20082009 South Carolina Junior Book Award Nominees

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2008-2009South Carolina Junior Book Award
Nominees
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Bella at Midnightby Diane Stanley

• Bella's peasant life is changed when her real
  father, a knight who abandoned her when she was a
  baby, comes and reclaims her, moving her to his
  home where she lives with a resentful stepmother
  and two horrible stepsisters and learns about a
  plot to kill her friend, Prince Julian.

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Black Duckby Janet Taylor Lisle

• Years afterwards, Ruben Hart tells the story of
  how, in 1929 Newport, Rhode Island, his family
  and his best friend's family were caught up in
  the violent competition among groups trying to
  control the local rum-smuggling trade.

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Blood on the River Jamestown, 1607by Elisa
Carbone

• Traveling to the New World in 1606 as the page to
  Captain John Smith, twelve-year-old orphan Samuel
  Collier settles in the new colony of James Town,
  where he must quickly learn to distinguish
  between friend and foe.

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Blueby Joyce Moyer Hostetter

• Ann Fay Honeycutt becomes the man of the house at
  age thirteen after her father leaves to fight in
  World War II, forcing Ann to give up her
  childhood and tend to her family, but when a
  polio epidemic strikes, Ann faces the most
  devastating challenge of her life.

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Cracker! The Best Dog in Vietnamby Cynthia
Kadohata

• A young soldier in Vietnam bonds with his
  bomb-sniffing dog.

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Hundreds of military dogs have been deployed to
Iraq and Afghanistan, assisting in mine and bomb
detection.  They have proven highly successful at
protecting U.S. troops from enemy forces, but
their abilities also extend to protecting troops
on the front lines and at home from the stresses
and fall-out of war.
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Crossing the Wireby Will Hobbs

• Fifteen-year-old Victor Flores journeys north in
  a desperate attempt to cross the Arizona border
  and find work in the United States to support his
  family in central Mexico.

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Dragons Keepby Janet Lee Carey

• In 1145 A.D., as foretold by Merlin,
  fourteen-year-old Rosalind, who will be the
  twenty-first Pendragon Queen of Wilde Island, has
  much to accomplish to fulfill her destiny, while
  hiding from her people the dragon's claw she was
  born with that reflects only one of her mother's
  dark secrets.

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Escape!The Story of the Great Houdiniby Sid
Fleischman

• A biography of the magician, ghost chaser,
  aviator, and king of escape artists whose amazing
  feats are remembered long after his death in
  1926.

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Green Glass Seaby Ellen Klages

• While her father works on the Manhattan Project,
  eleven-year-old gadget lover and outcast Dewey
  Kerrigan lives in Los Alamos Camp, and becomes
  friends with Suze, another young girl who is
  shunned by her peers.

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What was the Manhattan Project? In 1938 many
people feared that Hitler would build an atomic
bomb after word spread that German scientist had
split the uranium atom. However, one of Hitlers
mistakes was his persecution of Jewish
scientists. This persecution resulted in numerous
scientists seeking asylum in the United States.
One such scientist was Albert Einstein. Einstein,
abandoning his belief in pacifism, urged then
president Franklin Roosevelt to develop an atomic
bomb before Hitler did. Eventually Roosevelt
agreed and the United States attempt at building
the atomic bomb was codenamed The Manhattan
Project. The Manhattan Project was carried out
in extreme secrecy. By 1945, the project had
nearly 40 labratories and factories which
empolyed approximately 200,000 people. Among
these employees were some of the greatest
scientist that have ever lived.
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Hard Hitby Ann Turner

• A rising high school baseball star faces his most
  difficult challenge when his father is diagnosed
  with pancreatic cancer.

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Heatby Mike Lupica

• Pitching prodigy Michael Arroyo is on the run
  from social services after being banned from
  playing Little League baseball because rival
  coaches doubt he is only twelve years old and he
  has no parents to offer them proof.

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Jumping the Scratchby Sarah Weeks

• After moving with his mother to a trailer park to
  care for an injured aunt, eleven-year-old Jamie
  Reardon struggles to cope with a deeply buried
  secret.

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The Mailboxby Audrey Shafer

• When twelve-year-old Gabe tries to hide his
  uncle's death from the local authorities, he is
  not prepared for what happens when this secret is
  discovered.

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Oh Rats!The Story of Rats and Peopleby Albert
Marrin

• Describes rat behavior and survival skills and
  aspects of their relationship with humans,
  including disease, rats as food, rats as pests,
  and the training of rats as rescuers.

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Sand Dollar Summerby Kimberly Jones

• When twelve-year-old Lise spends the summer on an
  island in Maine with her self-reliant mother and
  bright--but oddly mute--younger brother, her
  formerly safe world is complicated by an aged
  Indian neighbor, her mother's childhood friend,
  and a hurricane.

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The Softwire Virus on Orbis 1by PJ Haarsma

• After being orphaned on the seed ship
  "Renaissance", thirteen-year-old Johnny Turnbull
  and his sister, Ketheria, are forced to work on
  the Rings of Orbis, where Johnny learns he is the
  first human Softwire, with a gift to enter any
  computer via his mind.

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The Trapby John Smelcer

• In alternating chapters, seventeen-year-old
  Johnny Least-Weasel, who is better known for
  brains than brawn, worries about his missing
  grandfather, and the grandfather, Albert
  Least-Weasel, struggles to survive, caught in his
  own steel trap in the Alaskan winter.

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Victoryby Susan Cooper

• Molly, upset by her family's move from London to
  the U.S., is strangely drawn to an old book about
  the life of Admiral Lord Nelson, and soon finds
  her life intertwined with that of Sam, a boy her
  age who served with Nelson aboard the HMS
  "Victory" a century earlier.

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The Wright 3by Blue Balliett

• In the midst of a series of unexplained accidents
  and mysterious coincidences, sixth-graders
  Calder, Petra, and Tommy lead their classmates in
  an attempt to keep Frank Lloyd Wright's famous
  Robie House from being demolished.

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Worldweavers Gift of Unmageby Alma Alexander

• While attending a school for children without
  magical powers, fourteen-year-old Thea, with the
  guidance of the mage Cheveyo, tries to strengthen
  her abilities and discovers her true identity.

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