2024

Winner

Frizzy 

By: Claribel Ortega

Year Published: 2022

Tired of going to the salon to have her curls straightened every weekend, Marlene slowly learns to embrace her natural curly hair with the help of her best friend and favorite aunt.

2023

Winner

Twins

By: Varian Johnson

Year Published: 2020

Maureen and Francine Carter are twins and best friends. They participate in the same clubs, enjoy the same foods, and are partners on all their school projects. But just before the girls start sixth grade, Francine becomes Fran -- a girl who wants to join the chorus, run for class president, and dress in fashionable outfits that set her apart from Maureen. A girl who seems happy to share only two classes with her sister! Maureen and Francine are growing apart and there's nothing Maureen can do to stop it.

2022

Winner

City Spies

By: James Ponti

Year Published: 2020

Operating out of a base in Scotland, the City Spies are five kids from various parts of the world. When they’re not attending the local boarding school, they’re honing their unique skills, such as sleight of hand, breaking and entering, observation, and explosives. All of these allow them to go places in the world of espionage where adults can’t.

2021 Winner

 When Stars Are Scattered

By: Victoria Jamieson

Year Published: 2020

Omar and his younger brother Hassan live in a refugee camp, and when an opportunity for Omar to get an education comes along, he must decide between going to school every day or caring for his nonverbal brother in this intimate and touching portrayal of family and daily life in a refugee camp.

2020 Winner  Restart

By: Gordon Korman

Year Published: 2017

Chase does not remember falling off the roof, in fact he does not remember anything about himself, and when he gets back to middle school he begins to learn who he was through the reactions of the other kids--trouble is, he really is not sure he likes the Chase that is being revealed, but can he take the opportunity amnesia has provided and restart his life?

Book Trailer

2019 Winner The Terrible Two

by Mac Barnett & Jory John

Year Published: 2015

When master prankster Miles Murphy moves to sleepy Yawnee Valley, he challenges the local, mystery prankster in an epic battle of tricks but soon the two join forces to pull off the biggest prank ever seen.

2018 Winner Fort

by Cynthia DeFelice

Year Published: 2016

Eleven-year-old Wyatt and his friend Augie aren't looking for a fight. They're having the best summer of their lives hanging out in the fort they built in the woods, fishing and hunting, cooking over a campfire, and sleeping out. But when two older boys mess with the fort―and with another kid who can't fight back―the friends are forced to launch Operation Doom, with unexpected results for all concerned, in this novel about two funny and very real young heroes.

2017 Winner El Deafo

by CeCe Bell

Year Published: 2014

2016 Winner Escape From Mr. Lemoncello's Library

by Chris Grabenstein

Year Published: 2013

Kyle Keeley is the class clown and a huge fan of all games—board games, word games, and particularly video games. His hero, Luigi Lemoncello, the most notorious and creative gamemaker in the world, just so happens to be the genius behind the construction of the new town library. Lucky Kyle wins a coveted spot as one of twelve kids invited for an overnight sleepover in the library, hosted by Mr. Lemoncello and riddled with lots and lots of games. But when morning comes, the doors stay locked. Kyle and the other kids must solve every clue and figure out every secret puzzle to find the hidden escape route!

2015 Winner Belly Up

by Stuart Gibbs

Year Published: 2010

Twelve-year-old Teddy is in heaven living with his gorilla-researcher mom and wildlife-photographer dad at the world's largest zoo. When the zoo's hippo mascot is murdered, Teddy not only wants to solve the mystery but also discover why no one else seems to care. Gibbs writes with absurdist humor and seemingly an insider's knowledge of how zoos operate.

2014 Winner Because of Mr. Terupt

by Rob Buyea

Year Published: 2010

An unconventional, hands-on fifth-grade teacher frustrates authority figures but inspires seven students, from the class clown to the new girl in school. Short chapters narrated in turn by each student recount classroom projects and tell the characters' personal stories. Each student's personality and backstory is distinctive; the narrative voices, however, aren't always distinguishable.

2013 Winner 11 Birthdays

by Wendy Mass

Year Published: 2009

Amanda and Leo have the same birthday and always celebrate it together. After a fight the previous year, they throw separate eleventh-birthday parties--then find themselves forced to repeat the day over and over until they can reconcile. It's Groundhog Day for kids, and lots of fun due to deft pacing and sharp characterizations.

2012 Winner Please Write in this Book

by Mary Amato

Year Published: 2006

Challenged to collectively fill a notebook with anything they choose, Ms. Wurtz's students happily enter poems, drawings, and stories both factual and made-up, until they begin arguing about the notebook's rules. Presented as rotating entries with varied handwriting and funky black-and-white illustrations, the notebook highlights each student's personality as the classmates debate the rules and finally learn to work together

2011 Winner Deep and Dark and Dangerous

by Mary Downing Hahn

Year Published: 2007

Thirteen-year-old Ali, vacationing with her aunt and cousin at a secluded family cottage, is drawn by family tension and a bratty visitor to investigate the events of a long-ago summer that ended in a girl's death. Despite a slightly redundant plot, the ghost's appearance and need for resolution rings true, as do the effects of the tragedy on Ali's family

2010 Winner Champ

by Marcia Thornton Jones

Year Published: 2007

Together Riley and Champ make a great team. But they stand to lose more at the Founders Day dog show than a blue ribbon. Could they be separated forever?

2009 Winner Flush

by Carl Hiaasen

Year Published: 2005

With their father jailed for sinking a river boat, Noah Underwood and his younger sister, Abbey, must gather evidence that the owner of this floating casino is emptying his bilge tanks into the protected waters around their Florida Keys home.

2008 Winner Ruby Holler

by Sharon Creech

Year Published: 2002

Thirteen-year-old fraternal twins Dallas and Florida have grown up in a terrible orphanage but their lives change forever when an eccentric but sweet older couple invites them each on an adventure, beginning in an almost magical place called Ruby Holler     

2007 Winner Escaping the Giant Wave

by Peg Kehret

Year Published: 2003

When an earthquake creates a tsunami while thirteen-year-old Kyle is babysitting his sister during a family vacation at a Pacific Coast resort, he tries to save himself, his sister, and a boy who has bullied him for years.

2006 Winner Runt

by Marion Dane Bauer

Year Published: 2002

Runt, the diminutive last-born of a litter of pups, hopes to prove his worth to his father and acquire a nobler name in what PW called a "tightly plotted, swiftly paced tale of a wolf pack      

2005 Winner The Doll People

by Ann M Martin

Year Published: 2000

Bothered that she hasn't seen her aunt Sarah for forty-five years, Annabelle Doll embarks on a search that takes her out of her protective dollhouse. She braves dangerous territory beyond the nursery to discover not only the answers to family secrets but also a whole new family of dolls