Battle of the Books
Book List 2014-2015
Twins Josh and Jordan are junior high
basketball stars, thanks in large part to
the coaching of their dad, a former
professional baller who was forced to
quit playing for health reasons, and the
firm, but loving support of their
assistant-principal mom. Josh, better
known as Filthy McNasty, earned his
nickname for his enviable skills on the
court: "…when Filthy gets hot/He has a
SLAMMERIFIC SHOT." In this novel in
verse, the brothers begin moving apart
from each other for the first time.
"With a bolt of lightning on my kicks . .
The court is SIZZLING. My sweat is
DRIZZLING. Stop all that quivering. Cuz
tonight I’m delivering," announces
dread-locked, 12-year old Josh Bell.
He and his twin brother Jordan are
awesome on the court. But Josh has
more than basketball in his blood, he's
got mad beats, too, that tell his family's
story in verse.
Irish immigrants to England, Molly
and Kip make their way to the
Windsor house in search of
employment. The great house
stands in the shadow of a menacing
tree, which locals speak of only in
fearful whispers. Despite her young
age and the warnings of a local
storyteller, Molly uses the power of
her own words to secure work, but
soon realizes that all is not right in
the house. Constance, Bertrand,
Penny, and Alistair Windsor each
struggle with personal demons, and
strange footprints appear at night. A
malevolent spirit, the Night
Gardener, haunts the estate,
dooming its inhabitants with foul
dreams while the tree grants wishes
to entrap the recipients. Molly and
Kip must face their own dark secrets
to release the Gardener's hold and
end his evil enchantments.
Middle school friends Rabi, Miguel, and
Joe literally smell trouble wafting from
their small town's meatpacking plant,
where they find cows living in filthy
conditions and behaving oddly. Then the
boys' baseball coach turns up moaning
“Brainsssss!” and tries to bite Rabi. When
the children discover that meat from the
sick cows is being packaged and sent to
local supermarkets, they are on their own
to prevent a zombie cow apocalypse
because no one believes their story.
With no grownups left they can trust, Rabi
and his friends will have to grab their bats
to protect themselves (and a few of their
enemies) if they want to stay alive...and
maybe even save the world.
When Ned and his identical twin brother
tumble from their raft into a raging river,
only Ned survives. Villagers are convinced
the wrong boy lived. But when a Bandit King
comes to steal the magic Ned’s mother, a
witch, is meant to protect, it’s Ned who
safeguards the magic and summons the
strength to protect his family and
community.
Meanwhile, across the enchanted forest
that borders Ned’s village lives Áine, the
resourceful and pragmatic daughter of the
Bandit King, who is haunted by her mother’s
last words to her: “The wrong boy will save
your life and you will save his.” When Áine’s
and Ned’s paths cross, can they trust each
other long enough to stop the war that’s
about to boil over between their two
kingdoms?
Jarrett doesn't trust Kevon.
But he's got to share a room with him
anyway.
It was one thing when Jarrett's mom took
care of foster babies who needed help. But
this time it's different. This time the baby
who needs help has an older brother -- a
kid Jarrett's age named Kevon.
Everyone thinks Jarrett and Kevon should
be friends -- but that's not gonna happen.
Not when Kevon's acting like he's better
than Jarrett -- and not when Jarrett finds
out Kevon's keeping some major secrets.
Jarrett doesn't think it's fair that he has to
share his room, his friends, and his life
with some stranger. He's gotta do
something about it -- but what?
Everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes, epic
failures even lead to super successes . . .
sometimes they become deep dark secrets.
But remember—to fail is human, to laugh
about our shortcomings divine. From
Montezuma II’s mistaking a conqueror for a
god to Isaac Newton turning from science to
alchemy to J. Bruce Ismay’s jumping the
lifeboat line on the Titanic, How They
Choked knocks fourteen famous achievers off
their pedestals to reveal the human side of
history.
Benji and Red couldn't be more different.
They aren't friends. They don't even live
in the same town. But their fates are
entwined. A chance meeting leads the
boys to discover that they have more in
common than meets the eye. Both of
them have encountered a strange
presence in the forest, watching them,
tracking them. Could the Madman of
Piney Woods be real?
Thirteen-year-old Margaret knows her father
is innocent, but that doesn't stop the cruel
Judge Biggs from sentencing him to death.
Margaret is determined to save her dad,
even if it means using her family's secret—
and forbidden—ability to time travel. With
the help of her best friend, Charlie, and his
grandpa Josh, Margaret goes back to a time
when Judge Biggs was a young boy and tries
to prevent the chain of events that
transformed him into a corrupt, jaded man.
But with the forces of history working against
her, will Margaret be able to change the
past? Or will she be pushed back to a present
in which her father is still doomed?.
What if the dumbest idea ever turned
your life upside down?
At thirteen, Jimmy was popular, at the
top of his class, and the leading scorer
on his basketball team. But all that
changed when chicken pox forced him
to miss the championship game. Things
went from bad to worse when he got
pneumonia and missed even more
school. Before Jimmy knew it, his grades
were sinking and nothing seemed to be
going right.
How did Jimmy turn things around, get
back on top at school, and land a date
with the cutest girl in class?
When Maisie Danger Brown nabbed a spot
at a NASA-like summer boot camp, she
never expected to uncover a conspiracy
that would change her life forever.
And she definitely didn't plan to fall in love.
But now there's no going back—Maisie's
the only thing standing between the Earth
and annihilation. She must become the
hero the world needs. The only problem is:
how does a regular girl from Salt Lake City
do that, exactly? It's not as though there's a
handbook for this sort of thing. It's up to
Maisie to come up with a plan—and find
the courage to carry it out—before she
loses her heart . . . and her life.
Jackson Greene swears he's given up
scheming. Then school bully Keith Sinclair
announces he's running for Student Council
president, against Jackson's former friend
Gaby de la Cruz. Gaby wants Jackson to stay
out of it -- but he knows Keith has
"connections" to the principal, which could
win him the presidency no matter the vote
count.
So Jackson assembles a crack
team: Hashemi Larijani, tech genius. Victor
Cho, bankroll. Megan Feldman, science
goddess. Charlie de la Cruz, reporter.
Together they devise a plan that will take
down Keith, win Gaby's respect, and make
sure the election is done right. If they can
pull it off, it will be remembered as the
school's greatest con ever -- one worthy of
the name THE GREAT GREENE HEIST.
Armani Curtis can think about only one thing:
her tenth birthday. All her friends are coming
to her party, her mama is making a big cake,
and she has a good feeling about a certain
wrapped box. Turning ten is a big deal to
Armani. It means she's older, wiser, more
responsible.
But when Hurricane Katrina hits the Lower
Nines of New Orleans, Armani realizes that
being ten means being brave, watching loved
ones die, and mustering all her strength to
help her family weather the storm. She must
look after her two younger sisters on a
journey that takes her first to the
Superdome, then to a shelter, and finally
back home to the ravaged Lower Ninth
Ward.
Midnight Gulch used to be a magical
place, a town where people could sing
up thunderstorms and dance up
sunflowers. But that was long ago,
before a curse drove the magic away.
Twelve-year-old Felicity knows all about
things like that; her nomadic mother is
cursed with a wandering heart.
But when she arrives in Midnight Gulch,
Felicity thinks her luck's about to
change. A "word collector," Felicity sees
words everywhere---shining above
strangers, tucked into church eves, and
tangled up her dog's floppy ears---but
Midnight Gulch is the first place she's
ever seen the word "home."
Felicity wants to stay in Midnight Gulch
more than anything, but first, she'll
need to figure out how to bring back the
magic, breaking the spell that's been
cast over the town . . . and her mother's
broken heart.
When a young Cleopatra (yes, THAT
Cleopatra) finds a mysterious tablet that zaps
her to the far, REALLY far future, she learns of
an ancient prophecy that says she is destined
to save the galaxy from the tyrannical rule of
the evil Xaius Octavian. She enrolls in Yasiro
Academy, a high-tech school with classes like
algebra, biology, and alien languages (which
Cleo could do without), and combat training
(which is more Cleo's style).
With help from her teacher Khensu, Cleo
learns what it takes to be a great leader,
while trying to figure out how she's going to
get her homework done, make friends, and
avoid detention!
Lucy lives on the twenty-fourth floor. Owen
lives in the basement. It's fitting, then, that
they meet in the middle -- stuck between
two floors of a New York City apartment
building, on an elevator rendered useless by
a citywide blackout. After they're rescued,
Lucy and Owen spend the night wandering
the darkened streets and marveling at the
rare appearance of stars above Manhattan.
But once the power is back, so is reality. Lucy
soon moves abroad with her parents, while
Owen heads out west with his father.
The brief time they spend together leaves a
mark. And as their lives take them to
Edinburgh and to San Francisco, to Prague
and to Portland, Lucy and Owen stay in touch
through postcards, occasional e-mails, and
phone calls. But can they -- despite the odds
-- find a way to reunite?
It's 1964, and Sunny's town is being
invaded. Or at least that's what the
adults of Greenwood, Mississippi are
saying. All Sunny knows is that people
from up north are coming to help
people register to vote. They're calling
it Freedom Summer.
Meanwhile, Sunny can't help but feel
like her house is being invaded, too. She
has a new stepmother, a new brother,
and a new sister crowding her life, giving
her little room to breathe. And things
get even trickier when Sunny and her
brother are caught sneaking into the
local swimming pool -- where they
bump into a mystery boy whose life is
going to become tangled up in theirs.
When Charlie moves to the small town of
Taper, Florida, he discovers a different world.
Pinned between the everglades and the
swampy banks of Lake Okeechobee, the small
town produces sugar cane . . . and the fastest
runners in the country. Kids chase muck rabbits
in the fields while the cane is being burned
and harvested. Dodging flames and blades and
breathing smoke, they run down the rabbits
for three dollars a skin. And when they can do
that, running a football is easy.
But there are things in the swamp, roaming
the cane at night, that cannot be explained,
and they seem connected to sprawling
mounds older than the swamps. Together with
his step-second cousin "Cotton" Mack, the
fastest boy on the muck, Charlie hunts secrets
in the glades and on the muck flats where the
cane grows secrets as old as the soft earth,
secrets that haunted, tripped, and trapped the
original native tribes, ensnared conquistadors,
and buried runaway slaves. Secrets only the
muck knows.
Jacqueline Woodson, one of today's
finest writers, tells the moving story of
her childhood in mesmerizing verse.
Raised in South Carolina and New York,
Woodson always felt halfway home in
each place. In vivid poems, she shares
what it was like to grow up as an African
American in the 1960s and 1970s, living
with the remnants of Jim Crow and her
growing awareness of the Civil Rights
movement. Touching and powerful, each
poem is both accessible and emotionally
charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s
soul as she searches for her place in the
world. Woodson’s eloquent poetry also
reflects the joy of finding her voice
through writing stories, despite the fact
that she struggled with reading as a
child. Her love of stories inspired her and
stayed with her, creating the first sparks
of the gifted writer she was to become.
Malala Yousafzai was only ten years old when
the Taliban took control of her region. They
said music was a crime. They said women
weren't allowed to go to the market. They
said girls couldn't go to school.
Raised in a once-peaceful area of Pakistan
transformed by terrorism, Malala was taught
to stand up for what she believes. So she
fought for her right to be educated. And on
October 9, 2012, she nearly lost her life for
the cause: She was shot point-blank while
riding the bus on her way home from school.
No one expected her to survive.
Now Malala is an international symbol of
peaceful protest and the youngest ever Nobel
Peace Prize nominee. In this Young Readers
Edition of her bestselling memoir, which
includes exclusive photos and material, we
hear firsthand the remarkable story of a girl
who knew from a young age that she wanted
to change the world -- and did.