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 [...]

Invincible Louisa

Name of Book:  Invincible Louisa Author:  Cornelia Meigs Publisher:  Little, Brown and Company ISBN:  978-0316565943 Audience:  An Amazon reviewer self-identified as “10-year old reader states “It is a wonderful book for 11, 12, and 13 year olds, or 10 year olds who are advanced in reading.” I would say that anyone who read Little Women and loved [...]

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 [...]

The Bracelet

Name of Book: The Bracelet Author:  Yoshiko Uchida Publisher:  Puffin ISBN: 978-0698113909 Audience:  Ages 4-9 Summary:   During World War II, Second grader Emi is one of thousands told they must give up everything and move to an internment camp. Why? Because their relatives came from Japan. In many cases, as in Emi’s, those relatives came [...]

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 [...]

John Calvin

Name of Book: John Calvin Author: Simonetta Carr Illustrator: Emmanuele Taglietti Publisher: Reformation Heritage Books ISBN: 9781601780553 Audience: Ages: 7-10 Summary: This is a biography of the reformer, John Calvin, that provides the reader with the basics of Calvin’s life and teaching in a very readable and interesting way. The author does not spend a [...]

Our Children Can Soar

Name of Book:  Our Children Can Soar Author:  Michelle Cook Illustrator:  Cozbi Cabrera, R. Gregroy Christie; Bryan Collier; Pat Cummings; Leo and Diane Dillon; AG Ford; E.B. Lewis; Frank Morrison; James Ransome; Charlotte Riley Webb; Shadra Strickland; Eric Velasquez Publisher: Bloomsbury Audience: 3-8 years old Summary: This book highlights some key figures in the African [...]

Whittington

Name of Book:   Whittington Author:  Alan Armstrong Illustrator:  S. D. Schindler Publisher:  Random House Children’s Books Audience:   Ages 8 and up Summary: This is a story of the animals that live in Bernie’s barn.  Bernie takes in the animals that no one else has any use for – two retired sulky horses, an overly enthusiastic [...]