Lincoln Award: Illinois Teen Reader's Choice Award

The Loop by Ben Oliver

Luka Kane has spent 736 days wrongfully imprisoned inside the Loop awaiting his execution. Each day is the same. Each day is torturous. But things are starting to change. Whispers of war are circulating. Strange things are happening to the prisoners. And the warden delivers a message: Luka, you have to get out... Now Luka must decide whether breaking out of the Loop is his only way to survive, especially if there's any chance of saving the ones he loves. But the population on the outside may be far more terrifying than anything he could have imagined. And in order to save his family, he'll have to discover who is responsible for the chaos that has been inflicted upon the world.                     

READ AND WIN!

How to participate?

1. Read a book from the selected list of Lincoln Award nominees and fill out the 2024 Abe Reader Submission Form for each title read.

2. You will receive a prize for each book that you read!

3.  After reading at least four books, you will be invited to a Voting Pizza Party! The comment forms will be included in a raffle for a prize.  All comment forms must be submitted by March 4, 2024.

2024 Lincoln Award Master List

     Kate in Waiting by Becky Albertalli   

Best friends Kate Garfield and Anderson Walker share a love of theater and crushes on the same guys, but when one of their long-distance crushes shows up at their school, real feelings might end their friendship.

   Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Sixteen-year-olds Camino Rios, of the Dominican Republic, and Yahaira Rios, of New York City, are devastated to learn of their father's death in a plane crash and stunned to learn of each other's existence. A novel in verse told in two voices.

    Huda F Are You? by Huda Fahmy

Huda F. is starting high school in a new town and needs to figure out where she fits in.

   You Know I'm No Good by Jessie Ann Foley

Mia is officially a "Troubled Teen"--she gets bad grades, drinks too much, and has probably gone too far with too many guys. But she doesn't realize how out of control she seems until she is taken from her home in the middle of the night and sent away to Red Oak Academy, a therapeutic girls' boarding school in the middle of nowhere. While there, Mia is forced to confront her painful past at the same time she questions why she's at Red Oak. If she were a boy, would her behavior be considered wild enough to get sent away? But what happens when circumstances outside of her control compel Mia to make herself vulnerable enough to be truly seen?

     You'd Be Home Now by Kathleen Glasgow

After a fatal car accident that reveals Emory's brother Joey's opioid addiction, Emory struggles to help him on his road to recovery and make herself heard in a town that insists on not listening.

 

 

Heretics Anonymous by Katie Henry

 

When nonbeliever Michael transfers to a Catholic school in eleventh grade, he quickly connects with a secret support group intent on exposing the school's hypocrisies one stunt at a time.

The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson

When Springville residents--at least the ones still alive--are questioned about what happened on prom night, they all have the same explanation--Maddy did it. An outcast at her small-town Georgia high school, Madison Washington has always been a teasing target for bullies. And she's dealt with it because she has more pressing problems to manage. Until the morning a surprise rainstorm reveals her most closely kept secret: Maddy is biracial. She has been passing for white her entire life at the behest of her fanatical white father, Thomas Washington. After a viral bullying video pulls back the curtain on Springville High's racist roots, student leaders come up with a plan to change their image: host the school's first integrated prom as a show of unity. The popular white class president convinces her Black superstar quarterback boyfriend to ask Maddy to be his date, leaving Maddy wondering if it's possible to have a normal life. But some of her classmates aren't done with her just yet. And what they don't know is that Maddy still has another secret--one that will cost them all their lives

   We Are Not Broken by George M. Johnson

A memoir of Black non-binary writer and activist George M. Johnson's childhood in New Jersey, growing up with their brother and two cousins, all under the supervision of their larger-than-life grandmother.

     Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado

Overweight sixteen-year-old Charlie yearned for her first kiss while her perfect best friend, Amelia, fell in love, so when she finally starts dating and learns the boy asked Amelia out first, she is devastated.

     Be Not Far From Me by Mindy McGinnis

Lost in the Great Smoky Mountains, rising high school senior Ashley Hawkins must fight for survival without any tools, growing in awareness that the world is not tame, and neither are people.

     #murdertrending by Gretchen McNeil

Falsely accused of murdering her stepsister, seventeen-year-old Dee fights to survive paid assassins on Alcatraz 2.0, the most popular prison on social media.

    I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

After seventeen-year-olds Chloe and Shara, Chloe's rival for valedictorian, kiss, Shara vanishes leaving Chloe and two boys, who are also enamored with Shara, to follow the trail of clues she left behind, but during the search, Chloe starts to suspect there might be more to Shara and her small Alabama town than she thought.

 

 

   I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys

 

    The Girls I've Been by Tess Sharpe

When seventeen-year-old Nora O'Malley, the daughter of a con artist, is taken hostage in a bank heist, every secret she is keeping close begins to unravel.

.    Dancing at the Pity Party by Tyler Feder

Tyler Feder shares her story of her mother's first oncology appointment to facing reality as a motherless daughter in this frank and refreshingly funny graphic memoir.

   All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

 A family extending from Pakistan to California, deals with generations of young love, old regrets, and forgiveness.

    Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Ryland Grace has been asleep for a very, very long time. He's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. He can't remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. Alone on this tiny ship that's been cobbled together by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it's up to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance

    The Assignment by Liza Wiemer

 Standing in opposition to a class assignment to debate Hitler's Final Solution, seniors Cade and Logan become embroiled in turmoil involving their teacher, principal, Commissioner of Education, white supremacists, and their entire community .

    Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang

Gene Luen Yang understands stories -- comic book stories, in particular. Big action. Bigger thrills. And the hero always wins. But Gene doesn't get sports. As a kid, his friends called him 'Stick' and every basketball game he played ended in pain. He lost interest in basketball long ago, but at the high school where he now teaches, it's all anyone can talk about. The men's varsity team, the Dragons, is having a phenomenal season that's been decades in the making. Each victory brings them closer to their ultimate goal: the California State Championship. Once Gene meets these young all-stars, he realizes that their story is just as thrilling as anything he's seen on a comic book page. He knows he has to follow this epic to its end. What he doesn't know yet is that this season is not only going to change the Dragons' lives but his own life as well.

    In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner

Attending an elite prep school in Connecticut on a scholarship with his best friend (and secret love) science genius Delaney Doyle, sixteen-year-old Cash Pruitt, from a small town in East Tennessee, struggles with emotional pain and loss until his English teacher suggests writing poetry.