Abraham Lincoln Book Award Nominees 2008

Bleachers

High school all-American Neely Crenshaw was probably the best quarterback ever to play for the legendary Messina Spartans. Fifteen years have gone by since those glory days, and Neely has come home to Messina to bury Coach Eddie Rake, the man who molded the Spartans into an unbeatable football dynasty. Now, as Coach Rake’s “boys” sit in the bleachers waiting for the dimming field lights to signal his passing, they replay the old games, relive the old glories, and try to decide once and for all whether they love Eddie Rake – or hate him. For Neely Crenshaw, a man who must finally forgive his coach – and himself – before he can get on with his life, the stakes are especially high.
 

Boy Meets Boy
by David Levithan

This is the story of Paul, a sophomore at a high school like no other: The cheerleaders ride Harleys, the homecoming queen used to be a guy named Daryl (she now prefers Infinite Darlene and is also the star quarterback), and the gay-straight alliance was formed to help the straight kids learn how to dance. When Paul meets Noah, he thinks he’s found the one his heart is made for. Until he blows it. The school bookie says the odds are 12-to-1 against him getting Noah back, but Paul’s not giving up without playing his love really loud. His best friend Joni might be drifting away, his other best friend Tony might be dealing with ultra-religious parents, and his ex-boyfriend Kyle might not be going away anytime soon, but sometimes everything needs to fall apart before it can really fit together right. This is a happy-meaningful romantic comedy about finding love, losing love, and doing what it takes to get love back in a crazy-wonderful world.  

A Certain Slant of Light

FIC WHITCOMB

In the class of the high school English teacher she has been haunting, Helen feels them: for the first time in 130 years, human eyes are looking at her. They belong to a boy, a boy who has not seemed remarkable until now. And Helen terrified, but intrigued is drawn to him. The fact that he is in a body and she is not presents this unlikely couple with their first challenge. But as the lovers struggle to find a way to be together, they begin to discover the secrets of their former lives and of the young people they come to possess. 

Dropping in with Andy Mac
by Andy Mac

921 MACDONALD

As a baby he flipped himself upside down in his jolly jumper. As a kid he rode his Big Wheel into traffic. When he discovered skateboarding, his life was changed forever. So how did Andy Macdonald go from death-defying stunts in his jolly jumper to world champion skateboarder? In his own words, Andy shares all the ups and downs and the spills and thrills, from driving to California in a broken-down car and dressing up as Shamu at Sea World to setting world records and giving a speech at the White House. He's traveled the world over with his skateboard under his arm.

Fault Line
by Janet Tashjian

Seventeen-year-old Becky Martin dreams of being a stand-up comic. She also craves the affection of a boyfriend. When attractive Kip, a rising star in the San Francisco comedy club scene, comes into Beckys life, she thinks shes found her soul mate. But she soon discovers that Kip has a dark side, and control and jealousy appear to be the price she must pay for his love. Will Becky find the strength and courage to get help? In this powerful novel, Janet Tashjian tackles the difficult subject of teen relationship abuse from the viewpoints of both the victim and the perpetrator.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven
by Mitch Albom

FIC ALBOM

Eddie is a grizzled war veteran who feels trapped in a meaningless life of fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. His days are a dull routine of work, loneliness, and regret. Then, on his 83rd birthday, Eddie dies in a tragic accident, trying to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakens in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a lush Garden of Eden, but a place where your earthly life is explained to you by five people. These people may have been loved ones or distant strangers. Yet each of them changed your path forever. One by one, Eddie's five people illuminate the unseen connections of his earthly life.  

The Glass Castle
by Jeannette Walls

921 Walls

When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family. The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.

Heir Apparent
by Vivian Vande Velde

FIC VANDE VELDE

In the virtual reality game Heir Apparent, there are way too many ways to get killed--and Giannine seems to be finding them all. Which is a darn shame, because unless she can get the magic ring, locate the stolen treasure, answer the dwarf's dumb riddles, impress the head-chopping statue, charm the army of ghosts, fend off the barbarians, and defeat the man-eating dragon, she'll never win. And she has to, because losing means she'll die--for real this time.

House of Scorpion

FIC FARMER

Matteo Alacrán was not born; he was harvested. His DNA came from El Patrón, lord of a country called Opium -- a strip of poppy fields lying between the United States and what was once called Mexico. Matt's first cell split and divided inside a petri dish. Then he was placed in the womb of a cow, where he continued the miraculous journey from embryo to fetus to baby. He is a boy now, but most consider him a monster -- except for El Patrón. El Patrón loves Matt as he loves himself, because Matt is himself. As Matt struggles to understand his existence, he is threatened by a sinister cast of characters, including El Patrón's power-hungry family, and he is surrounded by a dangerous army of bodyguards. Escape is the only chance Matt has to survive. But escape from the Alacr n Estate is no guarantee of freedom, because Matt is marked by his difference in ways he doesn't even suspect.  

Left for Dead

940.54 NELSON

Just after midnight on July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. The ship sank in 14 minutes. More than 1,000 men were thrown into shark-infested waters. Those who survived the fiery sinking—some injured, many without life jackets—struggled to stay afloat in shark-infested waters as they waited for rescue. But the United States Navy did not even know they were missing. The Navy needed a scapegoat for this disaster. So it court-martialed the captain for “hazarding” his ship. The survivors of the Indianapolis knew that their captain was not to blame. For 50 years they worked to clear his name, even after his untimely death. But the navy would not budge—until an 11-year-old boy named Hunter Scott entered the picture. His history fair project on the Indianapolis soon became a crusade to restore the captain’s good name and the honor of the men who served under him.  

Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment
by James Patterson

FIC PATTERSON

Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman, and Angel are kids who are pretty normal-except that they're 98% human, 2% bird. They grew up in cages, living like rats, and now they're free-but being chased by the wicked, wolf-like Erasers, who've kidnapped Angel. Led by Max, the "Flock" embarks on a quest to find Angel, infiltrate a secret facility to track down their parents, get revenge on an evil traitor, and try to save the world-if there's time.  

The Meq
by Steve Cash

FIC CASH

On May 4, 1881, the day that Zianno Zezen–Z, for short–turns twelve, his life changes forever. Amid the confusion of a tragic train wreck, he has the first inkling that he is no ordinary boy . . . that he is not human at all, but instead a member of a race known as the Meq. The Meq have lost all memory of their origins; they do not know why they heal with astonishing speed, or why, once they turn twelve, they stop aging unless they meet the single other member of their race destined to join with them. Certain Meq possess even more amazing powers, thanks to mysterious Stones they have carried since before the dawn of recorded history. A sadistic assassin in the body of a twelve-year-old boy, the Fleur-du-Mal will become Z’s archenemy in a story that spans decades and continents.  

Pirates!

FIC REESE

Nancy Kington, daughter of a rich merchant, suddenly orphaned when her father dies, is sent to live on her family's plantation in Jamaica. Disgusted by the treatment of the slaves and her brother's willingness to marry her off, she and one of the slaves, Minerva, run away and join a band of pirates. For both girls the pirate life is their only chance for freedom in a society where both are treated like property, rather than individuals. Together they go in search of adventure, love, and a new life that breaks all restrictions of gender, race, and position. Told through Nancy's writings, their adventures will appeal to readers across the spectrum and around the world.  

Rock Star, Superstar
by Blake Nelson

FIC NELSON

Music is Pete’s life. He’s happiest when playing his Fender P-Bass. He doesn’t care about prestige or getting girls; it’s the quality of the music that matters. Then he meets the Carlisle brothers. They can’t sing and they can barely play, but somehow they have a following. Pete can’t resist, and he joins The Tiny Masters of Today. When the band gets a chance at real stardom, Pete wonders if he’s ready. He knows the music should come first . . . but who knew selling out could be so much fun?  

Snow Flower & the Secret Fan
by Lisa See

FIC SEE

In nineteenth-century China, in a remote Hunan county, a girl named Lily, at the tender age of seven, is paired with a laotong, “old same,” in an emotional match that will last a lifetime. The laotong, Snow Flower, introduces herself by sending Lily a silk fan on which she’s painted a poem in nu shu, a unique language that Chinese women created in order to communicate in secret, away from the influence of men. As the years pass, Lily and Snow Flower send messages on fans, compose stories on handkerchiefs, reaching out of isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments. Together, they endure the agony of foot-binding, and reflect upon their arranged marriages, shared loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their deep friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart. 

Tell No One
by Harlan Coben

FIC COBEN

For Dr. David Beck, the loss was shattering. And every day for the past eight years, he has relived the horror of what happened. The gleaming lake. The pale moonlight. The piercing screams. The night his wife was taken. The last night he saw her alive. Everyone tells him it’s time to move on, to forget the past once and for all. But for David Beck, there can be no closure. A message has appeared on his computer, a phrase only he and his dead wife know. Suddenly Beck is taunted with the impossible–that somewhere, somehow, Elizabeth is alive. Beck has been warned to tell no one. And he doesn’t. Instead, he runs from the people he trusts the most, plunging headlong into a search for the shadowy figure whose messages hold out a desperate hope. But already Beck is being hunted down. He’s headed straight into the heart of a dark and deadly secret–and someone intends to stop him before he gets there.  

13 Little Blue Envelopes

FIC JOHNSON

Inside little blue envelope 1 are $1,000 and instructions to buy a plane ticket. In envelope 2 are directions to a specific London flat. The note in envelope 3 tells Ginny: Find a starving artist. Because of envelope 4, Ginny and a playwright/thief/ bloke-about-town called Keith go to Scotland together, with somewhat disastrous—though utterly romantic—results. But will she ever see him again? Everything about Ginny will change this summer, and it's all because of the 13 little blue envelopes.  

Tithe
by Holly Black

FIC BLACK

Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother's rock band until an ominous attack forces Kaye back to her childhood home. There, amid the industrial, blue-collar New Jersey backdrop, Kaye soon finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms -- a struggle that could very well mean her death.  

24 Girls in 7 Days

FIC BRADLEY

Jack Grammar, average American senior, has no date to the prom. Or so he thinks. Percy and Natalie, Jack's so-called best friends, posted an ad in the classified section of the online version of the school newspaper. They figured it couldn't hurt-after all, there's not much in this world sadder than Jack's love life. Soon Percy and Natalie have assembled a list of girls eager to go to the prom with Jack, including one mysterious girl known only as FancyPants. He has just seven days to meet and date them before he will ask one special girl to the prom. Newcomer Alex Bradley shares a fresh and funny boy perspective in a genre dominated by girls. With snappy dialogue and hip, smart writing, this is a hilarious take on the trauma and pageantry that is prom.  

Twilight WINNER!!
by Stephenie Meyer

FIC MEYER

Deeply sensuous and extraordinarily suspenseful, TWILIGHT captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite. Isabella Swans move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Isabellas life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Isabella, the person Edward holds most dear. The lovers find themselves balanced precariously on the point of a knifebetween desire and danger.  

Upstate
by Kalisha Buckhanon

FIC BUCKHANON

Baby, the first thing I need to know from you is do you believe I killed my father? So begins Upstate, a powerful story told through letters between two young, star-crossed lovers. Seventeen-year-old Antonio and sixteen-year-old Natasha face tragedy when Antonio finds himself in jail, accused of a shocking crime. While he fights to stay alive on the inside, Natasha must makes choices that could change her life forever. Over the course of a decade, they share a desperate correspondence. Despite being apart, they keep turning to each for support, advice, and love. All the while, they can only wonder if they will ever be reunited. Startling, real, and filled with raw emotion, Upstate is an unforgettable and modern coming of age story.  

Yossel
by Joe Kubert

GN KUBERT

His name is Yossel. In another time, in another place, this fifteen-year-old boy could have grown to be a great artist, but in Nazi-occupied Poland Yossel, a Jew, is an untermensch and thus has no rights -- and no future. When the Nazis confiscate his family's home and force them to live in the overcrowded tenements of the Warsaw ghetto, it appears that Yossel's artistic gift will be shattered. Instead, the awful suffering of his family, the terrible conditions of the ghetto, and the increasingly barbaric treatment inspire him. Yossel: April 19, 1943 is this boy's story, told through his sketches. It is a compelling account of increasing horror depicted by an artist whose soul drives him to bear witness through his art.