PSLA 

    YA TOP FORTY

TOP TEN (OR SO) 2004 (05) TITLES

 
Fiction

 

Best fiction book in the tradition of Go Ask Alice:

Hopkins, Ellen.  Crank. 

 

Best fiction about world issues:

Stratton, Allan.  Chanda’s Secrets. 

 

Best gritty fiction about a homeless boy who teaches us that compassion is a superpower:

Leavitt, Martine.  Heck, Superhero.

 

Best female “beach” read:

Mackler, Carolyn.  Vegan, Virgin, Valentine.

 

Best book on a sensitive subject:

Peters, Julie Anne.  Luna.

 

Best fiction in homage to Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War:

Gardener, Graham.  Inventing Elliot.

 

Best science fiction mystery on genetic engineering in the tradition of Michael Crichton:

Werlin, Nancy.  Double Helix.

 

Best “ English-humor,” laugh-out-loud fiction book:

McKay, Hilary.  Indigo’s Star.

 

Best new fantasy trilogy in Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” fashion:

Fisher, Catherine.  The Oracle Betrayed: Book One of the Oracle Prophecies.

 

Best futuristic novel:

Rossoff, Meg. How I Live Now.

 

Best teenage love story:

Dessen, Sarah.  the truth about forever.

 

Best middle school fiction about Alcatraz and autism also winning the “crime doesn’t pay” award:

Choldenko, Jennifer.  Al Capone Does My Shirts.

 

Best fiction coming-of-age novel:

Cummings, Priscilla.  Red Kayak.

 

Best multicultural historical fiction:

Wein, Elizabeth E.  The Sunbird.

 

Best Hard-Science fiction war story:

Cronin, Thomas W.  Glory be to Mars.

 

Best graphic novel folktale:

Atagan, Patrick. Silk Tapestry and other Chinese Folktales: Songs of our Ancestors Volume II.

 

Best fictional account of a country in political turmoil:

Hosseini, Khaled. Kite Runner.

 

Best thought-provoking fiction about a teen atheist creating his own religion:

Hautman.  Pete. Godless.

 

Best religious graphic novel:

Tezuka, Osamu.  Volume 3: Devadatta.

 

Best fiction about the Holocaust:

Kositsky, Lynne.  The Thought of High Windows.

 

Best fiction about medical ethics:

Picoult, Jodi.  My Sister’s Keeper.

 

Best fiction book to help improve your descriptive speech:

Hannigan, Katherine.  Ida B….and Her Plan to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World.

 

Best realistic fiction with invisible boy issues also winning for best ending:

Shusterman, Neal.  The Schwa Was Here.

 

Best fiction about a boy on his own:

Leavitt, Martine.  Heck, Superhero.

 

Best family relationship book:

Sones, Sonya.  One of those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies.

 

Best contemporary realistic fiction where the mother doesn’t die:

Westefield, Scott.  So Yesterday.

 

Best fiction to help understand global women’s issues:

Williams-Garcia, Rita.  No Laughter Here.

 

Best teen coming-of-age/historical/multicultural issues book, also winning the should-have-won-the-Newbery award:

Schmidt, Gary D.  Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy.

 

Best historical fiction from the early pioneer days in North America:

Trottier, Maxine.  Sister to the Wolf.

 

Best grown up fairy tale:

Farmer, Nancy.  Sea of Trolls.

 

Best historical fiction—Civil War period:

Elliott, L. M.  Annie Between the States.

 

Best teen romance:

Caletti, Deb.  Honey, Baby, Sweetheart.

 

Best read about sports instead of watch them on TV award:

Lupica, Mike.  Travel Team.                                                                                                       

 

Best short story collection about diversity:

Singer, Marilyn, ed. Face Relations: 11 Stories About Seeing Beyond Color.

 

Best Joan Crawford / Mommie Dearest award:

Curtis, Christopher Paul.  Bucking the Sarge.

 

Best Harry Potter wanna-be:

Booth, Martin.  Doctor Illuminatus.

 

After-death sequel to a popular romance novel:

Woodson, Jacqueline.  Behind You.

 

Fantasy series entry by child of a famous author:

McCaffrey, Todd.  Dragonsblood.

 

Science fiction continuing saga:

Card, Orson Scott.  Shadow of the Giant

 

Alternative history graphic novel:

Kubert, Joe. Yossel.

 

Realistic novel dealing with depression and recovery:

Rapp, Adam.  Under the Wolf, Under the Dog.

 

The you-won’t-read-this-in-history award:

Chibbaro, Julie.  Redemption.

 

Best young middle grade mystery award:

Balliett, Blue.  Chasing Vermeer.

 

Best Ninja adventure set in 16th Century Japan:

Whitesel, Cheryl Aylward.  Blue Fingers.

 

Best time travel to visit prehistoric nomads:

Griffin, Peni.  11,000 Years Lost.

 

Best Mystery set in 18th Century Japan where the clue is a bloodstained origami butterfly:

Hoobler, Dorothy.  In Darkness, Death.

                                                                       

Non-Fiction

 

Best nonfiction memoir:

Conlon-McIvor, Maura.  FBI Girl: How I Learned to Crack My Father’s Code.

 

Best nonfiction series for visual learners:

Enduring Issues Through Political Cartoons. 

 

Best nonfiction about a potential nuclear disaster:

Silverstein, Ken.  The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor.

 

Everything you need to know about the Roman army (in color):

Blacklock, Dyan.  The Roman Army: The Legendary Soldiers who Created an Empire.

 

Best self-defense book for girls:

Karres, Erica V. Shearin.  Mean Chicks, Cliques, and Dirty Tricks.

Best “Reconstructed History from Mystery” book:

Hunt, Linda Lawrence.  Bold Spirit: Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across America.

 

Best nonfiction about Vietnamese orphans:

Warren, Andrea.  Escape from Saigon: How a Vietnam War Orphan Became an American Boy.

 

Best poetry following the Spoon River Anthology tradition:

Myers, Walter Dean.  Here in Harlem: Poems in Many Voices.

 

Best celebration in book form:

Bolden, Tonya.  Wake Up Our Souls: A Celebration of Black American Artists.

 

Best book to inspire greatness, regardless! also winning for best multicultural biography

Freedman, Russell. The Voice that Challenged a Nation: Marion Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights.

 

Best military biography set during the Persian Gulf War:

Williams, Buzz. Spare Parts: A Marine Reservist’s Journey from Campus to Combat in 38 Days.

 

Best Shakespearean study:

Greenblatt, Stephen.  Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare.

 

Best historical fiction about Lewis and Clark:

Wolf, Alan.  New Found Land.

 

Best literary criticism series:

Reynolds and Noakes.  A.S. Byatt (Vintage Living Texts).

 

Best civil rights series:

America’s Freedom Series.

 

Best collective biography series:

Burns, Fighters Against Censorship (History Makers).

 

Best history series:

Fisinak, Christina, Ed.  The Rwanda Genocide. (At Issue in History)

 

Best multicultural fiction about AIDS in Africa (tying with Chanda’s Secrets)

Ellis, Deborah.  The Heaven Shop.

 

Best legend about Tristan and Isolde:

Miles, Rosalind.  The Lady of the Sea.

 

Exceptional short stories:

Steele, Alexander and Thom Didato.  Gotham Writers’ Workshop Fiction Gallery.

 

Best realistic hi/lo fiction

Hrdlitschka, Shelley.  Kat’s Fall.

 

Best book to follow Maus:                                          

Croci, Pascal. Auschwitz.

 

Best graphic book to inspire better understanding of Iranian history:

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return.

 

Nonfiction about women’s history”

Bausum, Ann.  With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman’s Right to Vote. 

 

Best art nonfiction:

Greenberg, Jan and Sandra Jordan.  Andy Warhol: Prince of Pop. 

 

Best poetry book for middle schoolers:

Grandits, John.  Technically, It’s Not My Fault.

 

Best nonfiction reference on legal issues:

Hartman, Gary, Roy M. Mersky, and Cindy L. Tate.  Landmark Supreme Court Cases.

 

Best nonfiction on hot contemporary political issues:

Ball, Howard.  The USA Patriot Act of 2001: Balancing Civil Liberties and National Security: A Reference Handbook. (ABC-CLIO)

 

Best coffee table book:

DC Comics Encyclopedia: The Definitive Guide to the Characters of the DC Universe.  (Dorling Kindersley)

                                                                                               
 
Reference

 

Best reference series of the year about literature:

Bloom’s Period Studies: American Naturalism; Elizabethan Drama, The Harlem Renaissance, Literature of the Holocaust.

 

Best opera reference:

Tommasini, Anthony.  Opera: A Critic’s Guide to the 100 Most Important Works and the Best Recordings. (New York Times Essential Library Series).

 

Best reference book about animals:

McDade, Melissa, ed.  Grzimek’s Student Animal Life Resource.

 

Best pre-20th century reference set:

Reconstruction Era: Almanac, Biographies, Primary Sources.  (UXL)

 

Reference of the year, really!

American Decades Primary Sources. Ed. Cynthia Rose.

 

Professional

 

Best Professional handbook about graphic novels in school libraries:

Lyga, Allyson A. W. and Barry Lyga.  Graphic Novels in Your Media Center.

 

Best professional guide to horror:

Spratford and Clausen.  The Horror Reader’s Advisor.

 

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