2023 Great Stone Face Nominees

"Odder spends her days off the coast of central California, practicing her underwater acrobatics and spinning the quirky stories for which she's known. She's a fearless daredevil, curious to a fault. But when Odder comes face-to-face with a hungry great white shark, her life takes a dramatic turn, one that will challenge everything she believes about herself--and about the humans who hope to save her"--Provided by publisher.

The life of a musically gifted bird changes forever after she discovers the music of Chopin and helps a talented young pianist solve the mystery of a long-lost Chopin piano. Mirabelle lives with her family in the backyard of a piano teacher, and she is intrigued by Mr. Starek's newest pupil. Michael Jin is a keyboard sensation-- who refuses to play. With the Chopin Festival looming at summer's end, will he be read in time? When Mirabelle sings the...

What can one voice do? As the first rumblings of the pandemic sound around Garvey, he hardly notices. Caught up with his friends, school, chorus, and his newfound relationship with his father, he doesn't imagine that the new disease adults are talking about could touch him. But it will. When everything changes, when fear moves in, and when all seems dark, Garvey feels helpless. Yet one voice-- Garvey's voice--can be a powerful spark in the dark....Capturing...

"It's 1967, and eleven-year-old Ellis Earl Brown has big dreams. He's going to grow up to be a teacher or a lawyer--or maybe both--and live in a big brick house in town. There'll always be enough food in the icebox, and his mama won't have to run herself ragged looking for work as a maid in order to support Ellis Earl and his eight siblings and niece, Vera. So Ellis Earl applies himself at school, soaking up the lessons that Mr. Foster teaches his...

Rufus Jackson Jones is from Birmingham, the place Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the most segregated place in the country. A place that in 1963 is full of civil rights activists including Dr. King. The adults are trying to get more attention to their cause--to show that separate is not equal. Rufus's dad works at the local steel factory, and his mom is a cook at the mill. If they participate in marches, their bosses will fire them. So that's where...

"When Colin finds a shoebox full of letters hidden in a stranger's attic, he knows he's supposed to throw them away. That's his summer job, getting rid of junk. But Colin wants to rescue the letters--and find out what really happened to best friends Rosemary and Toby way back in the 1970s. Meanwhile, across town, Nevaeh also finds a mysterious letter. But this one reads like a confession to a crime. And Nevaeh knows her father, the 'Junk King,' expects...

"When cheerleading tryouts are announced, Christina and her best friend, Megan, literally jump at the chance to join the squad. As two of the only kids of color in the school, they have always yearned to fit in--and the middle school cheerleaders are popular and accepted by everyone. But will the girls survive the terrifying tryouts, with their whole grade watching? And will their friendship withstand the pressures of competition?"--Back cover.

A National Book Award finalist and instant fantasy classic about the power of community, generosity, books, and baked goods, from the author of the beloved Newbery Medal winner The Girl Who Drank the Moon.

Stone-in-the-Glen, once a lovely town, has fallen on hard times. Fires, floods, and other calamities have caused the people to lose their library, their school, their park, and even their neighborliness. The people put their...

Minni lives in the poorest part of Mumbai, where access to water is limited, and she often has to wait hours to use the communal tap. Lately, though, even that access is threatened by water shortages and thieves who are stealing this precious commodity -- an act that Minni accidentally witnesses one night. Meanwhile, in the high-rise building where she has begun working as a maid, she discovers that water streams out of every faucet and there's even...

"Cutie Grackle is used to being different--she lives alone on a mountain with her feeble-minded uncle, and when she's not sucking pebbles to trick her stomach into feeling full, she's chatting with a weathered garden gnome for company. But having a flock of ravens follow you is more than just different. Cutie worries the birds are connected to the curse Uncle Horace tends to mutter about. And she's right. The ravens present her with a fortune from...