This document provides information about two reading programs for high school students - the ABE Lincoln Award and the Illinois State Library Read for a Lifetime program. It includes eligibility requirements, deadlines, and prizes for both programs. It also lists and provides short summaries for 20 books that are on the reading lists for the programs.

1. ABE LINCOLN AWARD
2012 - 2013
Sponsored by the Illinois School
Library Media Association.
Read 4 books from the ABE list and cast your vote for
Illinois High School Students favorite book!
1. Students must read at least 4 books from the state
title list, by February 21, 2013 in order be eligible
to vote.
2. Voting for your favorite book form this list will
take place during the week of Feb. 11 through
Feb. 15, 2013

2. ILLINOIS STATE
LIBRARY
READ FOR A LIFETIME
2012 – 2013
Sponsored by the Secretary of State,
Illinois State Library and Waldenbooks.
1. Students who want to participate in “Read for
a Lifetime” must sign-up by October 26,
2012 in the UT Library.
2. Students must read at least four books from
the RFL title list, by to April 1, 2013.
3. Students who report the required reading will
receive a certificate of accomplishment signed by
Secretary of State, Jesse White.

3. All UTHS students who read at
least one book from the either
lists will be placed in a drawing
for prizes to be awarded during
National Library Week in April.

4. Anna & the French Kiss
Stephanie Perkins
Anna was looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where
she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the
verge of becoming more. So she's less than thrilled about being
shipped off to boarding school in Paris—until she meets
Étienne St. Clair. Smart, charming, beautiful, Étienne has it all . .
. including a serious girlfriend.
But in the City of Light, wishes have a way of coming true. Will
a year of romantic near-misses end with their long-awaited
French kiss?

5. Bruiser
Neal Schusterman
Tennyson, 16, is a hulking loner who seems to possess the
power to heal both physical and psychic hurts. When his
twin sister, Brontë, befriends their shy and withdrawn
classmate Brewster “Bruiser” Rawlins, he is concerned that
her relationship with this boy from the wrong side of the
tracks will prove somehow dangerous.
The twins begin to notice Bruiser's unusual talent: not only
can he assume the physical pain and wounds of those he
cares about, but he can also absorb their anger, hurt, and
grief.

6. The Chosen One
Carol Lynch Williams
Kyra lives with her Father, Mothers and many siblings
in a polygamist cult under the dictatorship of
Prophet Childs and his Apostles, and their henchmen
– the God Squad.
When she is chosen to be the seventh wife of her 60-
year-old uncle, she resists and is punished. Knowing
she will not marry her uncle but reluctant to leave
her family, Kyra struggles to break free of the bonds -
positive and negative - that have made up the whole
of her life.

7. Clockwork Angel
Cassandra Clare
When sixteen-year-old orphan Tessa Fell's older
brother suddenly vanishes, her search for him
leads her into Victorian-era London's dangerous
supernatural underworld, and when she
discovers that she herself is a Downworlder, she
must learn to trust the demon-killing
Shadowhunters if she ever wants to learn to
control her powers and find her brother.

8. Dark Song
Gail Giles
Ames is not the person she was a few months
ago. Her father lost his job, and her family is
crumbling apart. Now, all she has is Marc.
Marc, who loves her more than anything.
Marc, who owns a gun collection. And he'll
stop at nothing--even using his guns--to get
what he wants.
Ames feels her parents have betrayed her with
their lies and self-absorption, but is she
prepared to make the ultimate betrayal against
them?

9. Finnikin of the Rock
Melina Marchetta
Now on the cusp of manhood, Finnikin, who
was a child when the royal family of Lumatere
was brutally murdered and replaced by an
imposter, reluctantly joins forces with an
enigmatic young novice and fellow-exile, who
claims that her dark dreams will lead them to a
surviving royal child and a way to regain the
throne of Lumatere

10. The Help
Kathryn Sockett
Limited and persecuted by racial divides in 1962
Jackson, Mississippi, three women, including an
African-American maid, her sassy and chronically
unemployed friend, and a recently graduated white
woman, team up for a clandestine project.

11. Impossible
Nancy Werlin
When seventeen-year-old Lucy discovers her
family is under an ancient curse by an evil Elfin
Knight, she realizes to break the curse she
must perform three impossible tasks before
her daughter is born in order to save them
both.
This novel was inspired by the ballad
"Scarborough Fair"

12. Impulse
Ellen Hopkins
Three teens who meet at Reno, Nevada's
Aspen Springs mental hospital after each has
attempted suicide connect with each other in a
way they never have with their parents or
anyone else in their lives.

13. Leviathan
Scott Westerfeld
In an alternate 1914 Europe, fifteen-year-old
Austrian Prince Alek, on the run from the
Clanker Powers who are attempting to take
over the globe using mechanical
machinery, forms an uneasy alliance with
Deryn who, disguised as a boy to join the
British Air Service, is learning to fly genetically-
engineered beasts.

14. Little Brother
Cory Doctorow
After being interrogated for days by the
Department of Homeland Security in the
aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San
Francisco, California, seventeen-year-old
Marcus, released into what is now a police
state, decides to use his expertise in computer
hacking to set things right.

15. Lockdown:
Escape from Furnace
Alexander G. Smith
When fourteen-year-old Alex is framed for
murder, he becomes an inmate in the Furnace
Penitentiary, where brutal inmates and sadistic
guards reign, boys who disappear in the
middle of the night sometimes return weirdly
altered, and escape might just be possible.

16. Matched
Ally Condie
On her seventeenth birthday, Cassia meets her
Match. Society dictates he is her perfect
partner for life. Except he's not. In Cassia's
society, Officials decide who people love. How
many children they have. Where they work.
When they die. But, as Cassia finds herself
falling in love with another boy, she is
determined to make some choices of her own.
And that's when her whole world begins to
unravel...

17. The Monstrumologist
Rick Yancey
In 1888, twelve-year-old Will Henry chronicles his
apprenticeship with Dr. Warthrop, a scientist who
hunts and studies real-life monsters, as they discover
and attempt to destroy a pod of Anthropophagi.

18. North of Beautiful
Justina Chen Headley
Terra, a sensitive, artistic high school senior
born with a facial port-wine stain, struggles
with issues of inner and outer beauty with the
help of her Goth classmate Jacob.

19. Paranormalcy
Kiersten White
When a dark prophecy begins to come
true, sixteen-year-old Evie of the International
Paranormal Containment Agency must not
only try to stop it, she must also uncover its
connection to herself and the alluring
shapeshifter, Lend.

20. Rikers High
Paul Volponi
Arrested on a minor offense, a New York City
teenager attends high school in the jail facility
on Rikers Island, as he waits for his case to go
to court.

21. Ship Breaker
Paolo Bacigalupi
In a futuristic world, teenaged Nailer
scavenges copper wiring from grounded oil
tankers for a living, but when he finds a
beached clipper ship with a girl in the
wreckage, he has to decide if he should strip
the ship for its wealth or rescue the girl.

22. The Sky is Everywhere
Jandy Nelson
In the months after her sister dies, seventeen-
year-old Lennie falls into a love triangle and
discovers the strength to follow her dream of
becoming a musician.

23. Thirteen Reasons Why
Jay Asher
Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a
mysterious box with his name on it lying on his
porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes
recorded by Hannah Baker--his classmate and crush--
who committed suicide two weeks earlier.
On tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen
reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one
of them. If he listens, he'll find out how he made the
list.

24. War
Sebastian Junger
The fear, the honor, and the trust among men in
an extreme situation whose survival
depends on their absolute commitment to one
another.
This on-the-ground account follows a single
platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the
most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan's
Korengal Valley.
Through the experiences of these young men at
war, the author shows what it means to fight, to
serve, and to face down mortal danger on a
daily basis.

25. Will Grayson, Will Grayson
John Green & David Levithan
One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of
Chicago, two teens—both named Will Grayson—are
about to cross paths.
As their worlds collide and intertwine, the Will
Graysons find their lives going in new and
unexpected directions, building toward romantic
turns-of-heart and the epic production of history’s
most fabulous high school musical.

26. Teenaged Amy, a cryogenically frozen
passenger on the spaceship Godspeed, wakes
up to discover that someone may have tried to
murder her.

27. The author recounts his childhood in
Depression-era Brooklyn as the child of Irish
immigrants who decide to return to worse
poverty in Ireland when his infant sister dies

28. Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a
philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an
obsession with opposable thumbs), he has
educated himself by watching television and
by listening closely to the words of his master,
Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver.
On the night before his death, Enzo takes stock
of his life, recalling all that he and his family
have been through, hoping, in his next life, to
return as a human.

29. Tessa has just months to live. Fighting back against
hospital visits, endless tests, drugs with
excruciating side-effects, Tessa compiles a list. It’s
her To Do Before I Die list.
Released from the constraints of ‘normal’
life, Tessa tastes new experiences to make her feel
alive while her failing body struggles to keep up.

30. Laurel is still reeling from the loss of her mother and
grandmother after Hurricane Katrina washed away
their home. She has moved on to a new life, in a
new town, but inside she's haunted by voices and
memories from her past.
Laurel's new life is going well, with a new best
friend, a place on the cheerleading squad and T-
Boom, co-captain of the basketball team, for a
boyfriend. Yet Laurel is
When T-Boom introduces Laurel to meth, she
immediately falls under its spell, loving the way it
erases, even if only briefly, her past.

31. In 1941, fifteen-year-old Lina, her mother, and
brother are pulled from their Lithuanian home
by Soviet guards and sent to Siberia, where her
father is sentenced to death in a prison camp
while she fights for her life, vowing to honor
her family and the thousands like hers by
burying her story in a jar on Lithuanian soil.

32. Worried about the effects of alcohol on American
families, mothers and civic leaders started a
movement to outlaw drinking in public places.
Over time, their protests, petitions, and activism
paid off—when a Constitutional Amendment
banning the sale and consumption of alcohol was
ratified, it was hailed as the end of public
drunkenness, alcoholism, and a host of other
social ills related to booze.
Instead, it began a decade of lawlessness, when
children smuggled (and drank) illegal alcohol, the
most upright citizens casually broke the law, and
a host of notorious gangsters entered the public
eye.

33. Having experienced compulsive behavior all
her life, Lo's symptoms are getting her into
trouble when she witnesses a murder while
wandering dangerous quarters of Cleveland,
Ohio, collecting things that do not belong to
her, obsessing about her brother's death.

34. When he returns to Illinois and the gang
culture on the south side of Fairfield after six
years in Colorado, high school senior Luis
Fuentes, who dreams of becoming an
astronaut, falls for a girl and enters a dark
world after learning some disturbing news
about his family.

35. Since her stepmother's recent death, 17-year-old
Briony Larkin knows that if she can keep two secrets-
-that she is a witch and that she is responsible for
the accident that left Rose, her identical twin,
mentally compromised--and remember to hate
herself always, no other harm will befall her family in
their Swampsea parsonage at the beginning of the
twentieth century. The arrival of Mr. Clayborne, a city
engineer, and his university-dropout son, Eldric,
makes Briony's task difficult. Clayborne's plan to
drain the swamp has made the Old Ones unhappy,
particularly the Boggy Mun, who has plagued the
village's children with swamp cough in retaliation.
When Rose's lingering illness turns into a cough,
Briony knows that she must do whatever it takes,
even revealing her secrets, to save her sister. While
thwarting the advances of an arsenic-addicted suitor,
Briony must also deny her feelings for Eldric, even as
he helps her solve the puzzle that has become her
life.

36. Lily has left a red notebook full of challenges on a
favorite bookstore shelf, waiting for just the right guy
to come along and accept its dares. But is Dash that
right guy?
Or are Dash and Lily only destined to trade
dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they pass
back and forth at locations across New York?
Could their in-person selves possibly connect as well
as their notebook versions? Or will they be a comic
mismatch of disastrous proportions?

37. Despite the medical miracle that has bought
her a few more years, Hazel has never been
anything but terminal, but when Augustus
Waters suddenly appears at the Cancer Kid
Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be
rewritten.

38. The true story of the four-year old son of a small
town Nebraska pastor who during emergency
surgery slips from consciousness and enters heaven.
He survives and begins talking about being able to
look down and see the doctor operating and his dad
praying in the waiting room.

39. A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A
strange collection of very curious photographs. It all
waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for
Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes
fiction and photography in a thrilling reading
experience.
.

40. A fierce competition is underway, a contest
between two young magicians, Celia and
Marco, who have been trained since childhood
to compete in "a game," in which each must
use their powers of illusion to best the other.
Unbeknownst to them, this game is a duel to
the death, and the circus is but the stage for a
remarkable battle of imagination and will.

41. In 1982 Buncombe County, North
Carolina, sixteen-year-old Alex Stromm writes
of the aftermath of the accidental drowning of
a friend, as his English teacher reaches out to
him while he and a fellow boarding school
student try to cover things up.

42. Everyone has something, someone, somewhere else
that they’d rather be.
Northern Nevada teenagers Cara, Kendra, Sean, and
Andre, tell in their own voices of their very different
paths toward perfection and how their goals change
when tragedy strikes.
Everyone wants to be perfect, but when perfection
loses its meaning, how far will you go? What would
you give up to be perfect?

43. A series of short stories, interspersed
with poems and
photographs, provides different
perspectives on a game of streetball
played one steamy July day at the
West 4th Street court in New York
City known as The Cage.

44. Headed for baseball stardom with the Brooklyn
Dodgers, Gene's destiny was interrupted by Pearl
Harbor. After playing ball for the Navy in the Azores
and North Africa, Gene and his team were sent to
the States for a special-and top secret-mission:
guarding German sailors captured from U-505.
Unable to field a team, Gene convinced his
commander to allow him to teach the enemy how to
play baseball while he and his teammates waited for
the war to end so they could be called up into the
Major Leagues. But Gene's future changed
irrevocably in Louisiana.
Inspired by true events, Playing with the Enemy ,
written by Gene’s son Gary Moore, is the riveting
story of a depression-era youth and his brush with
destiny.

45. In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old
boys—best friends—are playing in a Little
League baseball game in Gravesend, New
Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball
that kills the other boy’s mother.
The boy who hits the ball doesn’t believe in
accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God’s
instrument. What happens to Owen, after
that 1953 foul ball, is extraordinary and
terrifying.

46. When a school bus accident leaves sixteen-
year-old Jessica an amputee, she returns to
school with a prosthetic limb and her track
team finds a wonderful way to help rekindle
her dream of running again.

47. It happens at the start of every November: the
Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their
water horses long enough to make it to the finish
line. Some riders live, others die.
Puck Connolly never meant to ride in the Scorpio
Races. But fate hasn't given her much of a choice. So
she enters the competition - the first girl ever to do
so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to
happen.

48. In a future world where those between the
ages of thirteen and eighteen can have their
lives "unwound" and their body parts
harvested for use by others, three teens go to
extreme lengths to uphold their beliefs--and,
perhaps, save their own lives.

49. Seventeen-year-old Cullen's summer in Lily,
Arkansas, is marked by his cousin's death by
overdose, an alleged spotting of a woodpecker
thought to be extinct, failed romances, and his
younger brother's sudden disappearance.

50. Sixteen-year-old Min Green writes a letter to
Ed Slaterton in which she breaks up with him,
documenting their relationship and how items
in the accompanying box, from bottle caps to a
cookbook, foretell the end.