Annal:1998 Golden Kite Fiction Award

Rules of the Road

Joan Bauer

• 1998 Golden Kite-fiction winner
• 1998 LATimes–Young Adult winner
• 2001 YRCA-Senior nominee
• Score: 24.48

Meet Jenna Boller, star employee at Gladstone’s Shoe Store in Chicago. Standing a gawky 5’11’’ at 16 years old, Jenna is the kind of girl most likely to stand out in the crowd—for all the wrong reasons. But that doesn’t stop Madeline Gladstone, the president of Gladstone’s Shoes 176 outlets in 37 states, from hiring Jenna to drive her cross country in a last ditch effort to stop Elden Gladstone from taking over his mother’s company and turning a quality business into a shop-and-schlock empire. Now Jenna Boller shoe salesperson is about to become a shoe-store spy as she joins her crusty old employer for an eye-opening adventure that will teach them both the rules of the road—and the rules of life.

Whirligig

Paul Fleischman

• 1998 Golden Kite-fiction honor
• 2001 YRCA-Senior nominee
• Score: 10.48

Brent Bishop longs to have the popular Brianna strolling around school on his arm. But when she rejects him at a classmate’s party, Brent’s hopes for popularity are instantly shattered. Devastated, he tries to destroy himself in a car crash…but instead kills an innocent girl named Lea.

Instead of sending him to jail, Lea’s parents challenge Brent to create four whirligigs modeled on a picture of Lea and position them at the four corners of the United States. Lea’s mother hopes that the whirligig that used to delight Lea will be a fitting memorial for her precious daughter. She sends Brent off with an unlimited bus ticket, a few pieces of wood, and the tools to memorialize Lea. On his mission to preserve his victim’s memory, Brent ultimately rediscovers his own love of life.