Bookshelf: The Award Winners

All the NFL fans know who won the Super Bowl this year; every futbol enthusiast knows what happened at the last World Cup; and every YA lover should know which authors are getting the shiny stickers on second editions of their books. Of course, some of the best books don't win awards, for whatever reason (I was most disappointed that Shannon Hale's A Book of a Thousand Days didn't get a Newbery nod this year.) But the ones that win are fantastic.

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (2006 National Book Award Finalist: Young People's Literature.) A graphic novel about a Chinese-American boy in an all-American school. I don't read graphics much, but this one is great.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (2008 National Book Award Winner, Young People's Literature.) This book has been makin' waves: a story about an American-Indian teen caught between the white world and the reservation.

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz (2008 Newbery Award Winner.) A story told in monologues from different people in a medieval village.
The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean (2008 Michael Printz Award Winner.) The story of a girl's journey to Antartica with her uncle.

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green (2006 Michael Printz Award Finalist.) Colin is a child prodigy with a genius for numbers and being dumped by seventeen Katherines.