Johnny Tremain
This story of a tragically injured young silversmith who ends up hip-deep in the
American Revolution is inspiring, exciting, and sad. Winner of the prestigious
Newbery Award in 1944, Esther Forbes's story has lasted these 50-plus years by
including adventure, loss, courage, and history in a wonderfully written, very
dramatic package. It's probably not great for little guys but mature 11-year-olds or
older will find it a great adventure.
Berlin Boxing Club
The book “The Berlin Boxing Club” by Robert Sharenow covers a five-year period
in the life of Karl Stern, a fictional German teen who trains under real life German
world champion boxer Max Schmeling. The novel is set during the early years of
Hitler’s rule. Although the members of Karl’s family aren’t practicing Jews, they
have Jewish ancestry. At school Karl is branded as a Jew and eventually kicked
out because of his lineage. Karl uses his boxing as a refuge as Hitler’s rules and
regulations on the Jews becomes more and more restrictive. However, his dream
to be a championship German boxer is killed when it is discovered he is a Jew.
Soon afterward, the Stern family is torn apart when their home is attacked during
a night of looting by members of the Nazi party. When Karl’s father is accused of
being a traitor and thrown in jail, it is up to Karl to find a way to help his family.
Shooting the Moon coupled with Day of Tears
When twelve-year-old Jamie Dexter's brother joins the Army and is sent to
Vietnam, Jamie is plum thrilled. She can't wait to get letters from the front lines
describing the excitement of real-life combat: the sound of helicopters, the smell
of gunpowder, the exhilaration of being right in the thick of it. After all, they've
both dreamed of following in the footsteps of their father, the Colonel.
But TJ's first letter isn't a letter at all. It's a roll of undeveloped film, the first of
many. What Jamie sees when she develops TJ's photographs reveals a whole
new side of the war. Slowly the shine begins to fade off of Army life - and the
Colonel. How can someone she's worshipped her entire life be just as helpless to
save her brother as she is?
-- -- -- -- -On March 2 and 3, 1859, the largest auction of slaves in American history took
place in Savannah, Georgia. More than 400 slaves were sold. On the first day of
the auction, the skies darkened and torrential rain began falling. The rain
continued throughout the two days, stopping only when the auction had ended.
The simultaneity of the rain storm with the auction led to these two days being
called "the weeping time."
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
Set in Mississippi at the height of the Depression, this is the story of one family's
struggle to maintain their integrity, pride, and independence in the face of racism
and social injustice. And it is also Cassie's story—Cassie Logan, an independent
girl who discovers over the course of an important year why having land of their
own is so crucial to the Logan family, even as she learns to draw strength from
her own sense of dignity and self-respect.
Bat 6
Bat 6 is the name of an annual 6th grade girls' softball game between two
neighboring Oregon towns. It was started in 1899 by the women of the two towns
in an effort to get the menfolk of each town talking to each other. As this book
opens, it is the beginning of the 1949 season, and girls on both teams are
preparing for the big 50th annual game. New on the Bear Creek Ridge team is
Aki, a Japanese-American girl whose family has just returned from the
concentration camp where they lived during WWII. New to the Barlow team is
Shazam, who lost her father when Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941. The very
first line of the book, "Now that it's over, we are telling," sets up the expectation of
something catastrophic happening and that tension is well maintained throughout
the book as the girls on each team share bits and pieces of what happened at
the Big Game.
Waiting For the Rain
Daphne White is staring down the barrel of forty—and is distraught at what she
sees. Her ex-husband is getting remarried, her teenage daughter hardly needs
her anymore, and the career she once dreamed about has somehow slipped
from her grasp. She’s almost lost sight of the spirited and optimistic young
woman she used to be.
As she heads off to a Caribbean island to mark the new decade with her best
friends from college, Daphne’s in anything but the mood to celebrate. But when
she meets Clay Hanson, a much younger man, she ignores her inner voice
warning her that she’s too old for a fling. In fact, this tropical getaway might be
the perfect opportunity to picture her future in a new sun-drenched light.
With the help of her friends, Daphne rediscovers her enthusiasm for life, as well
as her love for herself—and realizes that her best years are still ahead.
The Slave Dancer
One day, thirteen-year-old jessie Bollier is earning pennies playing his fife on the
docks of New Orleans; the next, he is kidnapped and thrown aboard a slave ship,
where his job is to provide music while shackled slaves "dance" to keep their
muscles strong and their bodies profitable. As the endless voyage continues,
Jessie grows increasingly sickened by the greed, brutality, and inhumanity of the
slave trade, but nothing prepares him for the ultimate horror he will witness
before his nightmare ends -- a horror that will change his life forever.
The Birchbark House
With The Birchbark House, award-winning author Louise Erdrich's first novel for
young readers, this same slice of history is seen through the eyes of the spirited,
7-year-old Ojibwa girl Omakayas, or Little Frog, so named because her first step
was a hop. The sole survivor of a smallpox epidemic on Spirit Island, Omakayas,
then only a baby girl, was rescued by a fearless woman named Tallow and
welcomed into an Ojibwa family on Lake Superior's Madeline Island, the Island of
the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker. We follow Omakayas and her adopted family
through a cycle of four seasons in 1847, including the winter, when a historically
documented outbreak of smallpox overtook the island. Readers will be riveted by
the daily life of this Native American family, in which tanning moose hides,
picking berries, and scaring crows from the cornfield are as commonplace as
encounters with bear cubs and fireside ghost stories.