GO BIG OR GO HOME by Will Hobbs (2008)

HarperCollins. 185 pages. ISBN: 0060741414.

Brady Steele is watching a meteorite shower one night and all of a sudden one of the meteorites comes crashing through his bedroom ceiling. He names the meteorite Fred and calls up his cousin Quinn, because they both love things that are extreme, and what could be more extreme than a meteorite crashing through your roof. Turns out the meteorite is one of the rarest ever found. A professor from a nearby museum wants to study it for extraterrestrial bacteria, in hopes of discovering life beyond Earth. Meanwhile, during a week of extreme bicycling, fishing, and caving, Brady and Quinn run into their rivals the Carver Boys who fight for possession of the meteorite. For some reason Brady is able to do strange acts that should not be possible, but at the same time he is experiencing startling symptoms. Brady suspects he might be infected with some sort of space bacteria. —Alison Defenbach

BLOOD ON THE RIVER: JAMES TOWN, 1607 by Elisa Carbone (2006)

Puffin, 2007 edition. 256 pages. ISBN: 0142409324. Named one of School Library Journal's Best Books 2006.

Blood on the River is the story of Samuel Collier, a young orphan boy who, through a series of events, ends up as John Smith’s page on the voyage to the New World. After many adventures on the sea, Samuel arrives in James Town and even more adventure awaits. As Smith’s servent, Samuel is taught many things by the famous adventurer and learns much about both the colonists from England and the Natives that they interact with. Samuel lives through the hardships of those first colonists and the story of Pocahontas as well. As Samuel spends time in the new colony (and on the ship before that) he begins to learn that he cannot live life on his own and that he needs other people to survive. This is one of the most important lessons that Samuel can learn and one that John Smith makes on many occasions. Eventually Samuel learns this lesson and begins to grow and change because of it. —Matthew Hoehamer

THE ABERNATHY BOYS by L.J. Hunt (2004)

HarperCollins. 199 pages. ISBN: 0064409538.

Bud Abernathy is nine years old. His brother, Temple, is five. Longing for adventure, the boys, with their parents' permission, ride from Oklahoma to New Mexico and back on horseback.

Along the way they meet many people and have many adventures, including brushes with wolves, snakes, and even quicksand, and on their journey the boy’s relationship evolves as they become closer and closer to each other.

The Abernathy boys experience what every boy wants—a grand adventure without parents around—and their story is both fun and exciting. —Matthew Hoehamer

HOLES by Louis Sachar (1998)

Yearling, 2008 edition. 233 pages. ISBN: 0440414806. Winner of the Newbery Medal, 1999, and the National Book Award for Young People's Literature, 1998.

Stanley Yelnats is an overweight middle schooler accused of stealing a famous baseball player's sneakers before they could be auctioned off for charity. It's not as if his bad luck is without precedent: the Yelnats family believes a Gypsy placed a curse on it long ago because of Stanley's "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather." But that's another story altogether.

As punishment Stanley is sent to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile detention center that's neither a camp nor a lake. There young boys dig holes in the ground where the lake once was, supposedly "to build character," but if they find anything "interesting" in their piles of dirt they're supposed to alert the camp's warden, whose curiosity is piqued by a gold-colored tube Stanley finds, upon which the initials "KB" are etched inside a heart. What exactly is the warden looking for under all that dirt? And will the Yelnats family's curse ever be lifted? Louis Sachar's beloved book, which was made into a movie starring Shia LaBeouf (Transformers) as Stanley in 2003, piles on one funny plot twist after another as various clues are uncovered. —Robert Cass

JULIE by Jean Craighead George (1994)

Illustrated by Wendell Minor. HarperTrophy, 1996 edition. 226 pages. ISBN: 0064405737.

In the sequel to her 1973 Newbery Medal winner, Julie of the Wolves, Jean Craighead George reacquaints readers with the Eskimo title character, who herself becomes reacquainted with her father, Kapugen, a man she hasn't seen since childhood. He was once a traditional Eskimo who lived in the wilderness with wolves just as she did (in Julie of the Wolves), but times have changed. For one, he's married to a white woman now, and for another, he owns both a snowmobile and a plane. In fact it's the same plane that killed Amaroq, the leader of the wolf pack that helped Julie survive during her time in the wilderness.

Kapugen makes a living and supports his village by raising musk oxen for their fur. Wolves prey on the oxen, which is why Kapugen killed Amaroq, not knowing he was Julie's friend, and now that the wolf pack has followed Julie to the village and killed an ox, Kapugen gives his long-lost daughter an ultimatum: either she leads her wolves back into the wilderness or he will take care of them himself. The Horn Book calls Julie a "strong and compelling adventure"; George completed her heroine's journey in 1997 with Julie's Wolf Pack. —Robert Cass

THE DEVIL'S ARITHMETIC by Jane Yolen (1988)

Puffin, 2004 edition. 170 pages. ISBN: 0142401099. Winner of the National Jewish Book Award, 1989.

Hannah Stern does not understand why Grandpa Will always gets upset when confronted with images from WWII. She knows that during the war he was imprisoned in one of the concentration camps, but his spells of rage frighten and embarrass her and she wonders why he obsesses over the dark past. During the family Seder, the ritual feast held at the Jewish holiday of Passover, Hannah is required to open the door for the prophet, Elijah. However, once she opens the door, she finds herself transported back in time. She is in a different house, in a different land. Everyone insists on calling her "Chaya." Hannah is confused: Chaya is her Jewish name—a name meaning “life,” but she is not this girl that everyone thinks she is. To Hannah’s horror, she also finds out that she is in Poland, and the year is 1942. No words of warning about what is in store for the Jews of Poland make any difference to her newly adopted family. It isn’t long before Hannah and the rest of the shtetl, or village, are taken to a concentration camp. There, Hannah begins to understand exactly why Grandpa Will cannot forget the war. She learns why it is important to remember the atrocities of the concentration camps. Even though Hannah now understands the gravity of the Holocaust, she feels powerless to prevent what lies in wait for the inhabitants of the concentration camp. Will she be able to survive? —Jacqueline Danziger-Russell

HATCHET by Gary Paulsen (1987)

Bradbury Press. 195 pages. ISBN: 0027701301. Named a Newbery Honor Book, 1988.

Brian Robeson is a 13-year-old boy traveling by a Cessna 406 bushplane to visit his father in northern Canada for the summer. However, during the flight the pilot dies of a heart attack and Brian must land the plane, but he ends up crash-landing in a lake out in the middle of the wilderness. He escapes the place before it sinks with nothing but his hatchet, which was a gift from his mother. While stuck in the wilderness, Brian tries to survive with only his hatchet and quickly learns various survival techniques. He builds fires with his hatchet and finds food where he can. He eventually becomes a craftsman and makes himself a bow, arrows, a spear, and shelter. While alone Brian fights with memories of his mother cheating on his father. After 54 day in the wilderness a tornado hits the area bringing the plane out of the lake and Brian is able to salvage some supplies, including a transmitter that Brian believes to be broken. Brian is in for a surprise. —Alison Defenbach

THE WHIPPING BOY by Sid Fleischman (1986)

Illustrated by Peter Sís. Greenwillow Books, 2003 edition. 90 pages. ISBN: 0688062164. Winner of the Newbery Medal, 1987.

Prince Horace, also known as The Prince Brat, has a tendency to misbehave, but it is forbidden to physically punish the heir to the throne, therefore, Jemmy is hired to be a whipping boy for Prince Horace. Jemmy was just a poor boy living on the streets, but now he lives in the castle. He learns reading, writing, and mathematics while living at the castle, but he also gets whipped several times a day. One day Prince Horace decides to run away and takes Jemmy along to be his servant. As they head off on their adventure, they unexpectantly get kidnapped by two highwaymen who create a scheme to demand ransom for the prince. However, Jemmy claims that he is the prince which puts the boys’ plan to escape into motion. Prince Horace misunderstands Jemmy’s intentions and almost destroys their chances of escape, by betraying Jemmy. They end up managing to escape the two highwaymen, but this is not the last of them. They run into a girl with a dancing bear and a potato man who help Jemmy and Prince Horace fight against the highwaymen. —Alison Defenbach

THE ILLYRIAN ADVENTURE by Lloyd Alexander (1986)

Puffin, 2000 edition. 132 pages. ISBN: 0141303131.

Before Lara Croft, there was Vesper Holly, a 19th-century teenager who hungers for international adventure, among other things. "Miss Vesper Holly has the digestive talents of a goat and the mind of a chess master. She is familiar with half a dozen languages and can swear fluently in all of them," according to The Illyrian Adventure's narrator, Professor Brinton Garrett, who also happens to be our hero's legal guardian as well as her reluctant sidekick. "She does not hesitate to risk life and limb—mine as well as her own. No doubt she has other qualities as yet undiscovered. I hope not."

In Lloyd Alexander's first Vesper Holly adventure—he followed it with five more installments, the most recent being 2005's The Xanadu Adventure—the 16-year-old Philadelphian drags Professor Garrett, or "Brinnie," as she calls him, to Illyria, a small kingdom in the Adriatic Sea, where she plans to investigate one of her late father's hunches and unearth a hidden treasure. If she also manages to resolve a brewing civil war and enjoy a bit of romance on her "vacation," all the better! The Illyrian Adventure is bursting with action, humor, and lighthearted fun. —Robert Cass

THE CAY by Theodore Taylor (1969)

Delacorte Press, 1987 edition. 137 pages. ISBN: 0385079060. Winner of a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, 1970, and the Jane Addams Children's Book Award, 1970, which was revoked five years later due to controversy surrounding the author's portrayal of Timothy, one of the book's main characters, who speaks in a Creole dialect.

Phillip Enright is an 11-year-old American living on the Dutch-occupied island of Curaçao during World War II. His father works for a local oil refinery, a target of German submarines that also happen to be torpedoing ships off the coast, and his mother decides that the island is no longer safe—she decides to take her son back home to Virginia. But tragedy strikes shortly after they depart when their ship is torpedoed as well; Phillip is hit in the back of the head with a piece of timber and blacks out during the evacuation, and when he wakes up he's on a raft with Timothy, a shipmate who rescued him from certain death in the water.

Timothy was born in the West Indies. He grew up with nothing, and doesn't know his own birthday. He and Phillip have nothing in common, but he will protect Phillip at any cost, and they must work together to stay alive, especially once they land on a small island, or cay, located in a forgotten part of the Caribbean that Timothy refers to as "the Devil's Mouth." A fast-paced, suspenseful story that provides poignant lessons on racial tolerance and the ties that bind all men together, The Cay is a mesmerizing reading experience. —Robert Cass