Kentucky Bluegrass Award
Master List 2003-2004
9-12
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- Big Mouth and Ugly Girl / Joyce Carol Oates. -- HarperCollins Books, 2002. $16.89 ISBN: 0066237580.
An unusual friendship sparks when Ugly Girl stands up for what is right.
Blind Sighted / Peter Moore. -- Viking Children’s Books, 2002. $16.99 ISBN: 0670035432.
Kirk arrives home to find his mother gone on a trip with her new boyfriend. Her plans to move to a new town and begin life over do not mesh with Kirk’s. How can he cope with all the changes?
Born Blue / Han Nolan. – Harcourt, 2001. $17.00 ISBN:
0152019162.
When Janie is a child, her addict mother sells her for drugs. Thus begins her life of abuse and neglect. How can she survive?
Breathing Underwater / Alex Flinn. HarperCollins, 2002. $7.99 ISBN: 0064472574.
Sixteen-year-old Nick, convicted of hitting his former girlfriend, is instructed by the judge to write a journal.
Catalyst / Laurie Halse Anderson. -- Viking Children’s Books, 2002. $12.59 ISBN: 0670035661.
Kate plans to attend her mother’s alma mater, MIT. She has no fallback plans and has to deal with disappointment on the academic and personal front when the school rejects her.
Damage / A.M. Jenkins. – HarperTempest, 2003. $6.99 ISBN: 0064472558. Being a big time football player should make life easy, right? This novel examines how depression can consume every part of your life.
Every Time a Rainbow Dies / Rita Willams-Garcia. -- Amistad Press, 2002. $6.95 ISBN: 0064473031.
From the safety of his rooftop, Thulani watches the world go by. One day he witnesses an event, which will change his life forever.
Hole in my Life / Jack Gantos. -- Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2002. $16.00 ISBN: 0374399883.
Gantos spent part of his life in prison for running drugs. This slice of life autobiography tells of his experiences.
Lovely Bones / Alice Sebold. -- Little Brown & Company, 2002. $21.95 ISBN: 0316666343
On her way home from school on a snowy December day in 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon is lured into a makeshift underground den in a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer--the man she knew as her neighbor, Mr. Harvey.
19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East / Naomi Shihab Nye. --Harpercollins Books, 2002. $16.95 ISBN: 0060097655.
Beginning with a work inspired by the events of September 11, Nye brings together 60 of her poems about people, war and peace.
One Hot Second / Cathy Young. -- Random House 2002. $10.95 ISBN: 0375812032
Collection of short stories about love and desire in the lives of a variety of teens.
Perfect Snow / Nora Martin. -- Bloomsbury USA Children's Books, 2002. $16.95 ISBN: 1582347883
Seventeen-year-old Ben must deal with a violent white-supremacy hate group in a small Montana town because his father and his friends are involved with it.
Postcards From No Man’s Land / Aidan Chambers. -- Dutton Books, 2002. 19.99 ISBN: 0525468633
2003 Printz Award. Jam-packed with ideas and filled with passionate characters, the story is made up of two narratives, one set in the mid-1990s and the other in 1944. The inevitable but surprising ways in which these two tales connect form the novel’s backbone.
Stoner and Spaz / Ronald Koertge. -- Candlewick Press, 2002. $15.99 ISBN: 0763616087
A troubled youth with cerebral palsy struggles with self-acceptance with the help of drug-addicted young women.
Whale Talk / Chris Crutcher. – Laureleaf, 2002. $5.50 ISBN: 0440229383
Crutcher’s long awaited novel offers a provocative look at how violence begets violence. It also leaves readers knowing that, if violence is to end, it is up to them to do something to stop it.
You Don’t Know Me / David Klass. – HarperTempest, 2002. $6.99 ISBN: 0064473783 Though the book deals with the serious topic of abuse, the humorous narrative of the protagonist provides much needed comic relief.
