WINNER
WAITING FOR SARAH by Bruce McBay & James Henegham
Orca Book Publishers 2003 1-55143-270-6 RL: 6
A terrible accident kills 16-year-old Mike’s parents, leaving him legless and angry at the world’s terrible unfairness. One year after the accident he reluctantly returns to high school, and slowly his bitterness dissolves when he meets a 14-year-old Sarah who suffers from her own horrible secret pain.
HONOUR BOOKS
NEW GIRL by Mary Ann Scott
Fitzhenry & Whiteside 2003 1-55041-727-4 RL: 6
Kat feels like the “small-town girl who hits the big-city school and goes splat.” A new girl emerges as she figures out new friendships, learns unpleasant truths about friends back home and faces the persuasive advances of a boy names Alexei. It’s tough being the new girl, but this new girl wouldn’t want to go back, even if she could.
FLAMES OF THE TIGER by John Wilson
Kids Can Press 2003 1-553-37619-6 RL: 6
As a boy growing up in Germany during Hitler’s rise to power, Dieter watches as his family is torn apart by opposing philosophies. By 1945 and Dieter’s seventeenth birthday he, realizes he can no longer naively cling to his childhood beliefs and at most can only hope for survival.
NOMINEES
A DIRTY DEED by Ted Stenhouse
Kids Can Press 2003 1-555-37361-8 RL: 5-6
A search for the truth about a mysterious deed of land leads Will, a young white boy, and his long-time native friend Arthur to uncover the shady dealings and dark family secrets of their rural prairie town’s richest and most powerful man.
AN EARTHLY KNIGHT by Janet McNaughton
Harper Trophy Canada 2003 0-00-639188-5 RL: 7
In 1162, 16-year-old Lady Jeanette Avenel (Jenny) is a second daughter of a minor nobleman in mediaeval Scotland. This young woman must decide whether to abide tradition or to go with her heart and the ancient power of fairies to define her own destiny. Will her decision bode well for her entire family?
A DIFFERENT KIIND OF BEAUTY by Sylvia McNicoll
Fitzhenry & Whiteside 2003 1-55005-060-5 RL: 5
In this compassionate sequel to Bringing up Beauty, Elizabeth fosters another dog that will eventually help 16-year-old Kyle who is learning to cope with blindness.
THE BLACK SUNSHINE OF GOODY PRYNE by Sarah Withrow
Groundwood 2003 0-888-99477-X RL: 6
14-year-old Steve is left out by others as he struggles with the grief of his father’s death. Supported only by Goody, a tough, intimidating bully, Steve mediates between Good and her friend Josie, and falls in love with another friend, the gentle and kind Tsula.
CHARLIE WILCOX’S GREAT WAR by Sharon E. McKay
Penguin Group 2003 0-14-301471-4 RL: 7
Returning from the Great War, Charlie Wilcox’s homecoming is all he could have hoped for. Yet he is burdened by a terrible secret, one that he fears will inflict more grief on a village that has already suffered so much. A companion volume to Charlie Wilcox.
THE DIRT EATERS by Dennis Foon
Annick Press 2003 1-55037-806-6 RL: 6
When 15-year-old Roan’s parents are killed in a raid, he is taken in by a sect of warrior priests. Governed by their dark and twisted mythology, Roan is torn between revenge and the desire for peace that ruled his village.
EYE OF THE WOLF by Troon Harrison
Fitzhenry and Whiteside 2003 1-55005-072-9 RL: 6
In the frozen north of 2205, teenage Chandra’s world starts to fall apart as her mother is kidnapped and the government closes schools to conserve resources. Will her expertise in the rituals as a Spirit Walker and her compassion for the wolf cub she finds be enough to battle corporate greed and personal danger?
INITIATION by Virginia Frances Schwartz
Fitzhenry & Whiteside 2003 1-55005-053-2 RL: 6
When the chief leads a war party to destroy another village and capture a slave, the fortunes of the pre-contact Kwakiuti tribe begin to turn. As the chief’s twin children are drawn closer and closer to the slave, who will be able to find a way to undo the curse that has descended upon the people?
LESIA’S DREAM by Laura Langston
Harper Collins 2003 0-00-639283-0 RL: 5
During World War I, 15-year-old Lesia leaves the Ukraine and her beloved Baba to begin a new life with her family on the prairies of Manitoba. She soon realizes her new home is filled with its own hardships as her family struggles to make a life for themselves battling the land, the elements, prejudice and the far reaching effects of war.
MUD RUN by Bill Swan
James Lorimer Press 2003 1-550-28786-9 RL: 5
13-year-old Matt thinks that nothing could be worse than moving to a new place just as school is opening…until he learns that he is also too late to register for hockey. Cross-country running was definitely not his first choice as a substitute activity, but it turns out to be better than he could ever have imagined.
NO ESCAPE by Norah McClintock
Scholastic 2003 0-439-96905-0 RL: 6
Chloe, the police chief’s daughter and an amateur sleuth, places herself in danger once again as she stands up to the other residents of East Hastings and tries to prove the innocence of a fellow high school student’s brother.
RAVEN QUEST by Sharon Steward
Scholastic 2003 0-439-98988-4 RL: 6
Accused of murder, the young raven, Tok, is banished from his community and can only redeem himself through a quest to find the mythical Grey Lords who will provide food for the ravens. Can he find the inner strength and determination to survive on the long journey?
RAGING RIVER by Pam Withers
Walrus Books 2003 1-552-85510-4 RL: 7
15-year-old Jake and his arch rival Peter must put their differences aside if they are to successfully negotiate the dangerous rapids of British Columbia’s Cattibone River and secure help for their stranded companions.
RUN by Eric Walters
Penguin 2003 0-14-331218-9 RL :5
After police have returned Winston in handcuffs to his mother’s apartment in Toronto, his well-known reporter father takes him along on a trip to cover an early segment of Terry Fox’s run across
Canada. Somewhat reluctantly Winston realizes that feuding parents are not an excuse for making a mess of his life.
THROWAWAY DAUGHTER by Ting-Xing Ye and William Bell
Doubleday Canada 2003 0-385-65952-0 RL: 8
How would you feel if you did not know that day you were born or why your mother gave you to an orphanage? Mixed cultures, birth parents, infanticide, and human rights issues dominate this story of Grace Done-mei Margaret Parker. Now 18 years old, she tells her own story of how she came to be adopted by a Toronto couple, but later traveled to China to find her birth parents and finally accept her own mixed-race identity.