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The Best Books for 2001 These lists come from YALSA’s (Young Adult Library Service Association) list of the best books for 2001. What do you think? Just click on the title to see if the book is in the library at this time. The Best Fiction • The Best Non-Fiction The Best Fiction for 2001 Kit's Wilderness - David Almond Thirteen-year-old Kit goes to live with his grandfather in the decaying coal mining town of Stoneygate, England, and finds both the old man and the town haunted by ghosts of the past. ****Kit's Wilderness was also awarded the Printz Award for best YA book of the year!****   Fever 1793 - Laurie Halse Anderson In 1793 Philadelphia, sixteen-year-old Matilda Cook, separated from her sick mother, learns about perseverance and self-reliance when she is forced to cope with the horrors of a yellow fever epidemic.   Kissing Tennessee and Other Stories from the Stardust Dance - Kathi Appelt Graduating eighth graders relate their stories of love and heartbreak that have brought them to Dogwood Junior High's magical Stardust Dance.   Forgotten Fire - Adam Bagdasarian The brutal story of one young man's fight to survive the Armenian Genocide of 1915 Turkey. Based on the experiences of the author's great-uncle.   Harley, Like a Person - Cat Bauer Fourteen-year-old Harley, an artistic teenager living with her alcoholic father and angry mother, suspects that she is adopted and begins a search for her biological parents.   Hope Was Here - Joan Bauer When sixteen-year-old Hope and the aunt who has raised her move from Brooklyn to Mulhoney, Wisconsin, to work as waitress and cook in the Welcome Stairways diner, they become involved with the diner owner's political campaign to oust the town's corrupt mayor. ****Hope Was Here was also named a Newbery Honor book!****   Shakespeare's Scribe - Gary Blackwood In plague-ridden 1602 England, a fifteen-year-old orphan boy, who has become an apprentice actor, goes on the road with Shakespeare's troupe, and finds out more about his parents along the way.   Being With Henry - Martha Brooks A lonely, grouchy old man reluctantly takes in a troubled teenager, and the two must learn to live with each other.   The Princess Diaries - Meg Cabot Fourteen-year-old Mia, who is trying to lead a normal life as a teenage girl in New York City, is shocked to learn that her father is the Prince of Genovia, a small European principality, and that she is a princess and the heir to the throne.   Aria of the Sea - Dia Calhoun In the magical kingdom of Windward, thirteen-year-old Cerinthe arrives at the Royal Dancing School, where she finds herself torn between the two careers of dancer and healer.   Girl With a Pearl Earring - Tracy Chevalier A tale of how a 16-year-old maid becomes the famous face in Vermeer's painting Girl with a Pearl Earring.   Many Stones - Carolyn Coman After her sister Laura is murdered in South Africa, Berry and her estranged father travel there to participate in the dedication of a memorial in her name.   The Wanderer - Sharon Creech Thirteen-year-old Sophie and her cousin Cody record their transatlantic crossing aboard the Wanderer, a forty-five foot sailboat, which, along with uncles and another cousin, is en route to visit their grandfather in England.   Timeline - Michael Crichton Historians using a time machine to visit medieval France become trapped in the middle of a civil war.   Tightrope - Gillian Cross When she begins receiving bizarre threatening messages from someone who seems to know her every move, teenage Ashley, after seeking help from the neighborhood tough guy, comes to realize that she alone can end the stalker's reign of terror.   Dreamland - Sarah Dessen After her older sister runs away, sixteen-year-old Caitlin decides that she needs to make a major change in her own life and begins an abusive relationship with a boy who is mysterious, brilliant, and dangerous.   Night Hoops - Carl Deuker While trying to prove that he is good enough to on his high school's varsity basketball team, Nick must also deal with his parents' divorce and erractic behavior of a troubled classmate who lives across the street.   Borrowed Light - Anna Fienberg A sixteen-year-old feels alienated from her family while struggling with the difficult decisions surrounding her unplanned pregnancy.   Crossing Jordan - Adrian Fogelin Twelve-year-old Cass meets her new African-American neighbor, Jemmie, and despite their families' prejudices, they build a strong friendship around their mutual talent for running and a pact to read Jane Eyre.   Nory Ryan's Song - Patricia Reilly Giff When a terrible blight attacks Ireland's potato crop in 1845, twelve-year-old Nory Ryan's courage and ingenuity help her family and neighbors survive.   Split Image - Mel Glenn A series of poems reflect the thoughts and feelings of various people-- students, the librarian, parents, the principal, and others--about the seemingly perfect Laura Li and her life inside and out of Tower High School.   Holding Up the Earth - Dianne E. Gray Fourteen-year-old Hope visits her new foster mother's Nebraska farm and, through old letters, a diary, and stories, gets a vivid picture of the past in the voices of four girls her age who lived there in 1869, 1900, 1936, and 1960.   Plainsong - Kent Haruf A teacher in a small Colorado town helps broken families connect with each other.   Pay it Forward - Catherine Ryan Hyde A 12-year-old's idea for an extra-credit assignment to enact world change is amazingly simple and sweeps the nation.   Torn Thread - Anne Isaacs In an attempt to save his daughter's life, Eva's father sends her from Poland to a labor camp in Czechoslovakia where she and her sister survive the war.   The Boxer - Kathleen Karr Having learned how to box while in prison, fifteen-year-old Johnny sets out to discover if he can make a decent living as a fighter in late nineteenth-century New York City.   Silent to the Bone - E..L. Konigsburg When he is wrongly accused of gravely injuring his baby half-sister, thirteen-year-old Branwell loses his power of speech and only his friend Connor is able to reach him and uncover the truth about what really happened.   The Girls - Amy Goldman Koss Each of the girls in a middle-school clique reveals the strong, manipulative hold one of the group exerts on the others, and the hurt and self-doubt that it causes them.   Ghost Boy - Iain Lawrence Unhappy in a home seemingly devoid of love, a fourteen-year-old albino boy who thinks of himself as Harold the Ghost runs away to join the circus, where he works with the elephants and searches for a sense of who he is.   Crazy - Benjamin Lebert Written by a German 16-year-old, Crazy follows the adventures and hijinks of a group of teens at a boarding school.   Gold Dust - Chris Lynch In 1975, twelve-year-old Richard befriends Napolean, a Caribbean newcomer to his Catholic school, hoping that Napolean will learn to love baseball and the Red Sox, and will win acceptance in the racially polarized Boston school.   Night Flying - Rita Murphy As the time for her solo flight on the sixteenth birthday approaches, Georgia begins to question the course of her life and her relationships with the other women in her unusual family.   145th Street: Short Stories - Walter Dean Myers Ten stories portray life on a block in Harlem.   Perfect Family - Jerrie Oughton When Welcome, a fifteen-year-old girl living in a small town in North Carolina during the 1950s, finds out that she is pregnant, she faces some important decisions.   A Year Down Yonder - Richard Peck During the recession of 1937, fifteen-year-old Mary Alice is sent to live with her feisty, larger-than-life grandmother in rural Illinois and comes to a better understanding of this fearsome woman.   Define "Normal" - Julie Anne Peters When she agrees to meet with Jasmine as a peer counselor at their middle school, Antonia never dreams that this girl with the black lipstick and pierced eyebrow will end up helping her deal with the serious problems she faces at home and become a good friend.   The Last Book in the Universe - Rodman Philbrick A thousand years in the future, an earthquake destroys much of the planet, and an epileptic teenager nicknamed Spaz begins the heroic fight to bring human intelligence back to Earth.   The Likes of Me - Randall Beth Platt In 1918, having run away from the Washington State lumber camp she calls home, a fourteen-year-old half-Chinese albino named Cordy makes her way to Seattle and finds work in a carnival.   The Body of Christopher Creed - Carol Plum-Ucci Torey Adams, a high school junior with a seemingly perfect life, struggles with doubts and questions surrounding the mysterious disappearance of the class outcast.   A Dance for Three - Louise Plummer When fifteen-year-old Hannah becomes pregnant and her rich, popular boyfriend claims he is not responsible, she is forced to face some hard facts about her life.   Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging - Louise Rennison Presents the humorous journal of a year in the life of a fourteen-year-old British girl who tries to reduce the size of her nose, stop her mad cat from terrorizing the neighborhood animals, and win the love of handsome hunk Robbie.   Esperanza Rising - Pam Munoz Ryan Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California, where they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great Depression.   Send One Angel Down - Virginia Frances Schwartz A young slave tries to hide the horrors of slavery from his younger cousin, a light-skinned slave who is the daughter of the plantation owner.   Stargirl - Jerry Spinelli In this story about the perils of popularity, the courage of nonconformity, and the thrill of first love, an eccentric student named Stargirl changes Mica High School forever.   Stuck in Neutral - Terry Trueman Fourteen-year-old Shawn McDaniel, who suffers from severe cerebral palsy and cannot function, relates his perceptions of his life, his family, and his condition, especially as he believes his father is planning to kill him.   Playing Without the Ball: A Novel in Four Quarters - Rich Wallace Feeling abandoned by his parents, who have gone their separate ways and left him behind in a small Pennsylvania town, seventeen-year-old Jay finds hope for the future in a church-sponsored basketball team and a female friend.   Meely La Bauve - Ken Wells A coming of age story of a 15-year-old boy growing up in a Louisiana bayou in 1960.   Homeless Bird - Gloria Whelan When thirteen-year-old Koly enters into an ill-fated arranged marriage, she must either suffer a destiny dictated by India's tradition or find the courage to oppose it.   Memories of Summer - Ruth White In 1955, thirteen-year-old Lyric finds her whole life changing when her family moves from the hills of Virginia to a town in Michigan and her older sister Summer begins descending into mental illness.   When Kambia Elaine Flew in from Neptune - Lori Aurelia Williams Shayla, an aspiring writer growing up in a poor section of Houston, can't figure out the new girl next door, Kambia Elaine, who tells fantastic stories. She slowly realizes that Kambia Elaine needs help, but Shayla doesn't know where to find it.   What's in a Name - Ellen Wittlinger Each of ten teenagers living in Scrub Harbor, Massachusetts, explores his or her identity at the same time that the local residents consider changing the name of their town.   Miracle's Boys - Jacqueline Woodson Twelve-year-old Lafayette's close relationship with his older brother Charlie changes after Charlie is released from a detention home and blames Lafayette for the death of their mother.   Queen's Own Fool - Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris When twelve-year-old Nicola leaves Troupe Brufort and serves as the fool for Mary, Queen of Scots, she experiences the political and religious upheavals in both France and Scotland. Back to menu The Best Non-Fiction for 2001 It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life - Lance Armstrong with Sally Jenkins - 92 Armstrong Autobiography of the Tour de France champion.   The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936 - Susan Bachrach - YA 796.48 B31 Recounts the story of the Olympics held in Berlin in 1936, and how the Nazis attempted to turn the games into a propaganda tool for their cause.   Kids on Strike! - Susan Campbell Bartoletti - j 331.34 Bar Describes the conditions and treatment that drove workers, including many children, to various strikes, from the mill workers strikes in 1828 and 1836 and the coal strikes at the turn of the century to the work of Mother Jones on behalf of child workers.   Ida B. Wells: Mother of the Civil Rights Movement - Dennis Brindell Fradin and Judith Bloom Fradin - j 92W WELLS Fra   You Hear Me? Poems and Writings by Teenage Boys - Betsy Franco (ed.) - YA 810.8 F71 An anthology of stories, poems, and essays by adolescent boys on issues that concern them.   Savion: My Life in Tap - Savion Glover and Bruce Weber - j 792.7 Glo Examines the life and career of the young tap dancer who speaks with his feet and who choreographed the Tony Award-winning Broadway show "Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk."   Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self - Lori Gottlieb - 616.85 G67 The biography of a young woman who suffered from anorexia.   Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho - Jon Katz - 338.7 K37 Two high-school outsiders find their niche in Chicago using the technology they love: the Internet.   Spellbinder: The Life of Harry Houdini - Tom Lalicki - YA 92 Houdini A biography of the famous magician.   Jefferson's Children: The Story of One American Family - Shannon Lanier and Jane Feldman - j 973.46 Lan Examines both lines of Thomas Jefferson's extended families: one from his marriage and the other from his relationship with Sally Hemings, a slave.   Darkness over Denmark: The Danish Resistance and the Rescue of the Jews - Ellen Levine - j 940.5318 Lev An account of people in Denmark who risked their lives to protect and rescue their Jewish neighbors from the Nazis during World War II.   Sitting Bull and His World - Albert Marrin - j 92S SITTING BULL Mar Discusses the life of the Hunkpapa chief who is remembered for his defeat of General Custer at Little Big Horn.   The Beet Fields - Gary Paulsen - YA 92 Paulsen The author recalls his experiences as a migrant laborer and carnival worker after he ran away from home at age sixteen.   In the Line of Fire: Presidents' Lives at Stake - Judith St. George - j 923.173 Stg A look at the assassination attempts on the President of the United States, and how each attempt affected the nation.   Learning to Swim - Ann Turner - YA 811 T86 A series of poems convey the feelings of a young girl whose sense of joy and security at the family's summer house is shattered when an older boy who lives nearby sexually abuses her.   First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung - 92 Ung The survival story of a young girl who lived through the horrors of the Khmer Rouge during the 1970s.   Pedro and Me - Judd Winick - YA 92 Zamora In graphic art format, describes the friendship between two roommates on the MTV show "Real World," one of whom died of AIDS. 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