Books in AWARDS: ALA Best Books for Young Adults 2010 series

DIGGING FOR PEAT in the mountain with his Uncle Tally, Fergus finds the body of a child, and it looks like she’s been murdered. As Fergus tries to make sense of the mad world around him—his brother on hunger-strike in prison, his growing feelings for Cora, his parents arguing over the Troubles, and him in it up to the neck, blackmailed into acting as courier to God knows what—a little voice comes to him in his dreams, and the mystery of the bog child unfurls.Bog Child is an astonishing novel exploring the sacrifices made in the name of peace, and the unflinching strength of the human spirit.

On an unseasonably warm Easter Sunday, a young girl namedIvy discovers a chilling secret in the basement of the Rumbaughpharmacy across the street from the hotel where she lives withher mother. The discovery reveals a disturbing side to theeccentric lives of family friends Abner and Adolph Rumbaugh,known throughout their small western Pennsylvania townsimply as the Twins. It seems that Ab and Dolph have beencompelled by a powerful mutual love for their deceased motherto do something extraordinary, something that in its owntwisted way bridges the gap between the living and the dead.Immediately, Ivy's discovery provokes the revelation of aRumbaugh family curse, a curse that, as Ivy will learn over thecoming years, holds a strange power over herself and her ownmother.In his third book for young adults, Jack Gantos has scripted acompletely original drama. With gothic flavor and black humor,he depicts a group of people bound together by love,compulsion . . . and a passion for taxidermy.

"By turns insightful, devastatingly funny, and suffused with loneliness . . . this thoughtful novel about the lost and abandoned is a hopeful one, in which some strays find a place to belong." — BooklistSixteen-year-old Ted O’Connor’s parents just died in a fiery car crash, and now he’s stuck with a set of semi-psycho foster parents, two foster brothers — Astin, the cocky gearhead, and C.W., the sometimes gangsta — and an inner-city high school full of delinquents. He’s having pretty much the worst year of his miserable life. Or so he thinks. Is it possible that becoming an orphan is not the worst thing that could have happened to him?Master novelist Ron Koertge brings his best work yet, a smart, surprising story full of trademark wit and sharp insight about a boy learning to run with a new pack.

WHEN DORA, ELENA’S older sister, is diagnosed with depression and has to be admitted to the hospital, Elena can’t seem to make sense of their lives anymore. At school, the only people who acknowledge Elena are Dora’s friends and Jimmy Zenk—who failed at least one grade and wears blackevery day of the week. And at home, Elena’s parents keep arguing with each other. Elena will do anything to help her sister get better and get their lives back to normal—even when the responsibility becomes too much to bear.

An unforgettable debut novel about the way we look at others, and the way we see ourselves. Meghan Ball is both the most visible and the most invisible person in school. Her massive size is impossible to ignore, yet people freely spill their secrets in front of her, perhaps because they think she isn?t listening. But she is. Now her attention has turned to a new girl: Aimee Zorn, with her stick-figure body and defiant attitude. Meghan is determined to befriend Aimee, and when she ultimately succeeds, the two join forces to take down their shared enemy. This provocative story explores the ways in which girls use food and their bodies to say what they cannot: I?m lonely.

WHEN TOMAS AND HIS SON, Peter, settle in Chust as woodcutters, Tomas digs a channel of fast-flowing waters around their hut, so they have their own little island kingdom. Peter doesn't understand why his father has done this, nor why his father carries a long, battered box, whose mysterious contents he is forbidden to know.But Tomas is a man with a past: a past that is tracking him with deadly intent, and when the dead of Chust begin to rise from their graves, both father and son must face a soulless enemy and a terrifying destiny.

THE SECRETS OF the past meet the shocks of the present.Aslaug is an unusual young woman. Her mother has brought her up in near isolation, teaching her about plants and nature and language—but not about life. Especially not how she came to have her own life, and who her father might be.When Aslaug’s mother dies unexpectedly, everything changes. For Aslaug is a suspect in her mother’s death. And the more her story unravels, the more questions unfold. About the nature of Aslaug’s birth. About what she should do next. About whether divine miracles have truly happened. And whether, when all other explanations are impossible, they might still happen this very day.Addictive, thought-provoking, and shocking, Madapple is a page-turning exploration of human nature and divine intervention—and of the darkest corners of the human soul.From the Hardcover edition.