Volunteer State Book Award

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Volunteer State Book Award Nominations 2006-2007

Grades 4-6
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• By Tracy Barrett
• Ariadne's family has just moved from Florida
  to tiny Dobbin, TN, and she hates it. She misses
  the ocean, her old school, and her best friend,
  Sarah. One day, after swimming in Cedar Point
  Lake, she meets an odd girl in old-fashioned
  clothing, whose name she later discovers is May.
  In the course of doing research for a class
  project on the history of her new town, Ariadne
  learns of a local legend concerning a child named
  May Butler who mysteriously disappeared one day
  in the 1850s, and she decides to discover the
  truth about the strange girl who drifts in and
  out of her life with no explanation. from
  School Library Journal

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• By Kimberley Brubaker Bradley
• Ethel's life changes in an instant when her
  father, Theodore Roosevelt, becomes President of
  the U.S. after the McKinley assassination. The
  10-year-old and her family move into the
  Executive Mansion, which Roosevelt renames the
  White House. It is a dark, musty place, filled
  with worn and garish furnishings. That doesn't
  stop Ethel and her brothers from having fun
  roller-skating in the basement and sneaking up to
  the roof. The girl is miserable, though, when her
  parents send her to the National Cathedral
  School. Being the president's daughter doesn't
  necessarily make life or finding friends any
  easier. She lives for the weekends when she can
  go home and dreads the return to school on Monday
  mornings. It's not until her older sister, Alice,
  challenges her to crawl under the table at a
  dinner in the East Room that Ethel finds the
  courage to fit in at school. from School
  Library Journal

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• By Dori Hillestad Butler
• Joelle, 13, has just moved from Minneapolis,
  where she was a star baseball player on her
  school's boys' team, to a small, rural Iowa town.
  At Hoover Middle School, there is only a girls'
  softball team and Joelle is not allowed to play
  with the boys. Upset by this and the fact that no
  one seems to understand that baseball and
  softball are not the same game, she is determined
  to play her sport of choice. Appealing first to
  the coach, then the principal, and next to the
  superintendent, Joelle is foiled at every step.
  Eventually she becomes involved in starting a
  girls' league with neighboring towns. When the
  school board finally changes its rules, Joelle
  turns down the offer to play with the boys.
  from School Library Journal

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• By Clara Gillow Clark
• Hattie's life is difficult with her mother
  dead and her hard-drinking father curt and
  demanding. The 11-year-old has had to quit school
  in order to do the cooking and other chores. Her
  father makes her dress like a boy, and she reacts
  to him by being sullen and ornery. He is a "Hill
  Hawk," a logger who lives a lonely life in the
  hills, and he begins taking her with him to cut
  trees. He also decides to take her with him as
  they raft the trees downriver to be sold.
  Traveling together, the two begin to heal the
  rift between them. from School Library Journal

6

• By Andrew Clements
• Sixth-grader Hart Evans's least-favorite
  class is chorus, where uptight Mr. Meinert makes
  them sing boring songs. When Hart shoots a couple
  of rubber bands at the teacher, the man
  overreacts and is angry when the smooth-talking
  boy gets off relatively unscathed. Although the
  class is not told, readers learn that Mr. Meinert
  will lose his job after January 1 because of
  budget cuts. When the students act up the next
  day, he snaps and decides to place the
  responsibility for the holiday concert in their
  hands. This sets in motion a series of events
  that leaves Hart running the show with the
  teacher watching, learning, and eventually
  helping out. from School Library Journal

7

• By Suzanne Collins
• It's the beginning of summer and
  everyone is going off to camp except Gregor, an
  11-year-old boy from New York City. Since his
  father's disappearance from their New York City
  home, he has been helping out with taking care of
  his little sisters, especially two-year-old
  Boots. Gregor sacrifices his chance to go to
  camp, letting his other sister go instead. While
  doing laundry in the basement of his apartment
  building, Boots disappears down an air chute and
  Gregor goes after her. At the bottom of this
  inner-city rabbit hole, the two find themselves
  in the Underland surrounded immediately by giant
  cockroaches, or crawlers. The two Overlanders are
  taken to the Queen of the Underlander humans,
  where Gregor learns of a prophecy which focuses
  on him and a quest to find his missing father. He
  travels with bats, crawlers, spinners (giant
  spiders), a rat, and two of the royal
  Underlanders. Gregor spends his time between
  protecting Boots, who doesn't know she needs to
  be protected, and becoming the leader of the
  questors who must not only save his father, but
  also save the Underlanders' kingdom. from
  School Library Journal

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• By Jean Craighead George
• After his Teton Sioux Indian friend Singing
  Bird tells him that ravens can "cure people,"
  Charlie, 13, is determined to get one. Blue Sky,
  his entertaining chick, endears himself to the
  family after he imprints on Charlie and, for a
  time, the teen's naturalist grandfather, who has
  suffered a heart attack, seems to improve as he
  leads his grandson through a raven research
  project. from School Library Journal

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• By Amy Gordon
• Lydia Rice attends the Florence T. Pocket
  Boarding School. Her parents are divorced, her
  beloved grandmother has recently died, and she
  does not like her new school. She has difficulty
  making friends until she meets Howie, the
  maintenance man/night watchman, during one of her
  nocturnal wanderings through the school. He
  teaches her to be a silly wizard and sets up a
  task for her to identify the characters in a
  mural painted in the hallway at the turn of the
  century. By unraveling this mystery, Lydia makes
  a series of discoveries about her family and
  herself. Howie gives her stories of magic and
  transformation that he has written. His advice to
  her is to be true to herself. from School
  Library Journal

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• By Margaret Peterson Haddix
• Twelve-year-old Britt's older brother has
  helped watch over the family for as long as she
  can remember. So when Bran tells Britt and her
  mother that he's convinced a family to let them
  house-sit for the summer, no one questions the
  arrangement. This house-sitting job will give
  their mother the chance to go to school full time
  and try to get a scholarship to finish. However,
  when they move in, Bran starts acting strange,
  and Britt discovers that the owners really didn't
  give them permission to live there, only for Bran
  to mow their lawn. She also learns that they are
  her maternal grandparents, estranged from her
  mother. Bran explains that because their
  grandparents disowned her when she eloped, using
  their house is simply a long overdue payback.
  from School Library Journal

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• By Mary Downing Hahn
• Diana and her younger brother, Georgie, have
  been living on the grounds of the old Willis
  place for oh, so long. They've seen caretakers
  come and go, but the new one seems different. Mr.
  Morrison has a daughter, Lissa, who seems to be
  about Diana's age. Both girls are lonely and long
  for a friend but Georgie reminds Diana that it's
  "against the rules" to have friends that they
  must remain out of sight. But Lissa remains
  intriguing to the children. She not only has a
  bicycle, but she also has many books and a
  stuffed animal that reminds Georgie of one he
  once had. They share even more Lissa, too, has
  suffered a huge loss. from School Library
  Journal

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• By Katherine Hannigan
• As an only child, Ida B has had plenty of
  time to indulge her creative bent. She makes
  miniature rafts, to which she attaches notes with
  questions such as, "What is life like in Canada?"
  Acres of apple trees are her friends, and she
  enjoys long conversations with Beulah, Pastel,
  Henry VIII, and other trees. She lives life to
  the fullest, firmly believing there is never
  enough time for fun. When her mother develops
  cancer, her parents sell part of the orchard and
  send Ida B to public school rather than
  homeschooling her. The changes leave her feeling
  fiercely angry and betrayed. With the help of a
  wise and caring fourth-grade teacher and the
  enduring love of Mama and Daddy, the girl slowly
  begins to heal. from School Library Journal

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• By Joan Hiatt Harlow
• In this novel set in Newfoundland in 1929,
  13-year-old Tom Campbell, an orphan, travels to
  Back o' the Moon Island to live with and work for
  Enoch and Fiona Murray. On his first fishing
  trip, he rescues a young Newfoundland dog from
  the sea during a storm and names him Thunder. A
  local boy, Bert Bosworth, and his father, Amos,
  also want the animal, and they go to great
  lengths to find his original owner out of spite.
  Thunder is a kind, intelligent creature who
  several times saves the islanders from danger.
  The Bosworths eventually realize that the dog
  truly belongs with Tom. from School Library
  Journal

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• By Gail Langer Karwoski
• It is 1906, and 13-year-old Jacob Kaufman,
  who lives in San Francisco with his father and
  little sister, is outside when a major earthquake
  shakes the city, cracking streets and toppling
  buildings. After Jacob and his dog save the life
  of San, a Chinese boy, the two join together to
  search for their families and for food and
  temporary shelter. Though San occasionally faces
  racial hostility, the boys meet many strangers
  who help them through the difficult days. from
  Booklist

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• By Barbara Kerley
• A story that focuses on Whitman's formative
  years and his selfless work as a Civil War nurse.
  "Walt wrote poems as free-ranging as his big
  robust country. More than anything, he hoped to
  become the voice of America." When the conflict
  begins, the artist supplies a somber-hued gallery
  of soldiers posed in their uniforms. As the war
  wears on, Kerley notes the fondness Whitman held
  for his embattled president, whom he'd often see
  on the streets of the capital. Forced to return
  home because of his health, he heard news of the
  war's end, and a few days later, of Lincoln's
  death. Kerley observes that at this point Whitman
  turned again to poetry to help himself, along
  with the nation, resolve his grief and turn
  toward peace and rebuilding. from School
  Library Journal

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• By Leslea Newman
• This is a true story of an Akita who became
  a national symbol for loyalty and hope by
  waitingfor 10 yearsat a Japanese commuter train
  station for his dead master to return. Hachi
  accompanies Professor Ueno to Shibuya Station
  every morning, then returns at three o'clock to
  welcome him back. After his owner dies suddenly
  at work, the dog continues his afternoon vigil
  for the rest of his life, earning such notoriety
  that the honorific "ko" is attached to his name.
  After his death, a statue in his memory is
  erected near his accustomed spot on the platform.
  Yasuo becomes friends with Hachiko, and over a
  span of years helps to provide the dog with food
  and water. He later proposes to his future wife
  under that statue. from School Library Journal

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• By Ian Ogilvy
• Measle Stubbs lives in a vile house with his
  hateful guardian, Basil Tramplebone. Basil, who
  is a "Wrathmonk," a warlock gone mad, has one
  pleasure, his amazingly elaborate model train
  set, and one day he reduces Measle to a tiny size
  and sets him down within it. Before long, Measle
  discovers six other small humans and a dog, and
  together they must figure out how to survive in a
  hostile environment where the only food (donut
  crumbs left by Basil) will turn them slowly into
  plastic, avoid the hungry bat that stalks them,
  and find a way to vanquish Basil. from School
  Library Journal

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• By P. J. Petersen
• Kevin is assigned to an animal-rescue agency
  as a part of the public-service hours he must
  serve for stealing a car. He learns the ropes
  from a volunteer named Tracy and her older
  brother, Luke. Unimpressed by the "jailbird,"
  Tracy finds the fellow freshman a bit like a wild
  animal in need of taming. When persistent rains
  cause a river to break through the levee, the
  teens are asked to take food out, by boat, to a
  stranded black Lab. The rapidly rising water adds
  to the urgency of their mission but the group
  encounters a more dangerous situation when they
  suspect burglars are ransacking an unoccupied
  house. Kevin and Luke investigate the property
  and spy on the armed thugs. Kevin narrowly
  escapes as he and Tracy dodge a bullet that puts
  a hole in their boat. The pair must resolve their
  differences in order to survive and return for
  Luke. from School Library Journal

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• By Jean Van Leeuwen
• Daniel, 11, Will, 9, and their father travel
  to Ohio in 1803 to claim their new land. After
  hastily building a cabin, Pa returns home to
  Pennsylvania to fetch Ma and the younger
  children, intending to come back five or six
  weeks later. The boys first treat their time
  alone as an adventure, exploring the woods and
  fishing in the creek. However, as the weeks
  stretch into months with still no sign of their
  parents, the brothers must shift their focus to
  withstanding the winter. Luckily, a Native
  American trapper notices them and teaches them
  some basic survival skills. Still, as snow piles
  up around them, the youngsters realize how fierce
  the outdoors can be. from School Library
  Journal

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• By Ruth White
• Pipers parents divorce, her father
  remarries and is subsumed by his new family, her
  mother completes the college education she'd
  jettisoned for marriage, but leaves the girl to
  her own devices while she works, attends classes,
  or goes off with a new boyfriend. All this
  contributes to Piper's sense of abandonment,
  especially when combined with the naturally
  occurring dislocation of early adolescence. Piper
  finds some solace in writing. She's long been
  addicted to collecting unusual words. Now she
  turns increasingly to poetry as an emotional
  outlet, eventually producing a poem that she
  reads aloud at the public library to high
  acclaim. The approbation of the adults in town
  awakens Piper's parents to her talents and her
  pain, and the book ends with the promise of
  better communication among them. from School
  Library Journal

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• By Elvira Woodruff
• It's 1735. Forrest Harper's life inside the
  Tower of London consists of three ways to pass
  the time chores, chores, and more chores. His
  only friends are the spirited ravens he tends
  with his father. So when vicious Scottish Rebels
  are captured, Forrest can't wait to prove himself
  by standing guard. If only Forrest's prisoner
  hadn't turned out to be the noble and daring
  Maddy. And if only Maddy wasn't about to be
  executed. . . .Now, as Forrest chooses between
  friendship and family, safety and escape, he and
  Maddy must flee, somehow navigating the cold,
  dank corridors of the Tower. from School
  Library Journal

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