1. What is the Black-Eyed Susan Award? The Black-Eyed Susan Book Award honors outstanding books, chosen annually by Maryland students. Committees of school library media specialists and other interested persons meet over the course of a year to determine which books will go on the lists; anyone is invited to suggest titles.

2. Requirements 1.Students are required to read 3 books. 2.When the required number of books have been read, each student will cast one vote for the book he or she considers to be the most outstanding in each category. 3.Votes from across the state are sent in to the Black-Eyed Susan committees and tallied to determine the winners. The winning authors and/or illustrators receive a pewter plate engraved with the year and the Black-Eyed Susan Book Award logo. Authors, illustrators and publishers recognize the award as an honor bestowed by Maryland students.

3. Library Visit One 1.Present book talks for each title. 2.Students pick one book. 3.Read at least one book over the next 3 weeks. 4.Some students may want the challenge of reading all 10 titles.

4. Black-Eyed Susan Award Nominees 2010-2011 Candor by Pam Bachorz The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins If I Stay by Gayle Forman Paper Towns by John Green Pop by Gordon Korman Flash Burnout by L. K. Madigan Gamer Girl by Mari Mancusi Flygirl by Sheri Smith Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater Funny How Things Change by Melissa Wyatt High School Nominees

5. For a fee, "model teen" Oscar Banks has been secretly--and selectively--sabotaging the subliminal messages that program the behavior of the residents of Candor, Florida, until his attraction to a rebellious new girl threatens to expose his subterfuge. Candor by Pam Bachorz

6. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen accidentallybecomes a contender in the annual Hunger Games, a grave competition hosted by the Capitol where young boys and girls are pittedagainst one another in a televised fight to thedeath. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

7. While in a coma following an automobile accident that killed her parents and younger brother, seventeen-year-old Mia, a gifted cellist, weights whether to live with her grief or join her family in death. If I Stay by Gayle Forman

8. One month before graduating from his Central Florida high school, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen basks in the predictable boringness of his life until the beautiful and exciting Margo Roth Spiegelman, Q's neighbor and classmate, takes him on a midnight adventure and then mysteriously disappears. Paper Towns by John Green

9. Lonely after a midsummer move to a new town, sixteen-year-old high-school quarterback Marcus Jordan becomes friends with a retired professional linebacker who is great at training him, but whose childish behavior keeps Marcus in hot water. Pop by Gordon Korman

10. Fifteen-year-old amateur photographer Blake gains self-awareness through his relationships with a girlfriend and a friend who he helps come to terms with her feelings about her homeless, methamphetamine-addicted mother. Flash Burnout by L. K. Madigan

11. Struggling to fit in after her parents' divorce sends her from Boston to her grandmother's house in the country, sixteen-year-old Maddy forms a manga club at school and falls in love through an online fantasy game. Gamer Girl by Mari Mancusi

12. During World War II, a light-skinned African American girl "passes" for white in order to join the Women Airforce Service Pilots. Flygirl by Sherri Smith

13. In all the years she has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house, Grace has been particularly drawn to an unusual yellow-eyed wolf who, in his turn, has been watching her with increasing intensity. Shiver By Maggie Stiefvater

14. Remy, a talented, seventeen-year-old auto mechanic, questions his decision to join his girlfriend when she starts college in Pennsylvania, after a visiting artist helps him realize what his family home in a dying West Virginia mountain town means to him. Funny How Things Change by Melissa Wyatt