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Books from our Booklists

2010 Best Juvenile Fiction

Each year, Austin Public Library youth services librarians read hundreds of books and we gather together lists of our favorites. Some of these win awards and are placed on official reading lists. . . and some aren't. If you're looking for great books that you might have missed last year, here are a few to try.

Recommended for grades 3-8.

Cover of the book Word after word after word
Word after word after word
By Patricia MacLachlan.
A visiting author teaches five friends about the power of words and writing.
Cover of the book Touch blue
Touch blue
By by Cynthia Lord.
When the state of Maine threatens to shut down their island's one-room schoolhouse because of dwindling enrollment, eleven-year-old Tess, a strong believer in luck, and her family take in a trumpet-playing foster child to increase the school's population.
Cover of the book The mysterious howling
The mysterious howling
By by Maryrose Wood ; illustrated by Jon Klassen.
Fifteen-year-old Miss Penelope Lumley, a recent graduate of the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, is hired as governess to three young children who have been raised by wolves and must teach them to behave in a civilized manner quickly, in preparation for a Christmas ball.
Cover of the book The Kneebone boy
The Kneebone boy
By Ellen Potter.
Otto, Lucia, and Max Hardscrabble, whose mother has been missing for many years, have unexpected and illuminating adventures in the village of Snoring-by-the-Sea after their father, who paints portraits of deposed monarchs, goes away on a business trip.
Cover of the book The dreamer
The dreamer
By by Pam Muñoz Ryan ; drawings by Peter Sís.
A fictionalized biography of the Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who grew up a painfully shy child, ridiculed by his overbearing father, but who became one of the most widely-read poets in the world. Includes author's note about the poet.
Cover of the book Only one year
Only one year
By Andrea Cheng ; illustrations by Nicole Wong.
Nine-year-old Sharon has conflicted feelings towards her copycat little sister and rambunctious toddler brother, who is sent to China for a year to live with relatives.
Cover of the book The night fairy
The night fairy
By Laura Amy Schlitz ; illustrated by Angela Barrett.
When Flory the night fairy's wings are accidentally broken and she cannot fly, she has to learn to do everything differently.
Cover of the book The death-defying Pepper Roux
The death-defying Pepper Roux
By Geraldine McCaughrean.
Having been raised believing he will die before he reaches the age of fourteen, Pepper Roux runs away on his fourteenth birthday in an attempt to elude his fate, assumes another identity, and continues to try to outrun death, no matter the consequences.
Cover of the book Dark life
Dark life
By Kat Falls.
When fifteen-year-old Ty, who has always lived on the ocean floor, joins Topside girl Gemma in the frontier's underworld to seek and stop outlaws who threaten his home, they learn that the government may pose an even greater threat.
Cover of the book The Boneshaker
The Boneshaker
By Kate Milford ; with illustrations by Andrea Offermann.
When Jake Limberleg brings his traveling medicine show to a small Missouri town in 1913, thirteen-year-old Natalie senses that something is wrong and, after investigating, learns that her love of automata and other machines make her the only one who can set things right.
Cover of the book Bink & Gollie
Bink & Gollie
By Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee ; illustrated by Tony Fucile.
Two roller-skating best friends--one tiny, one tall--share three comical adventures involving outrageously bright socks, an impromptu trek to the Andes, and a most unlikely marvelous companion.

Our Booklists

2010 Best Early Readers
2010 Best Juvenile Fiction
2010 Best Juvenile Graphic Novels
2010 Best Picture Books
2011 Best Early Readers
2011 Best Juvenile Fiction
2011 Best Juvenile Graphic Novels
2011 Best Picture Books
Summer Picks for Middle Grade Books
Summer Picks for Picture Books

Recommended Youth Books

Multicultural Characters
  • Cover of the book Bronxwood
  • Cover of the book Playground
  • Cover of the book Lockdown
  • Cover of the book Under the mesquite
  • Cover of the book Illegal
  • Cover of the book Guantanamo boy
  • Cover of the book Bestest Ramadan ever
  • Cover of the book Thunder over Kandahar
  • Cover of the book Level up
  • Cover of the book Dragons of silk
  • Cover of the book Orchards
  • Cover of the book Sita's Ramayana
  • Cover of the book Karma : a novel in verse
2010 Best Early Readers
  • Cover of the book The big catch : a Robot and Rico story
  • Cover of the book Cork & Fuzz : the babysitters
  • Cover of the book Dancing dinos at the beach
  • Cover of the book The garden project
  • Cover of the book Porky and Bess
  • Cover of the book Snorp on the slopes
  • Cover of the book Wolf pie
  • Cover of the book Zelda and Ivy : the big picture
2011 Best Teen Graphic Novels
  • Cover of the book Anya's ghost
  • Cover of the book Level up
  • Cover of the book The clockwork girl
  • Cover of the book The last dragon
  • Cover of the book Blue exorcist.
  • Cover of the book Bakuman.
  • Cover of the book Page by Paige
  • Cover of the book Sita's Ramayana
  • Cover of the book Feynman
  • Cover of the book Bad island

Youth Booklist Categories

Teen Fiction

Teen Non-Fiction

Children's Fiction

Children's Non-Fiction

Michael L. Printz Award Winners

John Newbery Medal

Texas Reading Lists

Our Booklists

2010 Best Early Readers
2010 Best Juvenile Fiction
2010 Best Juvenile Graphic Novels
2010 Best Picture Books
2011 Best Early Readers
2011 Best Juvenile Fiction
2011 Best Juvenile Graphic Novels
2011 Best Picture Books
Summer Picks for Middle Grade Books
Summer Picks for Picture Books

Check out our booklists in the Catalog!

Children Services Book Lists
Teen Services Book Lists

Youth Recommends

Fantasy
Cover of the book Daughter of smoke & bone
Daughter of smoke & bone
By Laini Taylor.
Seventeen-year-old Karou, a lovely, enigmatic art student in a Prague boarding school, carries a sketchbook of hideous, frightening monsters--the chimaerae who form the only family she has ever known.
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