Last week, we presented Wilde Awards to the best Picture Books of 2005 (see results at www.triangle.com/ books/bookreview). This week we honor novels and other long format books as selected by yours truly and some of our community's children's book experts.

Most Promising New Series

"The Sisters Grimm: Book 1" by Michael Buckley (Abrams, $14.95, ages 9-12). A genre merger of fairy tale and mystery? The balance of quirky and reasonable characters, engaging writing, fresh fairy tale references, and a very real fantasy setting make this a great series start.

Best New Sleuth

"Mr. Chickee's Funny Money" by Christopher Paul Curtis (Random House, $15.95, ages 9-12). Nine-year-old Steven Carter gets a quadrillion-dollar bill stamped with the image of James Brown. Is it real? Mr. Fondoo and the Treasury Department think so, but Steven isn't so sure in this story that mixes humor, fantasy and mystery.

Scariest book

"Whisper in the Dark" by Joseph Bruchac (HarperCollins, $15.99; ages 9-11). Bruchac beautifully blends legend, present-day life, history and a ghost story in this story of Maddy, who loses her parents and the use of an arm in accident. Now her life is threatened by the "Whisperer in the Dark," a frightening figure from Narragansett legend.

Best Fantasy

"Three Good Deeds" by Vivian Vande Velde (Harcourt Brace, $16, ages 7-10). Bullying Howard, caught in a prank, gets turned into a goose by a witch and must do three good deeds to regain his form.

Best Nonfiction

"Gorilla Doctors: Saving Endangered Great Apes" by Pamela S. Turner (Houghton, $17, ages 8-12). Interviews, stories and marvelous photographs allow us to follow vets who make "forest-calls" into the misted mountains of east-central Africa to heal and save endangered apes.

"A Little History of the World" by E.H. Gombrich (Yale University Press, $25, ages 11 and up). This classic history of the world is finally available in English. Witty, clear-eyed and humane, Gombrich tells the sweeping story of humankind in 40 short and fascinating chapters from the stone age to the atomic bomb. Decorated with Clifford Harper's beautiful line illustrations. (Awarded by Clay Carmichael, author.)

Best Fantasy Sequel

"Inkspell" by Cornelia Funke (Scholastic, $19.99, ages 9 and up). Picking up a year after the events described in "Inkheart," this novel returns to the fantasy land where characters can be read in and out of books -- leading to more adventures for familiar characters such as Dustfinger and a whole new cast of heroes and evildoers involved in the brewing war between the royals at Ombra Castle and the cruel Adderhead.

Best Reissue

"All-of-a-Kind Family" by Sydney Taylor (Delacorte, $15.95, ages 8-11). This is the first book in classic series started in 1951 about a loving family of five girls growing up in turn-of- the-century Lower East Side of New York in a Jewish immigrant neighborhood.

Best Non-Issue Issue Book

"Defiance" by Valerie Hobbs (FSG, $16, ages 9-11). Eleven-year-old Toby Steiner is on vacation when he discovers his cancer has returned. Fearing new chemo treatments, he is determined to make his own decisions, an intention reinforced by an elderly poet who, like him, wants to maintain her independence. This story is much more about his making choices than about fighting cancer.

Best Supernatural Romance

"Twilight" by Stephanie Meyer (Little Brown, $17.99, ages 12 and up). Bella, intrigued by her handsome classmate Edward, is in love even though she knows he's a vampire. Meyer takes conventional plot devices and twists them to make a compelling, realistic, exciting romance. (Awarded by Karin Michel, Chapel Hill Public Library.)

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