Number the Stars

Name of Book:  Number the Stars Author:  Lois Lowry Publisher:  Sandpiper ISBN:  978-0547577098 Audience:  Ages 10-14 Summary:  Young Annemarie Nielsen and her friend Ellen Rosen live in occupied Copenhagen in 1943. Though young, they understand that the occupation of their city by the Nazis is frightening and dangerous, especially for Jews like Ellen and her [...]

Walking Home to Rosie Lee

Title:  Walking Home to Rosie Lee Author:  A. LaFaye Illustrator: Keith D. Shepherd Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press ISBN:  9781933693972 Audience: First grade and up, parents and children Summary: Slavery separated many African American families as parents and children were sold and sent to different plantations. At the close of the Civil War these people were [...]

Journey to the Bottomless Pit: The Story of Stephen Bishop and Mammoth Cave

Name of Book: Journey to the Bottomless Pit Author: Elizabeth Mitchell Illustrator: Kelynn Alder Publisher:  Scholastic ISBN: 0439826403 (paperback) Audience: 6-8th grade Summary:  This is a fictionalized history of Stephen Bishop, a Kentucky slave in 1838 who at the age of 17 began to guide tours through  Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.  The story describes how [...]

Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom

Name of Book: Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom Author: Katherine Paterson Publisher: Groundwood Books ISBN: 9780888998859 Audience: Ages 9 – 12 Summary: Fifteen-year-old Wang Lee is abducted from his home by bandits and rescued by Mei Lin who is a member of the Taiping, a 19th century Chinese secret society dedicated to the establishment of [...]

Snowshoe Thompson

Name of Book:  Snowshoe Thompson Author:  Nancy Levinson Publisher:  HarperCollins ISBN:  978-0064442060 Audience:  Ages 3-6  (I Can Read) Literary elements at work in the story:  Easy-to-read books often suffer from the use of limited vocabulary and sentence structure, but Levinson has overcome both of these obstacles.  This story is as compelling and interesting as any [...]

Letting Swift River Go

Name of book:  Letting Swift River Go Author:  Jane Yolen Publisher:  Little Brown ISBN: 978-0316968607 Audience:  Ages 4-8 Summary:  Sally Jane tells the story of the demise of her beloved town along the Swift River in Massachusetts. The town will be flooded along with the rest of the valley to form the Quabbin reservoir that [...]

Someday

Name of Book:   Someday Author: Jackie Koller Publisher: iUniverse ISBN: 978-1440186752 Audience:  Ages 12+ Summary:  It is 1939. Celie is 14 years old has lots to worry about. She is about to lose her home, which has been in her family since the 1700′s, to the flooding of Swift River. The river is being flooded [...]

Train to Somewhere

Name of Book: Train to Somewhere Author: Eve Bunting Illustrator: Ronald Himler Publisher: Clarion Books, New York Audience: Ages 8-13 Summary: From the mid-1850s to the late 1920s, “Orphan Trains” took children from the streets and orphanages of New York City to adoptive families in the West.  Some of the children found loving homes.  Others [...]

Bread and Roses, Too

Name of Book: Bread and Roses, Too Author: Katherine Paterson Publisher: Sandpiper an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ISBN: 978-0-547-07651-5 Audience: Grades 4-8 Summary: A historical fiction novel that follows Jake and Rose, two children whose lives are impacted by the struggles of immigrant workers during a labor strike of a mill during the industrial [...]

Goin’ Someplace Special

Name of Book: Goin’ Someplace Special Author: Patricia C. McKissack Illustrator: Jerry Pinkney Publisher: Antheneum Books ISBN: 0689818858 Audience: Ages: 6 – 12 Summary: Patricia C. McKissack recounts her own story of growing up in racially segregated Nashville, Tennessee during the 1950’s. Goin’ Someplace Special follows a girl named Tricia Ann as she leaves the [...]