Going Bovine by Libby Bray

This year's Printz award winner focuses on the life of 16-year-old Cameron who is stricken with Mad-cow disease. The only hope for him comes in the form of Dulcie, a punk angel, who sets him off on an adventure to DisneyWorld in search of Dr. X and a possible cure. Together with Gonzo, a dwarf, and Balder, a yard gnome, the quest begins. Humor, seriousness, and fantasy combine to make a lengthy novel that has been compared to Don Quixote.

Peeled by Joan Bauer

Being a former journalist, I appreciated the initial quote: "In the age of information overload, newspapers must be the medium that people believe. They don't have to be first. They can even be last. But they must be right." - Pete Hamill. Hildy Biddle is a high school journalist trying to uncover the truth about a haunted house; she takes on the local paper which is loaded with shocking headlines. "Peeled" comes into play because the New York town's major industry is apples. A librarian is mentioned on page 75: "Mr. Nordstrom, the librarian, rapped his shut-up-or leave pencil."

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy

Hazel Rochman (Booklist, May 15, 2004 (Vol. 100, No. 18))
Turner, the rigid minister's son, doesn't fit in when his family moves from Boston to the small town of Phippsburg on the coast of Maine in 1912. It's not only that Maine baseball is different from the game he knows; he's just plain miserable. Then he makes friends with a smart, lively young teen, Lizzie Griffin, living in a small, impoverished community founded by former slaves on nearby Malaga Island. When the town elders drive Lizzie's people off the island, Turner stands up for them, but he can do nothing. Lizzie eventually dies in an insane asylum. The novel may be too long and detailed for some readers, with every plot strand and character accounted for. But the removal of the Malaga community really happened, and Schmidt weaves that history into a powerful tale of friendship and coming-of-age, adding a lyrical sense of the coastal landscape. Characters are drawn without reverence in this haunting combination of fact and fiction that has a powerful and tragic climax. Category: Books for Older Readers--Fiction. 2004, Clarion, $15. Gr. 7-12. Starred Review