Thom’s Picks |
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 | Almond, David | | The Fire Eaters | | David Almond’s trademark visionary prose shines in this intense, offbeat coming-of-age story set in 1962 North England. |
| | Bauer, Joan | | Hope Was Here | | Hope moves from Brooklyn to Mulhoney, Wisconsin, to work as waitress in the Welcome Stairways diner and becomes involved with the diner owner’s political campaign to oust the town’s corrupt mayor. |
| | Brashares, Ann | | The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants | | Four best girlfriends, each a bona fide individual, spend the biggest summer of their lives enchanted by a pair of pants that magically fit each of them like a dream. |
| | Brooks, Bruce | | The Moves Make the Man | | A black boy and an emotionally troubled white boy in North Carolina forge a precarious friendship on a basketball court on the outskirts of town. |
| | Caletti, Deb | | Honey, Baby, Sweetheart | | When Ruby McQueen sheds her shy-girl persona for a summer fling, she gets much more than she bargained for. |
| | Crutcher, Chris | | The Sledding Hill | | Billy, recently deceased, keeps an eye on his best friend Eddie, and helps him stand up to an English teacher bent on censorship. |
| | Hartnett, Sonya | | Thursday’s Child | | In this atmospheric tour de force, a young woman recounts her farm family’s poverty, her father’s cowardice, and her younger brother’s obsessive tunneling. |
| | Jenkins, A. M. | | Damage | | Football hero Austin, trying to understand his inexplicable, draining depression, thinks that he has found relief in a girl who seems very special. |
| | Kadohata, Cynthia | | Kira-Kira | | Winner of the 2004 Newbery Medal, this elegant, heartbreaking book explores the strong bond between two Japanese sisters in 1950s Georgia. |
| | Lawrence, Iain | | Ghost Boy | | Unhappy in a home seemingly devoid of love, Harold the Ghost runs away to join the circus, where he works with the elephants and searches for a sense of who he is. |
| | Lyon, Steve | | The Gift Moves | | This futuristic fantasy is distinguished by organic imagery, poetic language, and a pair of memorable protagonists. |
| | McCaughrean, Geraldine | | Not the End of the World | | Noah’s youngest daughter Timna sits at the heart of this provocative retelling of the familiar story of the great flood. |
| | Peck, Robert Newton | | A Day No Pigs Would Die | | For Rob, a farm boy whose father slaughters pigs for a living, maturity comes early as he learns "doing what’s got to be done," especially regarding his pet pig who cannot produce a litter. |
| | Perkins, Lynne Rae | | Criss Cross | | The 2006 Newbery Medal went to this sweet, honest account of the intertwined lives of five friends one summer. |
| | Pullman, Philip | | The Golden Compass | | This compelling fantasy follows Lyra Belacqua and her daemon to the far north to to rescue her best friend and other kidnapped children from gruesome experiments. |
| | Ryan, Sara | | Empress of the World | | While attending a summer institute, Nic falls for another girl named Battle, and suffers the complications of first love. |
| | Townsend, Sue | | The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 | | Twenty years after its initial publication, the "original" laugh-out-loud diary novel still hits its mark. |
| | Voigt, Cynthia | | Homecoming | | Abandoned by their mother, the four Tillerman children begin a search for a home and an identity. |
| | White, Ruth | | Weeping Willow | | Despite all the problems she faces at home, Tiny Lambert’s experiences at high school help her begin to feel good about herself...until one fateful day. |
| | Wolf, Allan | | New Found Land | | Fourteen different voices relate the journey of the Corps of Discovery in elegant, thrilling, tremendous free verse. |
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