Annal:2001 Batchelder Award
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Batchelder Award in the year 2001. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- 2001 Batchelder winner
- Score: 10.51
Nothing could be more frightening to Samir, a Palestinian boy, than to be where he is now: an Israeli hospital ward, trapped among the very people he blames for his brother's death. Amid this explosive atmosphere, Samir begins to learn about the Israeli kids around him. He discovers their hurts and conflicts — and hesitantly begins to share his own. This is a story of violence and healing - the story of a boy facing the enemy he has been taught to fear.
- 2001 Batchelder honor
- Score: 6.51
A chilling novel of suspense, virtual reality, and cyberterror by a major new author of young adult fiction.
The story begins when Eric, Charles, and Andreas come upon the video store of their dreams, featuring a vast array of war games they've never even heard of (and they've heard of, and mastered, all of them). But there, amid the stacks of lurid boxes and scenes of cyber-carnage, is the most remarkable game of all, one pressed on them by the store's elderly proprietor, a clever sample of computer warfare called "The Ultimate Experience." Contained in a single diskette, without even a label, the unassuming game surpasses their wildest fantasies: the graphics are better than a movie, the simulated battlefields are historically and geologically perfect, and the action seems to put you right inside the screen. The feeling of 'reality' is uncanny.
But soon the three friends realize that the Game has a will of its own, and that far from being a dream, it has drawn each of them into his own personal nightmare one that they enter and exit without any control. For Charles, it means suddenly…
