VTPL 2024-25 Young Hoosier Book Awards

Twelve-and-a-half year old Emelyn Ethrige lives with her widowed father in South Carolina, dreams of wheelchair motocross, and makes custom chair bags trying to earn enough money to buy a serious set of wheels; she has been in a wheelchair all her life, and is just fine getting around without help, but it seems that since her mother was killed in an accident everyone (father, grandparents, teachers, and classmates) have started treating her differently:...

"Thirteen thousand feet below the ocean's surface lies the midnight zone, home to a cunning hunter known as the seadevil of the deep"--Back cover.

"Rhyming has always come easily to Chester van Chime. But one day he loses his gift and struggles to find the right words" --

"Uprooted from his home in Los Angeles and sent to live with his cantankerous grandparents in New Mexico, twelve-year-old Jorge struggles with loneliness until he meets a new friend who happens to be a chupacabra"-- "Jorge is a misunderstood middle school misfit who has been sent to live with his grandparents in New Mexico. On his first day of school he catches the attention of his belligerent principal and the school bullies. Lonely, resentful,...

"Frank Fernandez's family never stays in one place for long. His parents renovate unusual buildings and turn them into homes, which means the family moves--a lot. This makes it hard for bookish Frank to make friends. So when his parents announce they're moving to Spectacle Key, Florida, to live in a lighthouse--this time for good!--Frank is thrilled. But Spectacle Key isn't the perfect forever home they'd imagined. The lighthouse is falling apart....

"Recipes and descriptions of some of the unusual and inventive foods humans have eaten throughout the ages"--

"Best friends Isaac and Marco face various challenges in sixth grade, such as Isaac getting better grades, Marco winning a spot on the basketball team, and both seeing their efforts make a change in their respective family lives. They hope their friendship and support for one another will be enough to help them from falling short."--

"Something terrible is happening in the skies! Rats are eating the MOON! There's only ONE hero for the job, a bold and fearsome beast bioengineered in a secret lab to be the moon's savior and Earth's last hope! And that hero is ... a cat. A cat who will be blasted into space! Accompanied by the imperious Moon Queen and LOZ 4000, a toenail clipping robot, the First Cat in Space journeys across a fantastic lunar landscape in a quest to save the world....

"After witnessing a violent attack at school, Manuel struggles with anxiety but his cell phone camera helps him find anchors when he dissociates, and an unexpected friendship opens up new possibilities"--Title verso page.

"The narrator turns a "nothing shape" into a cat, beaver, bunny, dog, turtle, and bear, but what the cat really wants is a horse"--