Great Stone Face Book
2024-2025 Award Nominees
edited by Ellen Oh
An incident at a TSA checkpoint snarls airport traffic, affecting 12 different Asian American kids traveling alone, with families, or with friends. Paths cross and collide as each kid finds the right spot to belong.
Realistic
by Ami Polonsky
Iris's dad isn't just sick, he's dying. But she can't talk about it, because it's 1987, and nobody is talking about AIDS, even when it hits close to home. Filled with grief and rage, Iris decides it's finally time to speak out.
Historical
By Matt Tavares
The first girls' basketball team in Wilkins IN has zero support. Even their uniforms are just white t-shirts with numbers made of tape. But these girls have drive and are headed for a historical season!
Graphic Novel
By Janet Sumner Johnson
Twins Hope and Gordon enter a spelling bee in a wild bid to escape financial ruin, only to find themselves in a cut-throat competition to reveal a fortune and dark secrets about the wealthy relations they've never known.
Mystery
By Jarrett Lerner
Will is the only round kid in a school full of thin ones. He tries to hide in baggy clothes, and make anything to lose weight. When his attempts fail, Will gets more desperate, until a new friend shows him how to embrace himself fully.
Realistic
By Gordon Korman
Yash is a local sports legend, but a mistake in his credit means he has to attend summer school for, of all things, PE! Trapped for the summer with the other "slugs", Yash winds up building a new kind of team.
Realistic
by Natalie D. Richards
Four squabbling kids are sent to the Montana wilderness to learn survival skills and teamwork, but when their instructor disappears with a storm on its way, they must pull together to find him and survive the bitter cold.
Adventure
By Jessixa & Aaron Bagley
Sibling rivalry comes to a head when Lucy's older sister humiliates her on her first day of middle school, causing her to challenge Gigi to a fencing duel!
Graphic Novel
by Meg Eden Kuyatt
Selah knows she needs to be "normal" at school, but when her feelings burst out one day like a dragon, she must learn to share her true self and find the tools she needs to truly shine.
Verse
By Darcy Marks
Malachi and his friends are kids from Hell. (The suburbs, not the fiery pit part.). But when they accidentally let a soul escape, they have one night to find it and save the world. How hard can it be to find one evil soul? On Halloween? In Salem?
Fantasy/Scary
by Gary D. Schmidt
Hercules Beal is the opposite of his namesake. He's even the smallest kid in his Cape Cod class. But when his new teacher assigns him to perform his own version of Hercules' famed 12 Labors, he'll have to find his own path to becoming a hero.
Realistic
By Alan Gratz
Best friends Frank and Stanley feel pretty lucky to get an invite to tour one of the battleships stationed in Pearl Harbor. But their luck changes when the Japanese planes attack...
Historical
By Joshua S. Levy
Jake is sick of having to be a different version of himself for each of his parents. When a summer at camp promises a break to just be him, he's willing to go to elaborate lengths to get there.
Realistic
by Charles Waters & Traci Sorell
What if your school's mascot was considered racist, but not by anyone? A class assignment to debate the issue draws six middle school students into an increasingly ugly fight throughout town.
Realistic
by Christina Soonntornvat
Plum finds friends and adventure at Guardian Academy, where students learn to shapeshift and use other powers to protect the natural balance.
Fantasy
by Sally Pla
Maudie always loves summers with Dad. This year, though, wildfire forces them to stay in her dad's seaside hometown, and a secret about Maudie's new stepdad overshadows everything.
Realistic
by Nicholas Day
100 years ago, the Mona Lisa wasn't that well-known...until she was stolen! Follow the heist, and the global hunt for DaVinci's masterpiece!
Nonfiction
by Pedro Martin
Pedro is excited for the big family Mexican road trip with his family - all 8 siblings and his parent, squished into a camper and a pickup truck. He's NOT excited to meet his legendary crime-fighting abuelito, or bring him back to live in their already-cramped US home.
Graphic Novel
by Sara Shepard
Penny has a lot of anxieties, and now that includes why her best friend Violet is acting weird, tell her Art Club is for babies, and hanging out with the meanest girl in school.
Realistic
By Erin Brow
Simon has just moved to the National Quiet Zone, a place where the internet is banned! As he adjusts to life, his new friends, and the attack peacock that came with the house, the tragedy that sent his family to this town is just waiting to be revealed.
Realistic