The Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards

2009 Young Adult Fiction Finalists:

WINTERGIRLS
by Laurie Halse Anderson
Eighteen-year-old Lia comes to terms with her best friend's death from anorexia as she struggles with the same disorder.

CARTER FINALLY GETS IT
by Brent Crawford
Awkward freshman Will Carter endures many painful moments during his first year of high school before realizing that nothing good comes easily, focus is everything, and the payoff is usually incredible.

INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER
by Julie Halpern
When high school sophomore Jessie's long-term best friend transforms herself into a punk and goes after Jessie's would-be boyfriend, Jessie decides to visit "the wild nerd yonder" and seek true friends among classmates who play Dungeons and Dragons.

NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL
by Justina Chen Headley
Terra, a sensitive, artistic high school senior born with a facial port-wine stain, struggles with issues of inner and outer beauty with the help of her Goth classmate Jacob.

BLUE PLATE SPECIAL **Available from Prospector with a Denver Public Library card.**
by Michelle D. Kwasney
In alternating chapters, the lives of three teenage girls from three different generations are woven together as each girl learns about forgiveness, empathy and self-respect.

HOW TO SAY GOODBYE IN ROBOT
by Natalie Standiford
After moving to Baltimore and enrolling in a private school, high school senior Beatrice befriends a quiet loner with a troubled family history.

CRACKED UP TO BE **Available from Prospector with a Denver Public Library card.**
by Courtney Summers
High school senior Parker has quit the cheerleading squad, broken up with her popular boyfriend, and is in danger of not graduating with her class, but she refuses to tell anyone what has precipitated this sudden change in her attitude and behavior, insisting that she only wants to be left alone.

2009 Young Adult Science Fiction/Fantasy Finalists:

CANDOR
by Pam Bachorz
For a fee, "model teen" Oscar Banks has been secretly – and selectively – sabotaging the subliminal messages that program the behavior of the residents of Candor, Florida, until his attraction to a rebellious new girl threatens to expose his subterfuge.

THE DEMON'S LEXICON
by Sarah Rees Brennan
Sixteen-year-old Nick and his family have battled magicians and demons for most of his life, but when his brother, Alan, is marked for death while helping new friends, Nick's determination to save Alan leads him to uncover a devastating secret.

FIRE
by Kristin Cashore
In a kingdom called the Dells, Fire is the last human-shaped monster, with unimaginable beauty and the ability to control the minds of those around her, but even with these gifts she cannot escape the strife that overcomes her world.

A RESURRECTION OF MAGIC BOOK 2: SACRED SCARS
by Kathleen Duey
Sadima works to free captive boys forced to copy documents in the caverns of Limori, and Hahp makes a pact with the remaining students of a wizards' academy in hopes that all will survive their training, and both learn valuable lessons about loyalty. Sequel to Skin Hunger.

THE DUST OF 100 DOGS
by A.S. King
Cursed to live the lives of 100 dogs, a seventeenth-century pirate finally returns to life as a human being and has only one thing on her mind – to recover the treasure she had buried in Jamaica three hundred years before.

TIGER MOON
by Antonia Michaelis
Sold to be the eighth wife of a rich and cruel merchant, Safia, also called Raka, tries to escape her fate by telling stories of Farhad the thief, his companion Nitish the white tiger, and their travels across India to retrieve a famous jewel that will save a kidnapped princess from becoming the bride of a demon king.

LIPS TOUCH: THREE TIMES
by Laini Taylor
Three tales of supernatural love, each pivoting on a kiss that is no mere kiss, but an action with profound consequences for the kissers' souls.

2009 Young Adult Nonfiction Finalists:

I CAN'T KEEP MY OWN SECRETS: SIX-WORD MEMOIRS BY TEENS FAMOUS & OBSCURE
edited by Rachel Fershleiser & Larry Smith
This is a book with nearly 800 authors (all aged thirteen to nineteen) and 800 characters (all real, as far as we know) and 800 stories (which can be read in any order). What every story has in common is that each was written about the author's own life, and that each is the exact same length: six words.

CLAUDETTE COLVIN: TWICE TOWARD JUSTICE
by Phillip Hoose
On March 2, 1955, an impassioned teenager, fed up with the daily injustices of Jim Crow segregation, refused to give her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Instead of being celebrated as Rosa Parks would be just nine months later, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin found herself shunned by her classmates and dismissed by community leaders. Undaunted, a year later she dared to challenge segregation again as a key plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle, the landmark case that struck down the segregation laws of Montgomery and swept away the legal underpinnings of the Jim Crow South.

MARCHING FOR FREEDOM: WALK TOGETHER, CHILDREN, AND DON'T YOU GROW WEARY
by Elizabeth Partridge
Only 44 years ago in the U.S., Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was leading a fight to win blacks the right to vote. Ground zero for the movement became Selma, Alabama. Elizabeth Partridge leads you straight into the chaotic, passionate, and deadly three months of protests that culminated in the landmark march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. Focusing on the courageous children who faced terrifying violence in order to march alongside King, this is an inspiring look at their fight for the vote.

THE FROG SCIENTIST
by Pamela S. Turner, photographs by Andy Comins
Tyrone Hayes works to discover the effects pesticides have on frogs and, in turn, us.

WRITTEN IN BONE: BURIED LIVES OF JAMESTOWN AND COLONIAL MARYLAND
by Sally M. Walker
How did the colonists of Jamestown and Maryland live and die? Forensic anthropology provides an incredible array of answers. Scientists can look into a grave and determine the skeleton's gender, age at time of death, nationality, and sometimes even economic standing within minutes. Laboratory studies can provide cause of death information. Once these details are known, some skeletons can even be matched with a name via the historical record.

For more information, please visit the Cybils web site.