Golden Sowers
The Golden Sower program is sponsored by the Nebraska Library Association. The purpose of the program is to stimulate students’ thinking, introduce them to different types of literature, and encourage them to do independent reading.
There are ten Golden Sower nominees at each level. To participate in voting for their favorite title, students need to read at least four of the ten titles. Voting takes place the first week in April through the English classes.
The Irving Media Center has seven to ten copies of each title listed below and students are welcome to check them out from the public libraries as well.
This year's Golden Sowers are:
INTERMEDIATE NOMINEES (grades 4 - 6)
Davies, Jacqueline. THE LEMONADE WAR.
Evan and his younger sister, Jesse, react very differently to the news that they will be in
the same class for fourth grade. As the end of summer approaches, they battle it out through lemonade stands,
each trying to be the first to earn $100.
Giff, Patricia Reilly. ELEVEN.
When Sam, who can barely read, discovers an old newspaper clipping just before his
eleventh birthday, it brings back memories from his past. With the help of a new friend at school and the castle they are building for a school project, his questions are finally
answered.
Grimes, Nikki. THE ROAD TO PARIS.
Eight-year-old Paris is inconsolable at being separated from her older brother and
apprehensive about her new foster family. Just as she learns to trust them, she faces a life- changing decision.
Gutman, Dan. THE HOMEWORK MACHINE.
Four fifth-grade students: a geek, a class clown, a teacher’s pet, and a slacker���as well
as their teacher and mothers, each relate events surrounding a computer programmed to complete homework assignments.
Hahn, Mary Downing. DEEP AND DARK AND DANGEROUS: A GHOST STORY.
When thirteen-year-old Ali spends the summer with her aunt and cousin at the family’s
vacation home, she stumbles upon a secret that her mother and aunt have been hiding for over thirty years.
Hobbs, Valerie. SHEEP.
After a fire destroys the farm where he was born, a young border collie acquires a series
of owners and learns about life as he seeks a home and longs to fulfill his life’s purpose of
shepherding sheep.
O’Connor, Barbara. HOW TO STEAL A DOG.
Living in the family car in their small North Carolina town after their father leaves them
virtually penniless, Georgina persuades her younger brother to help her in an elaborate scheme to get money by stealing a dog
and then claiming the reward that the owners are bound to offer.
Peck, Richard. ON THE WINGS OF HEROES.
A boy in Illinois remembers the home-front years of World War II, especially his two
heroes���his brother in the Air Force and his father, who fought in the previous war.
Stewart, Trenton Lee. THE MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY.
After passing a series of mind-bending tests, four children are selected for a secret
mission that requires them to go undercover at the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened,
where the only rule is that there are no rules.
Wiles, Deborah. THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS.
For most of the boys one hot summer in a small Mississippi town, the biggest concern is whether their annual July 4th baseball game will be cancelled due to their county’s
anniversary pageant. However, after the death of the old man to whom twelve-year-old star pitcher House Jackson has been secretly reading for a year,
House uncovers secrets about the man and the history of baseball in Aurora County that could fix everything.
YOUNG ADULT NOMINEES
Bingham, Kelly L. SHARK GIRL.
After a shark attack causes the amputation of her right arm, fifteen-year-old Jane, an
aspiring artist, struggles to come to terms with her loss and the changes it imposes on her day-to-
day life and her plans for the future.
Cooney, Caroline B. DIAMONDS IN THE SHADOW.
The Finches, a Connecticut family, sponsor an African refugee family of four, all of
whom have been scarred by the horrors of civil war, and who inadvertently put their benefactors
in harm’s way.
Kadohata, Cynthia. CRACKER!: THE BEST DOG IN VIETNAM.
A young soldier in Vietnam bonds with his bomb-sniffing dog.
Resau, Laura. RED GLASS.
Sixteen-year-old Sophie has been frail and delicate since her premature birth, but
discovers her true strength during a journey through Mexico, where the six-year-old orphan her
family hopes to adopt was born, and to Guatemala, where her would-be boyfriend hopes to find
his mother and plans to remain.
Salisbury, Graham. NIGHT OF THE HOWLING DOGS.
In 1975, eleven Boy Scouts, their leaders, and some new friends camping at Halape,
Hawaii, find their survival skills put to the test when a massive earthquake strikes, followed by a
tsunami.
Schmidt, Gary D. THE WEDNESDAY WARS.
During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to
either Catechism or Hebrew school, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood stays in Mrs. Baker’s
classroom where they read the plays of William Shakespeare and Holling learns much of value
about the world he lives in.
Smith, Roland. PEAK.
A fourteen-year-old boy attempts to be the youngest person to reach the top of Mount Everest.
Ursu, Anne. THE SHADOW THIEVES.
After her cousin Zee arrives from England, thirteen-year-old Charlotte and he must set
out to save humankind from denizens of the underworld, Nightmares, Death, Pain, and a really
nasty guy named Phil.
Wells, Rosemary. RED MOON AT SHARPSBURG.
As the Civil War breaks out, India, a young Southern girl, summons her sharp
intelligence and the courage she didn’t know she had to survive the war that threatens to destroy
her family, her Virginia home, and the only life she has ever known.
Werlin, Nancy. THE RULES OF SURVIVAL.
Seventeen-year-old Matthew recounts his attempts, starting at a young age, to free
himself and his sisters from the grip of their emotionally and physically abusive mother.