Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Printz Award Winner 2009

The stories of Jellicoe Road are not easy ones to tell. They are complicated tales that deal with car crashes, deaths, heroes, new friendships, disappearances, The War, and abandonment. Not many would dare to unravel all the riddles, but for seventeen-year-old Taylor Markham her future lies in its midst and it is all she can think about.

As leader of the Jellicoe Road Houses, her concentration should be on The War and protecting her territory from the townies and cadets. However, when the only adult she is close to disappears, her only thought is figuring out where Hannah went. To do so, she must figure out the connection between her mother abandoning her, Hannah’s rescue, a boy who haunts her dreams, words once whispered by a stranger, and five kids who lived on Jellicoe Road eighteen years ago. With the help of her friends and her so-called enemy Jonah Griggs, Taylor begins to unlock the answers Taylor has been so desperate to find. But once the puzzle is complete, will she really have what she is looking for?