Texas Bluebonnet Award 2015-2016 Master List
Auxier, Jonathan. 2014. The Night Gardener.
Brown, Don. 2013. The Great American Dust Bowl.
Bryant, Jen. 2014. The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus. Illustrated by Melissa Sweet.
Cammuso, Frank. 2013. The Misadventures of Salem Hyde: Book One: Spelling Trouble.
Cavanaugh, Nancy J. 2014. Always, Abigail.
Daly, Cathleen. 2014. Emily’s Blue Period. Illustrated by Lisa Brown.
de los Santos, Marisa and David Teague. 2014. Saving Lucas Biggs.
Eddleman, Peggy. 2013. Sky Jumpers.
Egan, Kate; with Magician Mike Lane. 2014. The Vanishing Coin. Illustrated by Eric Wight.
Ehlert, Lois. 2014. The Scraps Book: Notes from a Colorful Life.
Engle, Margarita. 2013. Mountain Dog. Illustrated by Olga and Aleksey Ivanov.
Gandhi, Arun and Bethany Hegedus. 2014. Grandfather Gandhi. Illustrated by Evan Turk.
Healy, Christopher. 2012. The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom.
Hill, Laban Carrick. 2013. When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop.
Philbrick, Rodman. 2014. Zane and the Hurricane: A Story of Katrina.
Schanen, Adriana Brad. 2014. Quinny & Hopper. Illustrated by Greg Swearingen.
Searles, Rachel. 2014. The Lost Planet.
Singer, Marilyn. 2013. Rutherford B., Who Was He?: Poems About Our Presidents. Illustrated by John Hendrix.
Tonatiuh, Duncan. 2014. Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez & Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation.
Turnage, Sheila. 2014. The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing.
I’ve read and reviewed six out of twenty of these nominated books, and I’d like to take a look at the rest. Links are to Semicolon reviews.
Publisher’s Weekly: Best Middle Grade Books of 2014. I’ve read and reviewed five of the fourteen books on this list, and I need to read at least two more for Cybils. I’ll just say that it’s not my list, but it’s not too bad either.
Any recommendations for a relatively slow-reading sixth grade boy? I’m always looking for things to motivate my grandson to sit down with a book because he WANTS to, not because he HAS to.
Sam, it sort of depends on what he likes. Some boys (and girls) just prefer nonfiction in the area of their interests, and we keep trying to feed them all fiction. On the other hand, The Hero’s Guide series (see link above) is hilarious, and it might hook him. If he likes basketball, you could try The Crossover, another new book that’s written in free verse. Sometimes slow or reluctant readers like verse novels because there are fewer words to the page.