Jim Bishop’s THE DAY LINCOLN WAS SHOT; a tense hour-by-hour account of the assassination and its aftermath.

Rebecca Stead’s WHEN YOU REACH ME; twelve-year-old Miranda loses her best friend, Sal, and suddenly her world goes topsy-turvy; a Newbery winner, influenced by A Wrinkle in Time.

Anderson Cooper’s and Gloria Vanderbilt’s THE RAINBOW COMES AND GOES: A MOTHER AND SON ON LIFE, LOVE, AND LOSS; an intimate, “getting-to-know-you-better” discussion via a year of e-mails.

Joyce Carol Oates’s MARYA: A LIFE; a woman’s progression from a childhood of violence, to fame and artistic acclaim.

Chaim Potok’s DAVITA’S HARP; a girl growing up in 1930s and 1940s New York, defies her parents’ Judaism by identifying with it.