Display - SLJ Battle of the Books, Round 1, Match 3 & 4

School Library Journal’s Battle of the Kids’ Books is a competition among 16 of the very best books for young people of the year, judged by some of the biggest names in children’s books.

Round 1, Match 3

Endangered vs. Three Times Lucky

Judge: Kathi Appelt

Winner: Endangered

Endangered
By Eliot Schrefer
Sophie is not happy to be back in the Congo for the summer, but when she rescues an abused baby bonobo she becomes more involved in her mother's sanctuary--and when fighting breaks out and the sanctuary is attacked, it is up to Sophie to rescue the apes and somehow survive in the jungle.
(Young adult fiction)

Three Times Lucky
By Sheila Turnage

Washed ashore as a baby in tiny Tupelo Landing, North Carolina, Mo LoBeau, now eleven, and her best friend Dale turn detective when the amnesiac Colonel, owner of a café and co-parent of Mo with his cook, Miss Lana, seems implicated in a murder.

Round 1, Match 4

The Fault in Our Stars vs. Temple Grandin

Judge: Deb Caletti

Winner: The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars

By John Green

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

(Young adult fiction)

Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loved Cows and Embraced Autism Changed the World

By Sy Montgomery

An authorized portrait about Grandin's life with autism and her groundbreaking work as a scientist and designer of cruelty-free livestock facilities describes how she overcame key disabilities through education and the support of her mother.

Comments

Review: A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall

A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall By Jasmine Warga New York: Harper, 2024. Fiction. 211 pages. A painting has been stolen from the Penelope L. Brooks Museum and sixth-grader Rami Ahmed is worried he's the main suspect. His mother works at the museum as the lead custodian and Rami spends a lot of time hanging out at the museum while she works. On the day the painting went missing, the only people there were the security guard Ed, the cleaning crew, and Rami. Then, a mysterious girl appears in the museum. She floats around from room to room and only Rami can see her -- and she looks exactly like the girl from the missing painting. To prove his innocence and help figure out who the floating girl is, Rami partners up with an aspiring sleuth at school named Veda and the two dive into unexpected situations as they try to solve the mystery. This is a cozy mystery that is focused mostly on characters and ambiance and only a little on the mystery itself. Don't read this book if yo...

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages. Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...

Review: The Amazing Generation

The Amazing Generation: Your Guide to Fun and Freedom in a Screen-Filled World Written by Jonathan Haidt and Catherine Price Illustrated by Cynthia Yuan Cheng New York: Rocky Pond Books, 2025. Informational. 226 pages. In a kid-friendly adaptation of his best-selling book, The Anxious Generation , Jonathan Haidt teams up with Catherine Price, author of How to Break Up With Your Phone , to bring the power of good information directly to the hands of those that this issue affects most directly — kids on the cusp of getting their own smartphones. The book presents information about the drawbacks of having a smartphone and social media too soon in clear and easy-to-understand language, with eye-catching graphics and pop-outs. Throughout the book, quotes from real teens and young adults, called screen "rebels" by the authors, emphasize the points the authors are trying to make. Fictional characters are featured throughout in a graphic novel story, which further emphasizes the po...

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