2007 Alex Award Winners:

THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS
by John Connolly
High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the death of his mother. He is angry and alone, with only the books on his shelf for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness, and as he takes refuge in his imagination, he finds that reality and fantasy have begun to meld. While his family falls apart around him, David is violently propelled into a land that is a strange reflection of his own world, populated by heroes and monsters, and ruled over by a faded king who keeps his secrets in a mysterious book... The Book of Lost Things.

THE WHISTLING SEASON
by Ivan Doig
The saga of how a widow from Minneapolis and her brother–soon to become the new teacher in a tiny Montana community in 1909–change lives in unexpected ways has all the charm of old-school storytelling, from Dickens to Laura Ingalls Wilder.

EAGLE BLUE: A TEAM, A TRIBE, AND A HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL SEASON IN ARCTIC ALASKA
by Michael D'Orso
Set in the remote Arctic recesses of Alaska, the village of Fort Yukon is home to six hundred people. The tiny population and vanishing cultural heritage of this town have one powerful link to mainstream America: their high school basketball team. The Fort Yukon Eagles, winners of six consecutive regional championships, are the pride and joy of their tribe. Each year, the Eagles struggle through the Arctic winter's brutal cold and near-continual darkness in search of a championship and an identity.

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
by Sara Gruen
Two star-crossed lovers share a mutual passion for a circus elephant named Rosie in this absorbing story. Loosely based on true events, this atmospheric, exquisitely written tale captures the world of the traveling circus and the Great Depression.

COLOR OF THE SEA
John Hamamura
Growing up in a time between wars, Sam Hamada finds that the culture of his native Japan is never far from his heart. But after Sam strikes out for California where he meets Keiko, he faces crushing disappointment - Keiko's parents take her back to Japan. It is a trial complicated by how the Japanese perceive her and its pain is compounded by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which ignites the war. Sam himself is most caught between cultures when, impressed by his knowledge of Japanese, the U.S. Army drafts him, sending him on a secret mission into a wartime world of madness where he faces the very real risk of encountering his own brother in combat.

THE BLIND SIDE: EVOLUTION OF A GAME
by Michael Lewis
The young man at the center of this story will one day be among the most highly paid athletes in the National Football League. When we first meet him, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or any of the things a child might learn in school–such as, say, how to read or write. Nor has he ever touched a football. What changes?

BLACK SWAN GREEN
by David Mitchell
Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters create an observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of "nightcreeping" through the summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of Jason's search to replace his dead grandfather's irreplaceable watch before his parents discover he has smashed it; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran LPs, and first deaths; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons.

THE THIRTEENTH TALE
by Diane Setterfield
Margaret Lea, a bookish loner, is summoned to the home of Vida Winter, England's most popular novelist, and commanded to write her biography. Miss Winter has been falsifying her life story and her identity for more than 60 years. Facing imminent death and feeling an unexplainable connection to Margaret, Miss Winter begins to spin a haunting, suspenseful tale of an old English estate, a devastating fire, twin girls, a governess, and a ghost. As Margaret carefully records Vida's tale, she ponders her own family secrets. Her research takes her to the English moors to view a mansion's ruins and discover an unexpected ending to Vida's story.

The American Library Association's Alex Awards page