State Award Reading List
Texas State Reading List
2009 Tayshas High School Reading List
Skin Hunger
(Part of Resurrection of Magic, A)
By: Kathleen Duey
Cover By: David Ho / Illustrated by: Sheila Rayyan
This edition: Hardcover, 368 pages
Publication date: July 24, 2007
Ages: above 12
Sadima lives in a world where magic has been banned, leaving poor villagers prey to fakes and charlatans. A "magician" stole her family's few valuables and left Sadima's mother to die on the day Sadima was born. But vestiges...
Other Formats: Trade Paperback
Shift
By: Jennifer Bradbury
Cover By: Greg Stadnyk
This edition: Hardcover, 256 pages
Publication date: May 20, 2008
Ages: above 12
Imagine you and your best friend head off on a cross-country bike trek. Imagine that you get into a fight -- the cheap s.o.b. won't kick in any cash. Imagine you stop riding together. Imagine you reach Seattle then come home...
Ivy
By: Julie Hearn
Cover By: Michael Frost and Rebecca Guay
This edition: Hardcover, 368 pages
Publication date: June 17, 2008
Ages: above 12
Ivy is used to being overlooked. The youngest in a family of thieves, scoundrels, and roustabouts, the girl with the flame-colored hair and odd-colored eyes is declared useless by her father from the day she is born. But...
Billie Standish Was Here
By: Nancy Crocker
This edition: Hardcover, 288 pages
Publication date: June 5, 2007
Ages: above 14
CAN ONE UNLIKELY FRIENDSHIP SAVE A LIFE?Billie Standish has pretty much no one. Her parents are too caught up in their own lives, and the only two girls in town her age want nothing to do with her. When it looks like a nearby...
Unwind
By: Neal Shusterman
This edition: Hardcover, 352 pages
Publication date: November 6, 2007
Ages: above 14
Connor's parents want to be rid of him because he's a troublemaker. Risa has no parents and is being unwound to cut orphanage costs. Lev's unwinding has been planned since his birth as part of his family's strict religion....
Touching Snow
By: M. Sindy Felin
This edition: Hardcover, 240 pages
Publication date: May 22, 2007
Ages: above 12
"The best way to avoid being picked on by high school bullies is to kill someone."Karina has plenty to worry about on the last day of seventh grade: finding three Ds and a C on her report card again, getting laughed at by...
City of Bones
(Part of Mortal Instruments, The)
By: Cassandra Clare
Cover By: Cliff Nielsen
This edition: Hardcover, 496 pages
Publication date: March 27, 2007
Ages: above 14
Their hidden world is about to be revealed.... When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder -- much less a murder committed by three teenagers...
Hush
An Irish Princess' Tale
By: Donna Jo Napoli
Cover By: Michael Frost
This edition: Hardcover, 320 pages
Publication date: October 23, 2007
Ages: above 12
A silent girl. An awesome power.Melkorka is an Irish princess, the first daughter of a magnificent kingdom -- but this all changes the day she is kidnapped and taken aboard a marauding slave ship. Trapped in a world both...
2009 Texas Lone Star Reading List
Unwind
By: Neal Shusterman
This edition: Hardcover, 352 pages
Publication date: November 6, 2007
Ages: above 14
Connor's parents want to be rid of him because he's a troublemaker. Risa has no parents and is being unwound to cut orphanage costs. Lev's unwinding has been planned since his birth as part of his family's strict religion....
Found
(Part of Missing, The)
By: Margaret Peterson Haddix
This edition: Hardcover, 320 pages
Publication date: April 22, 2008
Ages: 8 - 12
Thirteen-year-old Jonah has always known that he was adopted, and he's never thought it was any big deal. Then he and a new friend, Chip, who's also adoped, begin receiving mysterious letters. The first one says, "You are one...
2009 Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List
What You Never Knew About Beds, Bedrooms, & Pajamas
(Part of Around-the-House History)
By: Patricia Lauber
Illustrated by: John Manders
This edition: Hardcover, 40 pages
Publication date: November 28, 2006
Ages: 5 - 9
You make your bed in the morning. At times in the past, people really made their beds -- and at night they stuffed straw into a sack, making a bed to lie on.Nightclothes were first worn in the 1500s. Before that, people slept...
Other Formats: Trade Paperback
Texas Winners List
Children's Gallery Award Nominee 2010
You Can Do It!
By: Tony Dungy
Illustrated by: Amy June Bates
This edition: Hardcover, 32 pages
Publication date: July 8, 2008
Ages: 4 - 7
Tony Dungy's little brother, Linden, is a third grader who is having a bad day at school. Linden is the youngest of the Dungy family and the least motivated because he hasn't found "it." In a family where everyone seems to...
You're a Grand Old Flag
By: Public Domain
Illustrated by: Norman Rockwell / Lyrics By: George M. Cohan
This edition: Hardcover, 32 pages
Publication date: June 3, 2008
You're a grand old flag,You're a high flying flagAnd forever in peace may you wave.Written in 1906 by George M. Cohan, "You're a Grand Old Flag" has been a favorite celebration song for generations of Americans. Now see it...
Lamplighter Award Nominee 2010
The Underneath
By: Kathi Appelt
Cover By: David Small / Illustrated by: David Small
This edition: Hardcover, 320 pages
Publication date: May 6, 2008
Ages: above 10
There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for a while, and then abandoned on the side of the road.A calico cat, about to have kittens, hears the lonely howl of a chained-up hound deep in the backwaters...
2010 Texas Lone Star Reading List
Bull Rider
By: Suzanne Morgan Williams
This edition: Hardcover, 256 pages
Publication date: February 24, 2009
Ages: above 12
All it takes is eight seconds....Cam O'Mara, grandson and younger brother of bull-riding champions, is not interested in partaking in the family sport. Cam is a skateboarder, and perfecting his tricks -- frontside flips, 360s...
2010 Texas TAYSHAS Reading List
Chains
By: Laurie Halse Anderson
Cover By: Christopher Silas Neal
This edition: Hardcover, 320 pages
Publication date: October 21, 2008
Ages: above 10
If an entire nation could seek its freedom, why not a girl?As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year-old Isabel wages her own fight...for freedom. Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, she and her sister, Ruth,...
Other Formats: Trade Paperback
Why I Fight
By: J. Adams Oaks
This edition: Hardcover, 240 pages
Publication date: April 21, 2009
Ages: above 12
Wyatt Reaves takes the seat next to you, bloodied and soaking wet, and he is a big-fisted beast. Tell him to stretch out like an X across asphalt and you've got a parking space. But Wyatt's been taking it lying down for too...
The Secret Life of Prince Charming
By: Deb Caletti
This edition: Hardcover, 336 pages
Publication date: April 7, 2009
Ages: above 12
A thoughtful, funny, and layered teen novel by National Book Award Finalist Deb Caletti.
Wake
(Part of Wake)
By: Lisa McMann
This edition: Hardcover, 224 pages
Publication date: March 4, 2008
Ages: above 14
Not all dreams are sweet.For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people's dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody-notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie's seen...
Far from You
By: Lisa Schroeder
This edition: Hardcover, 368 pages
Publication date: December 23, 2008
Ages: above 14
Lost and alone…down the rabbit hole. Alice thought she knew what solitude was: Her mother—gone Her father—remarried with a newborn daughter. Now… trapped in the icy embrace of a deadly snowstorm Alice faces...
The Hand You're Dealt
By: Paul Volponi
Cover By: Michael Frost
This edition: Hardcover, 176 pages
Publication date: September 30, 2008
Ages: above 12
When Huck Porter's dad suddenly dies, it feels like nothing will ever make sense again. Huck's "best friend" thinks that Huck should just get over it, the girl he likes won't give him the time of day, and his mom now works all...
Bull Rider
By: Suzanne Morgan Williams
This edition: Hardcover, 256 pages
Publication date: February 24, 2009
Ages: above 12
All it takes is eight seconds....Cam O'Mara, grandson and younger brother of bull-riding champions, is not interested in partaking in the family sport. Cam is a skateboarder, and perfecting his tricks -- frontside flips, 360s...
2010 Texas Bluebonnet Master List
The Hinky-Pink
An Old Tale
Illustrated by: Brian Floca / Retold by: Megan McDonald
This edition: Hardcover, 48 pages
Publication date: September 9, 2008
Ages: 4 - 8
A happy Hinky-Pink is a fine thing. An unhappy Hinky-Pink pinches!That is what happens to Anabel, a young seamstress in Old Italy who has only days to finish her dream: sewing a gown for the princess to wear at the Butterfly...
That Book Woman
By: Heather Henson
Illustrated by: David Small
This edition: Hardcover, 40 pages
Publication date: October 7, 2008
Ages: 4 - 8
Cal is not the readin' type. Living way high up in the Appalachian Mountains, he'd rather help Pap plow or go out after wandering sheep than try some book learning. Nope. Cal does not want to sit stoney-still reading some...
Texas Maverick Graphic Novels Reading List
T-Minus
The Race to the Moon
By: Jim Ottaviani
Illustrated by: Zander Cannon and Kevin Cannon
This edition: Hardcover, 128 pages
Publication date: May 19, 2009
Ages: 8 - 12
Question:What happens when you take two global superpowers, dozens of daring pilots, thousands of engineers and scientists, and then point them at the night sky and say "Go!"?Answer:A SPACE RACE!The whole world Followed the...
Other Formats: Trade Paperback
