For all you Illinois youth librarians out there, the list of the 2007 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award Nominees has begun making the rounds. The twenty books nominated for 2007 are:

• Airborn by Kenneth Oppel
• Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Muñoz Ryan
• Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett
• Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles
• Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins
• Hachiko Waits by Leslea Newman
• Hana's Suitcase: A True Story by Karen Levine
• Heartbeat by Sharon Creech
• Ida B: And Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World by Katherine Hannigan
• Last Shot by John Feinstein
• Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson
• Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris
• Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
• Red Kayak by Priscilla Cummings
• The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer
• Secrets of a Civil War Submarine: Solving the Mysteries of the H.L. Hunley by Sally M. Walker
• Shackleton's Stowaway by Victoria McKernan
• So B. It by Sarah Weeks
• Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson
• Thin Wood Walls by David Patneaude

The winner of the 2006 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award will be announced on March 17 at the NIU Children's Literature Conference.