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2008 Award Books for Children and Teens
Follow the graphic and text links to request copies of these great books to be delivered to your neighborhood Denver Public Library.
Newbery Award for Best Literature and Honor
Books:
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Winner:
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! : Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz; illustrated by Robert Byrd
A collection of short one-person plays featuring characters, between ten and fifteen years old, who live in or near a thirteenth-century English manor.
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Honor Book: Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis
In 1859, eleven-year-old Elijah Freeman, the first free-born child in Buxton, Canada, uses his wits and skills to try to bring to justice the lying preacher who has stolen money that was to be used to buy a family's freedom.
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Honor Book: The Wednesday Wars
by Gary D. Schmidt
During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to either Catechism or Hebrew school, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood stays in Mrs. Baker's classroom where they read the plays of William Shakespeare.
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Honor Book: Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson
When a new, white student nicknamed "The Jesus Boy" joins her sixth grade class in the winter of 1971, Frannie's growing friendship with him makes her start to see some things in a new light.
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Caldecott Award for Best Illustration and Honor
Books:
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Winner:
The Invention of Hugo Cabret : A Novel in Words and Pictures
by Brian Selznick
When twelve-year-old Hugo, an orphan living and repairing clocks within the walls of a Paris train station in 1931, meets a mysterious toyseller and his goddaughter, his undercover life and his biggest secret are jeopardized. |
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Honor Book: Henry's Freedom Box by Ellen Levine; illustrated by Kadir Nelson
A fictionalized account of how in 1849 a Virginia slave, Henry "Box" Brown, escapes to freedom by shipping himself in a wooden crate from Richmond to Philadelphia.
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Honor Book: First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
A picture book about transformations. |
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Honor Book: The Wall : Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sís
This combination of graphic novel and picture book is an account of growing up in Czechoslovakia under Soviet rule. |
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Honor Book: Knuffle Bunny Too : A Case of Mistaken Identity by Mo Willems
Her daddy in tow, Trixie hurries to school to show off her one-of-a-kind Knuffle Bunny. But an awful surprise awaits her: someone else has the exact same bunny! |
Colorado Children's Book Award: Books selected by Colorado Kids
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Picture Book Winner:
The Great Fuzz Frenzy
by Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel; illustrated by Janet Stevens
When a tennis ball lands in a prairie dog town, the residents find that their newfound frenzy for fuzz creates a fiasco. |
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Junior Novel Winner:
Inkheart
by Cornelia Funke
Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father, who repairs and binds books for a living, can "read" fictional characters to life when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service. |
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Runner-Up for Illustration:
I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!
by Karen Beaumont; illustrated by David Catrow
In the rhythm of a familiar folk song, a child cannot resist adding one more dab of paint in surprising places. |
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Runner-Up for Novel:
Flush
by Carl Hiaasen
With their father jailed for sinking a river boat, Noah Underwood and his younger sister, Abbey, must gather evidence that the owner of the floating casino is emptying his bilge tanks into the protected waters around their Florida Keys home. |
Coretta Scott King Award Honoring African American
Authors and Illustrators, and Honor Books:
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Winner for Literature: Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis
In 1859, eleven-year-old Elijah Freeman, the first free-born child in Buxton, Canada, uses his wits and skills to try to bring to justice the lying preacher who has stolen money that was to be used to buy a family's freedom. |
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Honor Book: November Blues by Sharon M. Draper
A teenaged boy's death in a hazing accident has lasting effects on his pregnant girlfriend and his guilt-ridden cousin, who gives up a promising music career to play football during his senior year in high school.
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Honor Book: Twelve Rounds to Glory : The Story of Muhammad Ali by Charles R. Smith Jr.; illustrated by Bryan Collier
From the moment a fired-up teenager from Kentucky won 1960 Olympic gold to the day in 1996 when he retired a legend, the boxer known as "The Greatest" waged many a fight.
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Winner for Illustration: Let it Shine : Three Favorite Spirituals illustrated and written by Ashley Bryan
Bryan's vibrant illustrations interpret and energize three beloved songs: "This Little Light of Mine," "Oh, When the Saints Go Marching In," and "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." |
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Illustrator Honor: The Secret Olivia Told Me illustrated by Nancy Devard, written by N. Joy
Olivia has a secret - a BIG secret. It's a secret that she tells only to her very best friend. And her friend promises she won't say a word. What happens when a trusted friend slips and the secret gets out?
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Illustrator Honor: Jazz on a Saturday Night by Leo and Diane Dillon
From Miles Davis and Charlie Parker to Ella Fitzgerald, here is a dream team sure to knock your socks off. Learn about jazz and read a biography of each player pictured, and then listen to each instrument on a specially produced CD.
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Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award
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Winner: Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything In It by Sundee T. Frazier
Budding rock hound Brendan Buckley keeps a "Confidential" notebook for his top-secret scientific discoveries. And he's found something totally top secret. The grandpa he's never met, who his mom refuses to talk about or see, is an expert mineral collector! |
Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Children’s
Video:
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Winner for Best Children's Video: Jump In! Freestyle Edition
A young boxer, Izzy Daniels, trains to follow in his father's footsteps by winning the Golden Glove. When his friend Mary asks him to substitute in a Double Dutch tournament, the young man discovers a hidden passion for jump roping.
View previous Carnegie Medal winners. |
Robert F. Sibert Informational Book
Award for the most distinguished informational book for children, and Honor
Books:
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Honor Book: Lightship
by Brian Floca
Lightships once served where lighthouses could not be built. They helped to guide sailors safely through the fog. |
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Honor Book: Nic Bishop Spiders
by Nic Bishop
Amazing images show the beauty and otherworldliness of spiders. Find basic information about spiders as well as cool and quirky facts. One stop-action montage shows a spider leaping twenty times its body length!
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Mildred
L. Batchelder Award for the Most Outstanding Children’s
Book Originally Published in a Foreign Language and
Subsequently Translated into English, and Honor Books:
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Winner: Brave Story by Miyuki Miyabe; translated from the Japanese by Alexander O. Smith
Young Wataru Mitani’s life is a mess. Desperately he searches for some way to change his life and alter his fate. He learns to navigate the magical world of Vision, a land filled with creatures both fierce and friendly.
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Honor Book: The Cat: Or, How I Lost Eternity
by Jutta Richter; translated from the German by Anna Brailovsky
Every day, eight-year-old Christine’s walk to school takes her past a talking alley cat. Christine stops and feels its warm head beneath her hand, and the cat’s insights invariably give her something to ponder.
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Honor Book: Nicholas and the Gang by René Goscinny, translated from the French by Anthea Bell
Nicholas and the Gang contains 16 new stories about Nicholas and his friends who find amazing ways to get into trouble.
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Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for the Most Outstanding Beginning Reader Books, and Honor Books:
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Winner: There Is a Bird on Your Head!
by Mo Willems
Gerald the elephant discovers that there is something worse than a bird on your head-- two birds on your head! Piggie will try to help her best friend. |
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Honor Book: First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
A picture book about transformations. |
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Honor Book: Hello, Bumblebee Bat
by Darren Lunde; illustrated by Patricia J. Wynne
Meet the inch-long bumblebee bat, the smallest bat species in the world.
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Honor Book: Jazz Baby
by Lisa Wheeler; illustrated by R. Gregory Christie
Baby and his family make some jazzy music. |
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Honor Book: Vulture View
by April Pulley Sayre; illustrated by Steve Jenkins
Turkey vultures soar on the balmy air, looking for their next stinky feast. These birds don't hunt-they like their food to be already dead, and their eating habits serve a very important ecological role.
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Schneider Family Book Award for a Book that
Embodies an Artistic Expression of the Disability Experience
for Child and Adolescent Audiences:
Recipients are selected in three categories: birth through grade school (age 0–10), middle school (age 11–13), and teens (age 13–18).
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Winner of the Young Child Category:
Kami and the Yaks
by Andrea Stenn Stryer; illustrated
by Bert Dodson
In the Himalaya Mountains of Nepal, a deaf Sherpa boy proves himself to his father by rescuing his family's yaks from a dangerous storm. |
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Winner of the Middle School Category:
Reaching for Sun
by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer
Josie, who lives with her mother and grandmother and has cerebral palsy, befriends a boy who moves into one of the rich houses behind her old farmhouse.
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Winner of the Teen Category:
Hurt Go Happy
by Ginny Rorby
Joey Willis is deaf, and her mother won't allow her to learn American Sign Language. Her isolated existence is turned upside down, however, when she meets her elderly neighbor, Dr. Charles Mansell, and his sign-language-using chimpanzee, Sukari.
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The Pura Belpré Award honors Latino/Latina writers and illustrators whose works best portray, affirm, and celebrate the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth. Winners and Honor Books:
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Author Winner: The Poet Slave of Cuba : A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano by Margarita Engle; illustrated by Sean Qualls
Juan Francisco Manzano was born in 1797 into the household of wealthy slaveowners in Cuba. His poetry was his outlet, reflecting the beauty and cruelty of his world. Written in verse. |
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Author Honor: Frida: ¡Viva la vida! Long Live Life!
by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand
Biographical poems about the life and work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo |
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Author Honor: Los Gatos Black on Halloween
by Marisa Montes; illustrated by Yuyi Morales
Easy to read, rhyming text about Halloween night incorporates Spanish words, from las brujas riding their broomsticks to los monstruos whose monstrous ball is interrupted by a true horror. |
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Author Honor: Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale
retold by Carmen Agra Deedy; illustrated by Michael Austin
In this humorous retelling of a Cuban folktale, a cockroach interviews her suitors in order to decide whom to marry.
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Winner for Illustration: Los Gatos Black on Halloween
illustrated by Yuyi Morales and written by Marisa Montes
Easy to read, rhyming text about Halloween night incorporates Spanish words, from las brujas riding their broomsticks to los monstruos whose monstrous ball is interrupted by a true horror. |
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Illustrator Honor: My Name Is Gabito: The Life of Gabriel García Márquez/Me llamo Gabito: La vida de Gabriel García Márquez illustrated by Raúl Colón and written by Monica Brown
Tells the story of his evolution from a dreaming boy to a great storyteller read by millions.
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Illustrator Honor: My Colors, My World/Mis colores, mi mundo written and illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez
Little Maya longs to find brilliant, beautiful, inspiring color in her world. But Maya’s world, the Mojave Desert, seems to be filled with nothing but sand. With the help of a feathered friend, she searches everywhere to discover color in her world.
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Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for a Substantial and Lasting Contribution to Literature for Children.
Awarded every two years.
Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production and honorable mentions:
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Winner: Jazz by Walter Dean Myers
An audio celebration of the various styles of jazz music, such as ragtime, bebop, and swing.
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Honor Audio: Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary 'Jacky' Faber, Ship's Boy by L.A. Meyer
A thirteen-year-old orphan disguises herself as a boy and connives her way onto a British warship set for high sea adventure in search of pirates.
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Honor Audio: Dooby Dooby Moo by Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin
While Farmer Brown sleeps, his animals prepare for a talent show at the county fair.
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Honor Audio: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
Burdened with the dark, dangerous, and seemingly impossible task of locating and destroying Voldermort's remaining Horcruxes, Harry, feeling alone and uncertain about his future, struggles to find the inner strength he needs to follow the path set out before him.
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Honor Audio: Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy
When twelve-year-old Stephanie inherits her weird uncle's estate, she must join forces with Skulduggery Pleasant, a skeleton mage, to save the world from the Faceless Ones.
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Awards for Young Adult Literature:
Michael L.
Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature and
Honor Books:
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Winner: The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean
Taken to Antarctica by the man she thinks of as her uncle for what she believes to be a vacation, Symone--a troubled fourteen year old--discovers that he is dangerously obsessed with seeking Symme's Hole, an opening that supposedly leads into the center of a hollow Earth. |
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Honor Book: Dreamquake: Book Two of the Dreamhunter Duet
by Elizabeth Knox
Aided by her family and her creation, Nown, Laura investigates the powerful Regulatory Body's involvement in mysterious disappearances and activities and learns, in the process, the true nature of the Place in which dreams are found. |
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Honor Book: One Whole and Perfect Day by Judith Clarke
As her irritating family prepares to celebrate her grandfather's eightieth birthday, sixteen-year-old Lily yearns for just one whole perfect day together.
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Honor Book: Repossessed by A. M. Jenkins
When a demon gets bored with tormenting the damned, he takes a small vacation into the land of the living.
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Honor Book: Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill
The author interprets the people, events, influences and art that made up the brief life of Sylvia Plath. |
Margaret A. Edwards Award for Young Adult Literature
Honoring an Author's Lifetime Achievement:
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