Colorado Children's Book Award (CCBA) Nominees 2007

Picture Books
Chapter Books

Picture Book Summaries

Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin

Following the success of the hilarious Diary of a Worm, Cronin has produced the diary of Worm’s friend Spider. Although Spider enjoys scaring kids by spinning webs on the water fountain, he has his own fears: vacuum cleaners and people with big feet.  He is also friendly with a fly, much to his grandfather’s disgust. Harry Bliss’s illustrations contain lots of fun details that perfectly complement the humor in Spider’s diary entries.

The Great Fuzz Frenzy by Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel

What would a prairie dog do with a tennis ball that accidentally falls into its hole? Use the fuzz, of course! And these prairie dogs are very creative with fuzz. But when the fuzz runs out, a real fuzz frenzy ensues, with both comic and dangerous consequences. This is a great book for Boulder residents, written by a Boulder author!

Henry and the Buccaneer Bunnies by Carolyn Crimi

Although Henry sails aboard a pirate ship with a rowdy band of buccaneer bunny pirates, all he wants to do is read. The pirate bunnies make fun of Henry, convinced that books have no practical value. But when the ship sinks in a storm (which Henry predicted based on his weather books) and the pirates wash up on a deserted island, it’s Henry’s book knowledge that saves them all.

I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More by Karen Beaumont

After a little boy’s mama catches him painting the ceiling, walls, and floor, she puts away the paints and thinks that’s the end of the painting. But no, he gets out the paint and finds a different (but no less messy) object to paint. David Catrow’s typically wild illustrations are saturated with every color of the rainbow.

I Wanna Iguana by Karen Kaufman Orloff

Alex wants an iguana, but Mom says no. Alex writes notes to his mother, each time with a different tactic or reason to get the iguana, and each time Mom refutes Alex’s reasoning with notes of her own. Will Alex ever get his iguana? David Catrow illustrates this book with delightful caricatures of humans and animals that show every goofy situation perfectly.

Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert

Using many different kinds of leaves in a myriad of colors, Lois Ehlert creates a leaf man and takes him on a journey, blown by the wind. He blows past birds, animals, fields of vegetables, and lakes full of fish. All of the animals and objects are brilliantly created from leaves, and the end papers show and label all of the different kinds of leaves Ehlert used in her pictures. After reading this book, children will want to gather leaves and make their own leaf pictures.

Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems

Leonardo isn’t a terrible monster; he’s just terrible at being a monster. Try as he might, he just can’t scare anyone. When he finally thinks he has scared a little boy, it turns out that the reason the boy is crying is because a lot of awful things have happened to him. After comforting the boy, Leonardo realizes being a good friend is a lot better than being a terrible monster.

Max Goes to the Moon by Jeffrey Bennett

Max the dog and his friend Tori train as astronauts and go to the moon to help set up a telescope, and on a subsequent trip, a permanent colony. While Max’s story presents information about different aspects of the moon, side boxes on each page contain additional facts about the moon, the first moon trip, and space travel. This book presents a great opportunity for students to differentiate between fact and fiction.

When I Was a Boy…I Dreamed by Justin Matott

An old man reminisces about the many dreams he had as a youth. From rock singer to football star, from jungle adventurer to space explorer, from buccaneer to bank robber, all his boyhood dreams are described in rhyming text. But were they all just dreams, or could some of those adventures have really taken place? Mark Ludy ably illustrates each dream, and readers can look for Squeakers the mouse in every picture.

Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth

When Stillwater, the giant panda, shows up in the family backyard, three children visit him one by one, and each hears a different thought provoking story from this Zen master. The author includes a short note about Zen and meditation, and uses a completely different illustrating style to differentiate between the book’s story and the stories told by Stillwater. This book is sure to promote discussion about values and emotions.

Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko

What would it be like to live on an island where the nation’s worst criminals are housed? When Moose Flannagan arrives on Alcatraz with his parents and his sister Natalie, he encounters nothing but trouble. First, he never sees his dad, because in addition to working as an electrician, he does double duty as a prison guard. His mom is preoccupied with Natalie, who is a genius at math but lives in her own world. The warden’s daughter, Piper, is a risk-taking tease who gets Moose in trouble with her schemes, the first of which is to get their classmates to pay to have their laundry done on Alcatraz by the most notorious criminal of all, Al Capone.

While Moose’s mom tries to get Natalie into a special school, Moose explores the island, tries to get a glimpse of the prisoners, and deals with Piper and her schemes. Living on Alcatraz makes him and the other children of the prison employees celebrities, but all Moose wants is to have a normal family life. Read all about Alcatraz, its famous prisoners, and Moose’s seventh grade year.

Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan

Naomi and little brother Owen live with their grandmother in a trailer park in Lemon Tree, California. Naomi barely knows her mother, and hasn’t seen her father, who lives in Mexico, since she was a baby. She does well in school, and enjoys helping her grandmother and their neighbors, Fabiola and Bernardo. She is very artistic, and carves little animals out of soap. Things are fine until Naomi’s mother, Skyla, shows up with presents and big plans to take Naomi to live with her and her new boyfriend in another city. But Skyla doesn’t want to take Owen, and Grandma thinks that living with Skyla will be a bad environment for Naomi.

To keep Skyla from taking Naomi, Grandma, Fabiola and Bernardo uproot the trailer and take Naomi and Owen to Oaxaca, Mexico, two weeks before Christmas. In Oaxaca, preparations are underway for the yearly radish carving contest, and they hope that Naomi’s father, who usually carves in the contest, will come this year. But even if he does, will he want to see his children? Take a trip to Oaxaca with Naomi and Owen, and learn all about the real radish-carving contest, while you root for Naomi to overcome the obstacles to her happiness.

Beyond the Valley of the Thorns by Patrick Carman

In the second book of the Land of Elyon series, Alexa is summoned to the outside and is reunited with Yipes, who will accompany her on a quest into the Dark Hills. With the last jacosta to help them, Alexa, Yipes, and some old and new friends seek out the Valley of Thorns, and beyond it, a city with a dark tower. Ruled by giants, the Valley of Thorns is just one obstacle that the company must overcome before discovering the true meaning of their quest, and the extreme danger and sacrifice that success will require, as evil forces plot to turn Elyon into a land of darkness, with only Alexa and her companions to try to stop them.

Cryptid Hunters by Roland Smith

What is a cryptid? According to the author, a cryptid is an animal whose existence has not yet been proven. Creatures like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Abominable Snowman are examples of cryptids. In this book, Marty and Grace O’Hara are 13-year-old twins who reside at a Swiss boarding school while their parents pursue their careers as nature photographers in some of the wildest places on earth. Unfortunately, as the book begins, the twins learn that their parents have disappeared, and that they must leave school to live with their uncle Travis Wolfe, someone they have never met.

Wolfe is a cryptozoologist – someone who studies and searches for these elusive creatures. Shortly after the twins arrive at Wolfe’s compound on his own island near Alaska, they are informed by Wolfe that he must leave immediately for the Congo to save a dinosaur-like creature before his enemy, Noah Blackwood, can get to it and have it killed as a trophy.

Scheduled to be taken back to Switzerland after their uncle is dropped off in the Congo, the twins are accidentally ejected from the plane with the supply drop, and are now alone in the Congo, where they begin an adventure that not only endangers their lives, but may reveal secrets about their uncle that no one would ever have guessed. This is a thriller that you won’t be able to stop reading once you start!

Flush by Carl Hiaasen

Noah’s dad is in jail. His crime? He tried to sink a casino boat that was dumping raw sewage into the waters of the Florida Keys. Meanwhile Noah is dealing with a bully at school, whose dad just happens to own the casino boat. Noah schemes with his sister Abbey to prove that the casino is doing the illegal dumping. Helping him out are some quirky characters that most parents would prefer that their kids not associate with: Lice Peeking, a former casino employee, his girlfriend Shelly, and a strange pirate who just seems to show up anytime Noah and his sister need help.

Carl Hiaasen likes to write about people who care about the environment, and Noah and his family definitely care. His dad cares enough to go to jail, and Noah cares enough to put his life in danger to expose the dumping. But can Noah and his sister accomplish their goals against an almost mob-like casino organization? And what will it take to get Noah’s dad out of jail?

This is another funny, thrilling story by the author of Hoot.

Ida B by Katherine Hannigan

What if you were nine years old, and you felt that your life was just about perfect: you lived with your mom and dad on a large plot of land, with a brook and an apple orchard, and you could talk to the brook or the trees, and they sometimes seemed to answer back. You didn’t even have to go to school, because your parents taught you at home. You had all the free time you wanted, and you made detailed plans about what you would do with that time every day.

But what if suddenly your mom got sick, and your family had to sell part of the apple orchard to pay the medical bills, and you had to go to school? Would your world be turned upside down? That’s what happened to Ida B, and because of that, her heart turned as cold as a stone. She was mean to her classmates, her teacher, and even her parents. But tragedy can be overcome, and you’ll want to read this touching story to find out how an icy heart can thaw and learn to glow again.

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

Imagine that whenever you read aloud, there’s a good chance that one of the characters, or even an object in the book you are reading, will suddenly become real.  Meggie’s father has this ability, and nine years ago, reading aloud from a book called Inkheart, he accidentally unleashed into our world some of its characters, at the same time sending Meggie’s mother into the book. Now he and Meggie must always be on guard against these characters: Dustfinger, who is constantly searching for a way to get back into the book, Basta, a vicious killer, and Capricorn, the most evil character of all, who likes our world and has control over the other characters. Mo has the only remaining copy of the book, but is afraid to use it because he fears even more evil will be unleashed. Dustfinger wants the book in hopes that he can be “read” back in. Capricorn wants the book so that it can be destroyed, and he wants Mo to read whatever riches he can find out of other books.

So when Mo is kidnapped, Meggie and her great aunt Elinor must try to rescue him from Capricorn’s remote village. This is just the first of many adventures in the book, as Mo, Elinor, Meggie, and even Dustfinger try to accomplish their aims while trying to stay out of Capricorn’s clutches, evade the murderous Basta, and take care of various book characters that occasionally are brought to life. This is a terrific, though somewhat scary, fantasy adventure.

The Ironwood Tree by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi

In the fourth book in the Spiderwick Chronicles, Mallory is kidnapped by a shape-shifting creature who also manages to get Jared in even more trouble than he usually does by himself. Simon and Jared find Mallory in a quarry, almost in a state of suspended animation, guarded by dwarves who proclaim the impending takeover of the world by the evil Mulgarath. But even if Mallory can be rescued, the dwarves have a terrible surprise for the Grace children, to be revealed in the fifth and final book of the series.

The People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau

In this sequel to the City of Ember, Lina and Doon have been joined on the surface by 400 Emberites. Searching for food and shelter, they come upon the village of Sparks, a community of about 400 who have toiled for many years to establish a community after a disaster that destroyed the big cities and left the land barren. The people of Sparks begin teaching the Emberites how to do all the jobs that they will need to do to eventually leave Sparks and set up their own community. As time goes on, the Sparks people begin to worry that they will not have enough food when winter comes, and they begin to offer less food to the Emberites at meals. At the same time, the Emberites begin to resent doing so much work and getting less food. Both sides begin to trade accusations, vandalism escalates, and a charismatic young man named Tick recruits a large number of Emberites to form an “army” to defend themselves against the Sparks people. Meanwhile, Lina, in her intense desire to see the great city that she has imagined, stows away in the wagon of a “roamer,” who travels from town to town offering items he has gleaned from the old cities and towns.

What will Lina find in the city? Will the Emberites and people of Sparks go to war? What can Lina and Doon do this time to save their people? Find out when you read this thought-provoking sequel.

So B. It by Sarah Weeks