WINNER
THE BREADWINNER by Deborah Ellis
Groundwood Books/Douglas & McIntyre 2000
0-88899-416-8 RL: 5 IL: 5-8
Parvana lives in Afghanistan, where the Taliban militia, an extreme religious group, are running most of the country today. Girls can no long go to school. Women cannot leave the house without a man and have to cover every part of their body when they go out. When her father is seized and imprisoned, eleven-year-old Parvana helps the family survive.
HONOUR BOOKS
REBOUND by Eric Walters
Stoddard Kids 2000 0-7736-7485-3 RL: 6 IL: 5-8
Sean vows this year will be different and he’ll stay out of trouble and make the basketball team. David also has to make a new start- a serious accident has left him confined to a wheelchair and horribly bitter about how his life has changed. Forced together, their friendship may be just what they both need to get back in the game.
RASPBERRY HOUSE BLUES by Linda Holeman
Tundra Books 2000 0-88776-493-2 RL: 5 IL: 5-8
Adopted at birth, Vancouver’s Poppy, 16 decides to return to Winnipeg, home of her remarried father, one summer in order to find her birth mother. Can she have actually met her real mother on a Winnipeg Street? A warm story about the meaning of family.
NOMINEES
AFTER HAMELIN by Bill Richardson
Annick Press 2000 10-55037-628-4 RL: 6 IL: 5-8
What happens after the Pied Piper takes all the children from Hamelin? Penelope has mysteriously gone deaf and escaped the piper’s magic. She is the only one who can enter the Deep Dreaming and rescue her sister and the others. The story of a brave girl in a magical world full of adventure and danger.
A RIVER APART by Robert Sutherland
Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2000 1-55041-646-4 RL: 5 IL: 5-8
Only the mile-wide St. Lawrence River separates James Shaw, fifteen, from his American friends, Jared and Leah. But then the War of 1912 begins and crossing the river would make James a spy.
THE BOY IN THE BURNING HOUSE by Tim Wynne-Jones
Groundwood Books/Douglas & McIntyre 2000
0-88899-410-9 RL: 6 IL: 6-8
When fourteen-year-old Jim Hawkins’ father disappeared a year ago, everyone said he’d committed suicide. Now Ruth Rose, the adopted daughter of the local pastor, Father Fisher, tells Jim that her father is responsible for his father’s death. A gripping mystery.
CHARLIE WILCOX by Sharon E. McKay
Stoddart Kids, 2000 0-7737-6093-8 RL: 5 IL: 6-8
Born with a club foot, Charlie of Newfoundland cannot be a sealer like his father. Following corrective surgery, he stows away on what he thinks is a sealing vessel, but discovers he’s on a troopship carrying the Newfoundland Regiment to war. In Europe he becomes a stretcher bearer and witnesses the 1916 bloody Battle of the Somme.
FROG FACE AND THE THREE BOYS by Don Trembath
Orca Book Publishers 2000 1-55143-165-3 RL: 4 IL: 5-6
Three seventh grade boys frequently find themselves in the principal’s office and Mr. Duncan thinks that karate lessons might help them with their problems. They do learn many lessons in this fun read.
FRANCES by W.D. Valgardson
Groundwood Books/Douglas & McIntyre 2000
0-88899-387-8 RL: 5 IL: 5-7
Frances lives in Gimli with her mother and grandmother. Everything about her father is a mystery. Then Frances discovers a journal written in Icelandic by her great-great-grandmother. As she hunts for a translator, Frances encounters tales of forbidden love, hardship, scandal and ghosts.
THE GRAVE by James Heneghan
Groundwood Books/Douglas & McIntyre 2000
0-88899-414-1 RL: 6 IL: 5-8
Tom Muller falls into a newly discovered grave pit in Liverpool in 1974 and finds himself transported in time to 1847 Ireland during the potato famine. There he is “adopted” by the Monaghan family, who have a strange link to Tom’s present.
GHOST BOY by Iain Lawrence
Delacorte Press, 2000 0-385-32739-0 RL: 7 IL: 6-8
Harold, a fourteen year-old albino and an outcast, runs off to join the circus as an answer to his loneliness. In this world of colourful characters there are two groups – the freaks and everyone else. Harold wants to be like everyone, but fitting in comes at a price.
MEN OF STONE by Gayle Friesen
Kids Can Press 2000 1-55074-782-7 RL: 6 IL: 6-8
Because of teasing, including being called “Ballerina Boy,” Neil 15, has quit taking dancing lessons. Now Claude, the school bully, has begun picking on Neil again, and he must choose between fighting or running.
NO CAFÉS IN NARNIA by Nikki Tate
SonoNis Press 2000 1-55039-107-0 RL: 6 IL: 5-8
It’s not easy to have a private life on a small island. Heather’s new school, a budding romance, serious family illness, a strange crime and even stranger island residents cause more trouble than this aspiring writer thinks she can handle. It takes much strength and determination to survive and carve out a place for herself in her new island home.
REBECCA by Carol Matas
Scholastic 2000 0-439-98718-0 RL: 5 IL: 5-7
It is 1912, and to twelve-year-old Rebecca, being part of a big Jewish family is an important thing, A disastrous fire leads to a move to Winnipeg where Rebecca has to live separately from her family and face many problems like prejudice and living with strangers.
THE SECRET UNDER MY SKIN by Janet McNaughton
Harper Collins, 2000 0-00-648522-7 RL: 6 IL: 6-8
It is the year 2368. Blay is in a government workcamp, quietly escaping into her books at night, when she is chosen to tutor Marrella, the new bio-indicator. Her life will never be the same again as she learns about the many secrets that have been kept from her. Will she be able to discover her past?
SHUT-OUT! by Camilla Reghelini Rivers
James Lorimer & Company 2000 10-55028-667-6 RL: 4 IL: 5-6
David wants to play soccer more than anything. But his coach would rather play the best and ignore the others. Filled with fast paced soccer action, this is a book about a boy who fights to be able to play the sport he loves.
TOPHER by Anita Horrocks
Stoddart Kids, 2000 0-7737-6092-X RL: 6 IL: 5-8
While reluctantly helping their father get the cabin ready for sale, Chris and his younger sister uncover an old secret. A sinister acquaintance and a ghost from the past threaten to destroy their family.
WHITE LILY by Ting-Xing Ye
Doubleday Canada 2000 0-385-25896-8 RL: 4 IL: 5-8
A short novel set in late 10th century China about a courageous young girl who rebels against the tradition of foot-binding.