Abraham Lincoln Book Award Nominees 2008
Read four -- vote in February for your favorite!
The nominees are . . .
 
Bleachers
by John Grisham
FIC GRI

After the death of their old football coach, Neely Crenshaw reunites with his old teammates to resolve the mixed feelings they have for the man.

   
Boy Meets Boy
by David Levithan
FIC LEV

Paul and his friends, both gay and straight, hang out together advising one another on the sometimes troubled progress of their various romances.

   
Certain Slant of Light
by Laura Whitcomb
FIC WHI

After benignly haunting a series of people for 130 years, Helen meets a teenage boy who can see her and together they unlock the mysteries of their pasts.

   
Dropping in with Andy Mac: The Life of a Pro Skateboarder
by Andy Macdonald
921 MAC

Autobiography of the champion skateboarder.

   
Faultline
by Janet Tashjian
FIC TAS

When seventeen-year-old Becky Martin, an aspiring comic, meets Kip Costello, she is caught in a mentally and physically abusive relationship.

   
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
by Mitch Albom
FIC ALB

A bitter eighty-three-year-old war veteran who believes his life is meaningless dies while trying to save a little girl's life and finds himself in Heaven where five people from his past explain what his years on Earth really meant.

   
The Glass Castle
by Jeannette Walls
921 WAL

After an eccentric childhood, the author and her siblings confront a spiraling, dysfunctional family life.

   
Heir Apparent
by Vivian Vande Velde
FIC VAN

While playing a total immersion virtual reality game of kings and intrigue, fourteen-year-old Giannine learns that demonstrators have damaged the equipment to which she is connected, and she must win the game quickly or be damaged herself.

   
The House of the Scorpion
by Nancy Farmer
FIC FAR

In a future where humans despise clones, Matt enjoys special status as the young clone of El Patron, the 142-year-old leader of a corrupt drug empire nestled between Mexico and the United States.

   
Left for Dead: A Young Man's Search for Justice for the USS Indianapolis
by Peter Nelson
940.54 NEL

Recalls the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis at the end of World War II, the Navy cover-up and unfair court martial of the ship's captain, and how a young boy helped the survivors set the record straight 55 years later.

   
Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment
by James Patterson
FIC PAT

After the mutant Erasers abduct the youngest member of their group, the "birdkids," who are the result of genetic experimentation, take off in pursuit and find themselves struggling to understand their own origins and purpose.

   
Meq
by Steve Cash
FIC CAS

On the day that Zianno Zezen, Z for short,turns twelve, his life changes forever. Amid the confusion of a tragic train wreck, he realizes that he is no ordinary boy.

   
Pirates!
by Celia Rees
FIC REE

In 1722, after arriving with her brother at the family's Jamaican plantation where she is to be married off, sixteen-year-old Nancy Kington escapes with her slave friend, Minerva Sharpe, and together they become pirates traveling the world in search of treasure.

   
Rock Star, Superstar
by Blake Nelson
FIC NEL

Pete must decide if playing in a band with musicians who do not share his vision is worth what he could be giving up to do so.

   
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
by Lisa See
FIC SEE

In nineteenth century China, two young women's friendship is threatened by a misunderstanding.

   
Tell No One
by Harlan Coben
FIC COB

When a mysterious message appears on his computer, a phrase only he and his dead wife would know, Dr. David Beck is haunted by the notion that his wife might be alive.

   
13 Little Blue Envelopes
by Maureen Johnson
FIC JOH

When seventeen-year-old Ginny receives a packet of mysterious envelopes from her favorite aunt, she leaves New Jersey to criss-cross Europe on a sort of scavenger hunt that transforms her life.

   
Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale
by Holly Black
FIC BLA

Sixteen-year-old Kaye, who has been visited by faeries since childhood, discovers that she herself is a magical faerie creature with a special destiny.

   
Twilight
by Stephanie Meyer
FIC MEY

When seventeen-year-old Bella leaves Phoenix to live with her father in Forks, Washington, she meets and exquisitely handsome boy at school for whom she feels an overwhelming attraction and who she comes to realize is not wholly human.

   
24 girls in 7 days
by Alex Bradley
FIC BRA

Jack's friends post an ad in order to get him a date for the senior prom and he must meet the 24 applicants in time to ask the right one to the dance in just 7 days.

   
Upstate
by Kalisha Buckhanon
FIC BUC

A powerful story told through letters between seventeen-year-old Antonio and his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Natasha, set in the 1990's in New York. Their world is turned upside down, and their young love is put to the test, when Antonio finds himself in jail, accused of  the murder of his father.

   
Yossel, April 19, 1943: A Story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
by Joe Kubert
741.5 KUB

A graphic novel depicting the life of Yossel, a fifteen-year-old artist, caught up in the brutality of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1926.

NOTE: All book descriptions are adapted from ISLMA.