
on a mission with his fearless master to rescue a
battered lighthouse on the Eddystone Reef. Will
Digory be fearless enough to face his worst
nightmare?