Battle of the Kids' Books

Ooooh, I love this time of year.  We're coming into March Madness!!!!!!  And I'm not talking basketball here, peeps.  The SLJ Battle of the Kids' Books is coming up, and the anticipation is starting to build.  It begins on March 12th, and here's the list of this year's contenders:

Bomb by Steve Sheinken (Macmillan)

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (Hyperion)

Endangered by Eliot Schrefer (Scholastic)

Fault in Our Stars, The by John Green (Penguin)

Jepp, Who Defied the Stars by Katherine Marsh (Hyperion)

Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead (Random House)

Moonbird by Philip Hoose (Macmillan)

No Crystal Stair by Vauda Micheaux Nelson (Lerner)

One and Only Ivan, The by Katherine Applegate (Harper Collins)

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman (Random House)

Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz (Candlewick)

Starry River of the Sky by Grace Lin (Little Brown)

Temple Grandin by Sy Montgomery (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage (Penguin)

Titanic by Deborah Hopkinson (Scholastic)

Wonder by R. J. Palacio (Random House)

It's gonna be a tough year, folks!  Several that I loved are on the list.  Now I NEED to finish Bomb right away and Titanic.  I'm enjoying it much more this second time around.  Glad my arm was twisted to try it again.

If you wanna play along at home, download the bracket HERE.