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Reading Circle Program

MARK TWAIN AWARD NOMINEES

The Big One-Oh, by Dean Pitchford. Penguin, ©2007. Determined not to be weird like his neighbor, Charley decides to throw himself a 10th birthday party, but first he will have to make some friends to invite.

Blown Away, by Joan Hiatt Harlow. Simon and Schuster, ©2007. In 1935, on Florida's Matacumbe Key, 13-year-old Jake makes new friends during an idyllic summer, only to have everything change when a hurricane threatens the island.

Bravo Zulu, Samantha, by Kathleen Benner Duble. Peachtree, ©2007. Unenthusiastic about spending part of her summer vacation with her grandparents, 12-year-old Samantha is upset by her prickly grandfather's secretive behavior and decides to find out what he is hiding.

Deep and Dark and Dangerous, by Mary Downing Hahn. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ©2007. When 13-year-old Ali spends the summer with her aunt and cousin at the family's vacation home, she stumbles upon a secret that her mother and aunt have been hiding for over 30 years.

A Friendship for Today, by Patricia McKissack. Scholastic, ©2007. In 1954, when desegregation comes to Kirkland, Mo., 12-year-old Rosemary faces many changes and challenges at school and at home as her parents separate. Missouri author and subject.

Gabriel's Horses, by Alison Hart. Peachtree, ©2007. In Kentucky during the Civil War, 12-year-old slave Gabriel contends with racism in his quest to become a jockey.

Garden of Eve, by K.L. Going. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ©2007. Eve gave up her belief in stories and magic after her mother's death. On her 11th birthday, a stranger gives her a mysterious seed as a gift. This takes her and a boy who claims to be a ghost on a strange journey.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick. Scholastic, ©2007. Hugo, an orphaned clock keeper living in a Paris train station, finds his secret life jeopardized when he meets an old toy seller and his goddaughter. Winner of the 2008 Caldecott Medal.

Night of the Howling Dogs, by Graham Salisbury. Random House, ©2007. In 1975, a group of Boy Scouts, their leaders, and some new friends camping at Halape, Hawaii, find their survival skills put to the test when a massive earthquake strikes, followed by a tsunami.

Paint the Wind, by Pam Munoz Ryan. Scholastic, ©2007. After her overprotective grandmother has a stroke, Maya, an orphan, leaves her extremely restricted life in California to stay with her mother's family on a remote Wyoming ranch. There she discovers a love of horses and encounters a wild mare that her mother once rode.

The Story of Jonas, by Maurine F. Dahlberg. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ©2007. In the mid-1800s, a slave boy dreams of escaping to freedom while traveling with his master's son from Missouri to the gold fields of Kansas Territory. Missouri subject.

Way Down Deep, by Ruth White. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ©2007. In the 1950s in West Virginia, a foundling is happily living at the local boarding house. When a new family arrives, the mystery of her past begins to unravel.