Mildred L. Batchelder Awards: Mildred A. Batchelder Award

With help from his recently-deceased grandfather, new friends and their superhero alter egos, and some paint, Rusty stops the bullies who have been terrorizing their small town.

YA fantasy about a girl with a special power to communicate with magical beasts and the warring kingdom only she can save.

When nine-year-old Mafalda learns she will go blind in six months from Stargardt Disease, she needs the help of family and friends to retain what is essential to her.

Ten-year-old Jette wrestles with the death of her younger brother, Emil, at age six, recalling special times they had together, his long-term illness, and his funeral, as well as her parents' grief.

Grandfather returns each year to the demilitarized zone, the barrier--and accidental nature preserve--that separates families that live in North and South Korea.

As France buckles under the Nazi regime, budding photographer Rachel Cohen must change her name, go into hiding, and bear witness to the atrocities of World War II.

Kazu knows something odd is going on when he sees a girl in a white kimono sneak out of his house in the middle of the night--was he dreaming? Did he see a ghost? Things get even stranger when he shows up to school the next day to see the very same figure sitting in his classroom. No one else thinks it's weird, and, even though Kazu doesn't remember ever seeing her before, they all seem convinced that the ghost-girl Akari has been their friend for years! When Kazu's summer project to learn about Kimyo Temple draws the meddling attention of his mysterious neighbor Ms. Minakami and his secretive new classmate Akari, Kazu soon learns that not everything is as it seems in his hometown. Kazu discovers that Kimyo Temple is linked to a long forgotten legend about bringing the dead to life, which could explain Akari's sudden appearance--is she a zombie or a ghost? Kazu and Akari join forces to find and protect the source of the temple's power. An unfinished story in a magazine from Akari's youth might just hold the key to keeping Akari in the world of the living, and it's up to them to find the story's ending and solve the mystery as the adults around them conspire to stop them from finding the truth.

Stump always has a fantastic time with his grandparents, filled with flowers, puzzles, crosswords, and endless love. But one day, Stump's grandfather starts to lose his memory--and his words, which literally fall from him. Stump tries his best to keep the lost words safe, collecting them in a special box. But Grandpa seems to forget more and more everyday, and the situation comes to a head one snowy night when Stump wakes up to find Grandpa missing. Together, Stump and Grandma must find new ways to connect with Grandpa, and show him that he's not alone. This poignant, tender picture book depicts the struggle of coping with a loved one's dementia with honesty and sensitivity, with a message of hope that affirms the deep bonds of love between grandchild and grandparent. This book includes an afterword to the adult reader about dementia and recollection, written by Ove Dahl, a historian and head of the Danish Center for Reminiscence. He provides some practical tips, as illustrated in the story with Stump, for establishing a meaningful way of being together when caring for a relative with dementia.

A young, bedridden girl spends her day watching a mobile of spinning horses and uses her imagination to give the seven horses life in a fantasy world.

Late at night, Vera runs to the pond where mysterious, blue-haired Syl tells a wonderful story to bring Vera's little brother, Salandar, back to life again.

Presents a collection of stories from nations and cultures across our two continents, the Sea-Ringed World, as the Aztecs called it, from the edge of Argentina all the way up to Alaska.

1938, Italy. Six-year-old Lia loves to build sandcastles at the beach and her biggest problem is her shyness and quiet, birdlike voice -- until prime minister Mussolini joins forces with Hitler in World War II, and everything changes. Now there are laws saying Jewish children can't go to school, Jews can't work, or go on vacation. It's difficult for Lia to understand why this is happening to her family. When her father loses his job, they must give up their home and move from city to city. As war comes closer, it becomes too dangerous to stay together, and Lia and her sisters are sent to hide at a convent. Will she ever be 'just a girl' again?

During the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, siblings Soccoro and Paco must live with constant secrets while they wait to reunite with their father, who fled Spain due to political persecution.

Ah Mei has always been close to her French grandmother, Nainai, and is proud to look like her. But in their home city of Shanghai, many people are suspicious of their European heritage and looks. Politics and war make 1960s Shanghai a difficult place to grow up, especially when the family silk business is given over to the government and they are left with their beloved home and little else. Ah Mei and her grandmother suffer, but they are resourceful and have each other, and the tenderness they share brings them great strength.

As João tucks under a lovingly woven quilt, he asks himself: So it's just me now? He curls up, getting cozy in bed, and soon the world of his dreams unspools on the page. The blanket in his bed unravels into deep rivers, lakes, valleys, reservoirs, mountain ranges, fishing nets full of tadpoles and gaping holes, until what's left is just one long thread. When he feels alone and scared in the dark, Joýao "sews words like patchwork" into a new blanket to cover himself up. He weaves the threads of his quilt until they form one long sentence, and soon, the nighttime is peppered with his own silvery, slippery words. Roger Mello draws like a shapeshifter -- to look at his illustrations is always to see something you missed before (a stingray, a crescent moon nestled into the palm of João's hand). His breathtaking line drawings, beaming in white thread against deep red, combined with poetic and bewildered language, make Joýao by a Thread a book to take into bed at the edge of sleep, just before you start to dream.

In the wake of a devastating earthquake and tsunami, Yui, fleeing her violent husband, and Hiyori, a young orphan, are taken in by a strange but kind old lady named Kiwa in the small town of Kitsunezaki​​. The newly formed family finds refuge in a mayoiga, a lost house, perched atop a beautiful cape overlooking the sea. While helping to rebuild Kitsunezaki, the three adapt to their new lives and supernatural new home, slowly healing from their troubled pasts. Kiwa regales Yui and Hiyori with local legends--from the shapeshifting fox-woman who used to roam the mountains, to the demon Agam and a sea snake who once terrorized the townspeople, preying upon their grief and fears until they trapped the snake and the demon's claws in an underwater cave. But when mysterious and sinister events start happening around town, the three fear the worst. Did the earthquake release Agam and the sea snake into the world again? Kiwa, Yui, and Hiyori join forces with a merry band of kappa river spirits, a bold zashiki warashi house spirit, and flying JizM guardian statues to save their new family and home and banish Agam and the snake once and for all. Now a hit anime film, The House of the Lost on the Cape is a heartwarming tale about the strength of family and friendship in the face of natural and mythical forces.

As a child approaches the diving board at a pool, she dreams about all the amazing things she might do when she is older.

Two Jewish sisters leave Austria during WWII/Holocaust and find refuge in Sweden.

In the early 1990s, a boy with a mysterious past and the woman who cares for him cross the war-torn Caucausus and Europe.

When Pierre Anthon, 13, leaves school to sit in a plum tree and do nothing, his seventh grade classmates set out on a desperate quest for the meaning of life.

A brown bear cub serves five years as the mascot of Polish soldiers during World War II. Based on a true story.

Having left Nazi-occupied Vienna a year ago, Jewish refugee Stephie adapts to Gothenburg, Sweden and worries about her parents who were not allowed to emigrate.

Before World War II starts, Ziska is taken from her family out of Nazi Germany to a new life in England with a foster family.

Mikis is thrilled when his grandfather buys a new donkey, but soon begins to worry that he is overworking the animal.

A grandmother shares the story of her experiences in WWII with her grandchild in this graphic novel for young readers.

"Eddie is five-and-a-half and thinks she is the only one in her family without a special talent. So when she hears her sister say 'birthday--Mommy--fluffy--little--squishy,' she worries that her sister will give Mom the better present. From that moment on, she is determined to find a fluffy little squishy of her own.

Adam and Thomas, two nine-year-old Jewish boys who survive World War II, take refuge in the forest where they learn to forage and survive, soon meeting and helping other fugitives fleeing for their lives.

Xiao Le's grandmother lives in a faraway village. A visit with Grandma is always a special event, but this time she is frail. With encouragement from his mom, Xiao Le plays with and helps Grandma. When Grandma dies shortly thereafter, Xiao Le comforts his mom.

When Henrietta's mother gives her a box of colored pencils, she sets out to draw a terrifying and fantastic adventure.

While living in a housing project in Oakland, California, thirteen-year-old Kisha joins a track team which helps her discover that she can be a winner.

A young boy expresses his love for his friend Jerome.

Son of a Kikuyu mother and a Masai herdsman father, Morengrru the hunter lives on the edges of tribal society until an actual banishment forces him to make a life for himself among a troop of baboons.

When Max, an artist, departs for a long journey, the boy who is his friend and neighbor visits his apartment and discovers an exhibition of pictures created just for him.

On a visit to Venice with her father, Vendela experiences the richness and beauty of the city and its palace, gondolas, and statues.

Abandoned on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, thirteen-year-old Alex joins a group of children like him and finds himself adapting to his new life.

In 1902, ten-year-old Johann and his family, Germans who had been living in Austria-Hungary, board a ship to immigrate to Youngstown, Ohio, where they make a new life as Americans.

Elderly Monsieur Noel, the very unconventional new fifth-grade teacher, gives coupon books for such things as dancing in class and sleeping late, which are bound to get him in trouble with the military discipline of Principal Incarnation Perez.

Two brothers, having run away from the aunt who plans to adopt the younger one, have found shelter with--and protection from--Venice's "Thief Lord.".

At the end of the nineteenth century in Libya, an injured stranger enters eleven-year-old Malika's home and disrupts the traditional order of things.

A sixteen-year-old farmhand is tricked into fighting in the Napoleonic Wars by the farmer for whom he works, who secretly substitutes him for the farmer's own son.

A memoir of an Israeli teen detailing her experiences in the national defense service.

In a world shrouded in darkness and continually lashed by rain, a young elf named Yorsh struggles to survive. His village has been destroyed by the torrential waters, leaving Yorsh suddenly orphaned and alone—the earth’s last elf. But soon Yorsh discovers he is part of a powerful prophecy to save the world from the Dark Age that has begun. First, however, the young elf will have to find another orphaned creature—the world’s last dragon.

The wandering warrior Balsa is hired to protect Prince Chagum from both a mysterious monster and the prince's father, the Mikado.

As the summer ends, six-year-old Garmann's three ancient aunts visit and they all talk about the things that scare them.

Sold to be the eighth wife of a rich, cruel merchant, Safia, also called Raka, tries to escape her fate by telling stories of Farhad the thief, his white tiger companion, and their travels across India to find a famous jewel to save a kidnapped princess from becoming the bride of a demon king.

Photographs, illustrations, and maps accompany historical essays, diary excerpts, and interviews, providing an insight to Anne Frank and the massive upheaval which tore apart her world.

In 1947, seventeen-year-old Yulek, the only member of his immediate family to survive the German concentration camps, joins a group of young Jews preparing to live on a kibbutz in Israel, unaware that his aunt living in London is looking for him.

Nine-year-old Helen is confused by the disappearance of her Jewish friend.

Because he knows that the man accused of robbery is innocent, an eleven-year-old orphan struggles to find the courage to reveal the truth to his uncle in their small German village in 1867.

The author relates her experiences from 1941-1953 as she struggles to survive as a Russian teenager caught up in all the horrors of World War II and its aftermath.

A bold and self-serving tom cat reigns supreme both in the farmyard in Italy where he was born and later in the comfortable home in Germany to which a vacationing couple takes him and his helpless sister.

The children on a Stockholm street engage in a modern-day jousting tournament in which the rich are knights and the poor are the horses who bear them.

Rose Blanche follows a German truck and discovers children in a concentration camp outside her village. She sneaks food to these children until the Allies arrive.

Describes archaeological finds in Mesopotamia and what they have revealed of the ancient civilizations of that area.