Children/Young Adult Book Awards: 1990-1999

Of all Nick's ideas, the frindle is his most successful. It's a pen, or what used to be called a pen. Soon, much of the nation is crazy about frindles -- except for Mrs. Granger, Nick's teacher, who, although she doesn't realize it, was the inspiration for the idea.

Fifteen-year-old Barry O'Neill, traveling from Ireland to America on the maiden voyage of the Titanic, finds his life endangered when the ship hits an iceberg and begins to sink.

Strange Strangers Come to Wayside School...
Welcome back to Wayside School After closing for 242 days to get rid of the cows (don't ask), everyone's favorite thirty-story school is finally back in session.
But all is not well at the school with no nineteenth floor. Mrs. Jewls, the best teacher at Wayside, is having a baby, and that can mean only one thing--substitute teachers.
First comes Mr. Gorf. Was he married to the terrible Mrs. Gorf? And why does he have three nostrils? The kids won't tell you. They're not talking.
Then there's Mrs. Drazil. She never forgets a missed homework assignment, not even one that Louis the yard teacher owed her fifteen years ago.
By the time the class gets the fearsome Miss Nogard, the kids can't wait for everything to return to normal.

From the author of "Catherine, Called Birdy" comes another spellbinding novel set in medieval England. The girl known only as Brat has no family, no home, and no future until she meets Jane the Midwife and becomes her apprentice. As she helps the sharp-tempered Jane deliver babies, Brat-who renames herself Alyce-gains knowledge, confidence, and the courage to want something from life: "A full belly, a contented heart, and a place in this world."

Colin has spent weeks perfecting his sneaker odor for the Stinkiest Sneakers in the World contest. If he wins, he'll get three brand-new pairs of Slam Dunkers sneakers: one for himself, one for his little sister, Amy, and one for his best pal, Webster.
But now, after weeks of working toward stinky perfection -- not washing his feet, wearing no socks, jogging to get his feet juicy, and even sleeping with his sneakers on -- the nasty, stinky sneakers are missing!

Driver’s Ed was like so many things in school. If the parents only knew . . .

Just when the Hatford brothers were expecting three boys to move into the house across the river where their best friends used to live, the Malloy girls arrive instead. Wally and his brothers decide to make Caroline and her sisters so miserable that they'll want to go back to Ohio.

Jonas's world is perfect. Everything is under control. There is no war or fear of pain. There are no choices. Every person is assigned a role in the community. When Jonas turns 12 he is singled out to receive special training from The Giver. The Giver alone holds the memories of the true pain and pleasure of life. Now, it is time for Jonas to receive the truth. There is no turning back.

For her birthday, Ellen Streater is given an overnight camp-out at the zoo. Too bad her little brother Corey had to come along. As night falls in the zoo, Corey becomes the least of her worries, as they discover they are locked in with an escaped convict who's stalking their every move. With no help in sight, their only hope is Ellen's crazy science project on animal communication.

The best-selling young adult novelist recounts her daughter's mysterious shooting death and her own investigation into the crime, describing her use of a psychic to contact her dead child and expose the truth.

Eleven-year-old Marty Preston loves to spend time up in the hills behind his home near Friendly, West Virginia. Sometimes he takes his .22 rifle to see what he can shoot, like some cans lined up on a rail fence. Other times he goes up early in the morning just to sit and watch the fox and deer. But one summer Sunday, Marty comes across something different on the road just past the old Shiloh schoolhouses -- a young beagle -- and the trouble begins.

What do you do when a dog you suspect is being mistreated runs away and comes to you? When it is someone else's dog? When the man who owns him has a gun? This is Marty's problem, and he finds it is one he has to face alone. When his solution gets too big for him to handle, things become more frightening still. Marty puts his courage on the line, and discovers in the process that it is not always easy to separate right from wrong. Sometimes, however, you do almost anything to save a dog.

Harriet Hemings has always been happy in the comfortable, protected world that is Monticello. She's been well treated there; no one has ever called her a slave. But that is what she is, a slave of a man who wrote the Declaration of Independence. And there are rumors that she might be more than Thomas Jefferson's slave - she might be his daughter.
Now Harriet has to make a choice - to run to freedom or to stay. If she stays, she'll remain a slave. But how can she choose freedom, if it means leaving behind her family, her race, and the only home she's ever known?

Jeffrey Lionel "Maniac" Magee might have lived a normal life if a freak accident hadn't made him an orphan. After living with his unhappy and uptight aunt and uncle for eight years, he decides to run--and not just run away, but run. This is where the myth of Maniac Magee begins, as he changes the lives of a racially divided small town with his amazing and legendary feats.

A photograph of a missing girl on a milk carton leads Janie on a search for her real identity.

When jake finds the old canoe filled with rocks and hidden in sand near the river, he and Ben are thrilled! But someone wants to bury it. Why? The trouble begins when they clean it up, discover a treasure map, and set out in their new boat in search of adventure.
What they find instead is terror: alligators swarming around them, trapping them on the tiny island in the middle of the eerie Swamp. But there is an even more fearsome enemy: a shadowy figure who is waiting to kill them if they survive the alligators and the quicksand that lies beyond...

THIRTEEN-YEAR OLD EVA wakes up in the hospital unable to remember anything since the picnic on the beach. Her mother leans over the bed and begins to explain. A traffic accident, a long coma . . .
But there is something, Eva senses, that she’s not being told. There is a price she must pay to be alive at all. What have they done, with their amazing medical techniques, to save her?

There are ten siblings in the Rosso family. Ten individuals with ten different ways of looking at things. But they all have one thing in common: Each of them wants a pet. The only problem is that their mom does not: "No pets," she has always said. "Ten kids is enough."
But now that the Rosso family is moving from the big city to the country, there are big changes ahead, including a new farmhouse and lots of nature. But the Rosso kids will still need to figure out a plan to change mom's mind. . . .

As a project for an unusually open class in sex education, Livvie and her boyfriend David learn to care for a pregnant young neighbor, and as they become deeply involved with her and with each other, they learn about love and caring and eventually about pain and courage.

Bradley Chalkers IS the oldest kid in the fifth grade. He tells enormous lies. He picks fights with girls. No one likes him-except Carla, the new school counselor. She thinks Bradley is sensitive and generous, and knows that Bradley could change, if only he weren't afraid to try. But when you feel like the most-hated kid in the whole school, believing in yourself can be the hardest thing in the world. . . .