by Kate DiCamillo
Unconditional Recommendation: With the help of a funny stray dog, Opal makes friends in her new town.
Awards: Newbery Honor (2001)
Unconditional Recommendation: In this fairytale retelling, Ella, cursed by a fairy to obey every command, sets out to break her curse and protect those she loves.
Awards: Newbery Honor (1998), Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature (1999), Grand Canyon Reader Award for Teen Book (1999), Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Book Award for Grade 6-9 (2000), Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children’s Book Award (1999)
Unconditional Recommendation: Eleven-year-old orphan Pollyanna, full of happiness and love, goes to live with her cold, strict Aunt Polly and turns the household and the town upside down in the best way.
Genre: Classic
Unconditional Recommendation: In Acadia, a chance meeting creates a strong bond of friendship and faith between an Englishwoman and a Frenchwoman during a time of hostilities and impending war between their homelands.
Awards: Christy Award for North American Historical (2000)
Unconditional Recommendation: A shotgun wedding to a stranger, a tangle of relationships, and strange circumstances happening all over Sand Creek make for an engaging and sentimental finale to the series.
Genre: Historical Christian Romance
Unconditional Recommendation: Katherine “Kit” Tyler must learn to live in a Puritan community with her relatives but befriends the Witch of Blackbird Pond and risks being persecuted as a witch herself.
Awards: Newbery Medal (1959), Dorothy Canfeld Fisher Children’s Book Award (1960)