2017 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers’ Book Award
| The Rebecca Caudill Young Readers’ Book Award is given annually to the author of the book voted most outstanding by students in grades 4-8 in participating Illinois schools. Named in honor of Rebecca Caudill who lived and wrote in Urbana, Illinois for nearly 50 years, the award is given in recognition for her literary talent and the widespread appeal of her books. Below are this year’s top titles preceded by the number of votes they received. |
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2295 Votes The Crossover Fourteen-year-old twin basketball stars Josh and Jordan wrestle with highs and lows on and off the court as their father ignores his declining health. Ages 10 and up
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1892 Votes The War That Saved My Life A young disabled girl and her brother are evacuated from London to the English countryside during World War II, where they find life to be much sweeter away from their abusive mother. Ages 10 and up |
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1471 Votes Masterminds A group of kids discovers they were cloned from the DNA of some of the greatest criminal masterminds in history for a sociological experiment. Ages 8 and up |
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1412 Votes Fish in a Tree Ally’s greatest fear is that everyone will find out she is as dumb as they think she is because she still doesn’t know how to read. Ages 10 and up
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1396 Votes Rain Reign Struggling with Asperger’s, Rose shares a bond with her beloved dog, but when the dog goes missing during a storm, Rose is forced to confront the limits of her comfort levels, even if it means leaving her routines in order to search for her pet. Ages 8 and up |
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1140 Votes Echo Lost in the Black Forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and finds himself entwined in a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica–and decades later three children, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California find themselves caught up in the same thread of destiny in the darkest days of the twentieth century, struggling to keep their families intact, and tied together by the music of the same harmonica. Ages 10 and up
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1054 Votes The Fourteenth Goldfish Ellie’s scientist grandfather has discovered a way to reverse aging, and consequently has turned into a teenager–which makes for complicated relationships when he moves in with Ellie and her mother, his daughter. Ages 9 and up |
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823 Votes The Night Gardener Irish orphans Molly, fourteen, and Kip, ten, travel to England to work as servants in a crumbling manor house where nothing is quite what it seems to be, and soon the siblings are confronted by a mysterious stranger and secrets of the cursed house. Ages 10 and up |
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752 Votes The Paper Cowboy In a small town near Chicago in 1953, twelve-year-old Tommy faces escalating problems at home, among his Catholic school friends, and with the threat of a communist living nearby, but taking over his hospitalized sister’s paper route introduces him to neighbors who he comes to rely on for help. Ages 10 and up
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633 Votes The Screaming Staircase Follows three young operatives of a Psychic Detection Agency as they battle an epidemic of ghosts in London. Ages 10 and up |
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580 Votes How I Became a Ghost: A Choctaw Trail of Tears Story A Choctaw boy tells the story of his tribe’s removal from its Mississippi homeland, and how its exodus to the American West led him to become a ghost –one able to help those left behind. Ages 8 and up |
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529 Votes A Time to Dance Losing her leg after an injury, Indian dancer Veda begins retraining on her prosthetic leg before falling in love with a young man who approaches dance from a spiritual perspective and helps Veda understand herself and the world. Ages 12 and up |
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509 Votes Rhyme Schemer A novel in verse about Kevin’s journey from bully to being bullied, as he learns about friendship, family, and his talent for poetry. Ages 10 and up |
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465 Votes Stella by Starlight Stella lives in the segregated South, in Bumblebee, North Carolina, to be exact about it. Some stores she can go into. Some stores she can’t. Some folks are right pleasant. Others are a lot less so. The Klan hasn’t bothered them for years, but one late night, while wandering around outside, Stella and her little brother see something they’re never supposed to see, something that is the first flicker of change to come, unwelcome change by any stretch of the imagination. Ages 10 and up
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456 Votes Nightbird Twig, aged twelve, is practically ignored by classmates and other residents of Sidwell, Massachusetts, but gets along fine with just her mother and brother, whose presence must be kept secret, until descendants of the witch who cursed her family move in next door and want to be her friends. Ages 10 and up |
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358 Votes Turning 15 On the Road to Freedom: My Story of the Selma Voting Rights March As the youngest marcher in the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Albama, Lynda Blackmon Lowery proved that young adults can be heroes. Jailed eleven times before her fifteenth birthday, Lowery fought alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. for the rights of African-Americans. In this memoir, she shows today’s young readers what it means to fight nonviolently (even when the police are using violence, as in the Bloody Sunday protest) and how it felt to be part of changing American history. Ages 11 and up |
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363 Votes The Secret Hum of a Daisy After 12-year-old Grace’s mother’s sudden death, Grace is forced to live with a grandmother she’s never met. Then she discovers clues in a mysterious treasure hunt–one that will help her find her true home. Ages 10 and up |
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241 Votes The Great Trouble: A Mystery of London, the Blue Death, and a Boy Called Eel Eel, an orphan, and his best friend Florrie must help Dr. John Snow prove that cholera is spread through water, and not poisonous air, when an epidemic sweeps across their London neighborhood in 1854. Ages 10 and up |
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205 Votes The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights On July 17, 1944, a massive explosion rocked the segregated Navy base at Port Chicago, California, killing more than 300 sailors who were at the docks, critically injuring off-duty men in their bunks, and shattering windows up to a mile away. On August 9th, 244 men refused to go back to work until unsafe and unfair conditions at the docks were addressed. When the dust settled, fifty were charged with mutiny, facing decades in jail and even execution. Ages 10 and up |
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205 Votes The Story of Owen: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim In an alternate world where industrialization has caused many species of carbon-eating dragons to thrive, Owen, a slayer being trained by his famous father and aunt, and Siobahn, his bard, face a dragon infestation near their small town in Canada. Ages 12 and up
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The award is named in honor of Rebecca Caudill who lived and wrote in Urbana, Illinois, for nearly 50 years.