Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School
Book Award
2009 - 2010 School Year
 

Winner

Unwind by Neal Shusterman YA AWARD SHU
To end the bloody Heartland War between the Pro Life and Pro Choice armies, the county adopts the Bill of Life which makes abortion illegal, at least until the child is 13. The Bill of Life gives parents the right to “retroactively abort” children between the ages of 13 and 18, as long as 99% of their bodies are repurposed as transplants in a process called Unwinding. Conner, age 16, an unwanted son, is an Unwind because he is too much trouble. Risa, age 15, an orphan, will be unwound because keeping her whole is too expensive. Lev, age 13, a tithe, is selected before birth to be a holy offering, the ultimate unwound sacrifice. Thrown together by chance, they must help each other survive, until they are 18 and are safe.

Honor Books

Deadline by Chris Crutcher YA AWARD CRU
What if you were eighteen, and you discovered that you were dying? Would you make any changes in your life? Would you take some risks…at school, in sports, with the opposite sex? And, the biggest question, would you tell your secret?
 

Sold by Patricia McCormick YA AWARD MCC
Lakshmi, a Nepalese girl living in poverty, is only thirteen years old when her stepfather says she must leave home and find work to help support their family. She is told that she'll be working as a maid, and is terrified when she realizes that she has actually been sold into prostitution.

Nominees

Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie  YA Award ALE
Junior feels like a traitor. Her lives on the Spokane Indian Reservation, but he no longer attends the school there. Junior wants to rise above the depression and the alcohol abuse that entrap so many of his fellow Native Americans, so he is braving Reardan High School, where the only other Native American is the school mascot.

An Abundance of Katherines by JohnGreen YA AWARD GRE & YA PLAYAWAY GRE
Recent high-school grad Colin is reeling from his recent break-up with the 18th Katherine. His friend Hassan convinces Colin that the only way to cure the heartache is a road trip. Laugh out loud with Colin and Hassan as they embark on a journey that teaches them ways to navigate the potholes in the road of life.

Beauty Shop For Rent, Fully Equipped, Inquire Within by Lisa Bowers YA AWARD BOW
14-year-old Abbey is determined to break the cycle the women in her family keep repeating. Both Abbey's mother and grandmother got pregnant in high school and then were unhappily married. In fact, Abbey is now being raised by her great-grandmother after her mother decided she couldn't cope anymore. So Abbey focuses on her career not her personal life. She already has $7,000 dollars saved from working in her great-grandmother's beauty shop and is determined to be a millionaire by the time she is 35. However, Abbey's careful life is thrown for a loop when her mother re-enters her life.

Big Fat Manifesto by Susan Vaught YA AWARD VAU
Jamie is a fat girl, and she’s proud of it. She better be. That’s what her column in the school paper is about, being fat in America today, and that’s how she’s going to pay for college when she wins the journalism scholarship. But when her boyfriend decides on bariatric surgery, Jamie’s world is rocked to its core. What’s wrong with being big and beautiful?

Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz YA AWARD DE
At the exclusive private Duchesne School in New York, the students are beautiful, rich, powerful, and immortal. These students aren’t just descendants of the original American colonists; they are the settlers, the Blue Bloods. Many of Duchene’s elite are actually vampires, Lucifer’s fallen angels, who were banished to earth to live off of the blood of their human familiars, until the day they can become redeemed. But now young Blue Bloods are being destroyed, their immortal blood being drained from their physical shells. It is up to Schuyler Van Alen, the school outcast, and a new Blue Blood, to track down those who would destroy her vampire family and uncover the truth about her own identity.

Everything You Want by Barbara Shoup YA AWARD SHO
Emma is having a hard time adjusting to college life. She lost her best friend when she told him about her feelings for him, and now she just feels lost and lonely at school. However, Emma's life changes overnight when she finds out that her family has won $50 million dollars in the lotto. Suddenly Emma's choices are limitless. The only problem is Emma doesn't know what she wants.

Hero by Perry Moore YA AWARD MOO
Thom Creed has secrets. He’s a high school basketball star; he has super powers like his former hero dad; and he has a crush on super dude Uberman. To spare his fallen idol dad more embarrassment and disappointment, Thom runs away and is invited to join the superhero League as an apprentice. While he learns to use his talents with some other unlikely super heroes, Thom discovers the real story behind his father’s disgrace, his mother’s disappearance and his own true identity.

Hurricane Season: A Coach, His Team &Their Triumph in the Time of Katrina by Neal Thompson
It is August 2005 and football practice has begun for the New Orleans based John Curtis Christian School Patriots. The Patriots have won nineteen football state championships, despite the fact they have no stadium and that the coach, J.T. Curtis, has a no-cut policy. The team is preparing to compete for yet another championship, but Hurricane Katrina intervenes. The Patriots’ world is totally changed. Will the school and the team be able to rebuild in time to compete for the 2005 championship?

Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah YA AWARD 966.4 BEA & LARGE PRINT 966.4 BEA
This story begins with a 12 year old boy growing up in Sierra Leone during their violent civil war. He learns about the horrors of warfare when his village is attached by rebels and he is forced to flee. After wandering from village to village, he finds himself in the army, which is full of drugs and casual slaughter. He stays in the army until he is 15, when he is brought to a rehabilitation center. While at the center he learns to live without drugs and anger. Readers begin to see a boy who will become a strong spokes person against the war and that there are ways to survive without adding to the chaos.

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabriella Zevin YA AWARD ZEV
After Naomi hits her head in a fall, she loses her memories from the last four years, memories of her boyfriend, her best friend, her parents’ divorce, and more. Her biggest shock, though, is what she discovers about the person she used to be.

Peak by Roland Smith YA AWARD SMI
Accustomed to scaling skyscrapers in NYC, graffiti artist Peak Marcello gets the chance of a lifetime when his estranged father, a mountain-climber, takes him on an expedition to Mount Everest. If Peak can complete the climb before his 15th birthday, he'll be the youngest person ever to successfully climb Everest.

The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci YA GRAPHIC NOVEL CAS PLA
In this graphic novel, Jane is the new girl at school. She tries unsuccessfully to make friends and ends up at a table at lunch with the antisocials of the school, all ironically named Jane. Through reluctant discussion, they find common interests and become "terrorists" with their random acts of art around the community. But will their identities be discovered?

Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices & Priorities of a Winning Life by Tony Dungy YA AWARD 921 DUNGY, T., Dun & 921 DUNGY, T., Dun
In this inspirational book, Tony Dungy shares the many experiences that shaped him into the man, the father, the husband, and the coach he is today. Beginning in Michigan, where his parents were both educators and stressed the importance of always doing one’s best, to his days playing football in both college and the NFL, and ending with his time as a head-coach at first Tampa and then Indianapolis, Tony motivates readers to always look for what they can do to contribute to the world around them.

Red Glass by Laura Resau YA AWARD RES & YA RES
Sophie is afraid. She’s afraid of being forgotten. She afraid of being included, but when a six year old boy is the only survivor in a group that tries to cross the border with Mexico and her step father’s name is found pinned to him, Sophie will risk everything to make sure that he is safely returned to his family in Guatemala.

Repossessed by A.M. Jenkins YA AWARD JEN
Kiriel is a demon, a fallen angel, who wants a vacation from hell and his job of tormenting the damned. He wants to experience the Seven Deadly Sins first hand. After all, what is more natural than pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, and sloth? What is the big deal anyway? Why do the dead torment themselves for eternity over committing a few minor sins? To experience all of these, Kiriel must break the rules, he must find the perfect physical body to possess, complete with all five senses. He needs someone who is healthy, strong, unsupervised, and not too busy with responsibilities. He is looking for someone who has enough time on their hands to live life to the extreme. What he needs is a teenager.

Samurai Shortstop by Alan Gratz YA AWARD GRA
Samurai or not? In turn of the century Japan, Toyo is caught between respect for his father’s Samurai traditions and the promise of modern Japan. Toyo triumphs against bullies in his new school and helps his father find meaning in modern society and develop respect for Toyo’s favorite pastime: the new sport of baseball.


Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini YA AWARD HOS & HOS & CD SPOKEN HOS & LARGE PRINT HOS
As in his novel The Kite Runner, Hosseini tells the story of an intense friendship against the backdrop of Afghanistan. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, two women endure years in a culture wrecked by Soviet invasion, war lord greed and Taliban oppression. As the men in power change, all women suffer as their freedoms dwindle to nothing. However, Mariam and Laila find strength to endure and survive through their fateful relationship.


Yellow Flag by Robert Lipsyte YA AWARD LIP
Kyle begins driving the family’s race car when his brother is parked for yet another concussion. Kyle would rather be playing the trumpet with his quintet, after all they have an elite competition coming up in less than a month, but when family calls, Kyle always answers. Then the more he drives, the better he becomes. The big question is what will Kyle do if Chris ever does recover enough to become the next NASCAR superstar?