Family
Family > children
Family > children > childhood
American Boy: The Adventures of Mark Twain
This biography of Sam Clemens focuses primarily on his childhood. Readers will see many parallels between young Sam's adventures and those of his famous characters Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.
| Author: Brown, Don |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading
|
Bee & Jacky
A brother and sister suffer the effects of their father's Vietnam trauma and their mother's ineffectualness by resuming a physical relationship. This moving, psychologically honest book is difficult to read because the real or imagined incest is portraye
Brown Angels: An Album of Picture and Verse
This book is a collection of very short poems and photographs of African-American children. Many of the photos are from the turn of the century.
| Author: Myers, Walter Dean |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading
|
Coming Home
The book tells the story of Langston Hughes' lonely childhood, demonstrating that certain themes and ideas that later emerged in Hughes' poetry grew from his experiences as a child.
| Author: Cooper, Floyd |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading
|
Cool Moonlight, A
Lila, who has an allergy to sunlight, lives with her disability helped by her family and friends, real and imaginary. The author uses lyrical language deftly to tell the story with great sensitivity and lightness.
First Impressions: Andrew Wyeth
This biography of Andrew Wyeth is the result of a friendship between the artist and the author. The book focuses on Wyeth's early years, his relationship with his father, and his development as an artist. One reader felt that the vocabulary might be diff
| Author: Meryman, Richard |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading
|
Knoxville, Tennessee
This brief and beautifully illustrated poem celebrates a young child's summer in Knoxville, TN.
| Author: Giovanni, Nikki |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading
|
Miss Spitfire
Using real letters and records, the author vividly imagines the early days of the relationship between Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan from the teacher's perspective.
Miss Spitfire
Using real letters and records, the author vividly imagines the early days of the relationship between Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan from the teacher's perspective.
Odd Boy Out: Young Albert Einstein
This picture book biography of Albert Einstein focuses on his early years when he did not fit in--anywhere. Don Brown illustrates his book in delightful ink and watercolor and includes a biographical note updating the events of the book.
| Author: Brown, Don |
HSE Descriptors:
science | math
|
Odd Boy Out: Young Albert Einstein
This picture book biography of Albert Einstein focuses on his early years when he did not fit in--anywhere. Don Brown illustrates his book in delightful ink and watercolor and includes a biographical note updating the events of the book.
| Author: Brown, Don |
HSE Descriptors:
science | math
|
Poetry for Young People: Edna St. Vincent Millay
Beautifully illustrated collection of Edna St. Vincent Millay's poetry. The volume also includes a sketch of the poet's life.
| Author: Francis Schoonmaker |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading
|
Salt: A Story of Friendship in Time of War
Set in the Indiana Territory, this story of two friends - Anikwa, a Miami Indian and James, the son of a white trader become friends despite the conflict of their heritage. This book is uniquely crafted in two style of poetic verse. Salt plays a symbolic
| Author: Frost, Helen |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies | language arts - reading
|
Silent Music
A young boy in present-day Baghdad learns Arabic calligraphy to distract him from the bombing of his city. The gorgeous illustrations invite the reader to learn to write the Arabic words for "war" and "peace." An author's note gives the historical backg
| Author: Rumford, James |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
Stand for Children
Marian Wright Edelman delivered this speech at the Stand for Children demonstration in 1996 in Washington, D.C. Pictures of photo-transfer quilts with multicultural themes illustrate the book. An Author's Note gives background on the demonstration.
| Author: Edelman, Marian Wright |
|
To Go Singing Through the World
The childhood of one of Chile's most famous poets is told through a juxtaposition of the author's narrative and Neruda's own words. This beautifully illustrated biography includes excerpts of poems, maps, a time line, and a concise full-life biography.
| Author: Ray, Deborah Kogan |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading
|
Under the Shadow of Wings
Obie, a developmentally disabled boy dies causing a variety of emotional response from his friend Tatnall, an 11-year-old girl.
Family > children > childhood memories
Before I Was Your Mother
A mother tells her daughter stories about herself before she became a mother who does many things.
Before John Was a Jazz Giant
The author imagines the sounds of John Coltrane's childhood that influenced his musical compositions as an adult. A historical note, selected listening and further reading are included.
| Author: Weatherford, Carole Boston |
|
Before John Was a Jazz Giant
The author imagines the sounds of John Coltrane's childhood that influenced his musical compositions as an adult. A historical note, selected listening and further reading are included.
| Author: Weatherford, Carole Boston |
|
Cat with the Yellow Star, The: Coming of Age in Terezin
Ela Weissberger's life before, during, and after she and her family were forced to live in the Jewish ghetto of Terezin during WWII. Photographs reinforce Ela's memories of survival and hope.
| Author: Rubin, Susan Goldman |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
Dear Willie Rudd
Miss Elizabeth, thinking 50 years back, remembers Willie Rudd, the African American housekeeper who raised her, her mother, and her grandmother. She writes a letter to the long-dead Willie Rudd in which she explains the past and expresses her feelings.
| Author: Gray, Libba Moore |
|
Do I Dare Disturb the Universe:
Charlise Lyles grew up in Cleveland in the 1960s and 1970s. This memoir focuses on life in the projects, her family's struggle to survive, her mother's relentless work to provide opportunities for children. Mostly, though, it's about Charlise-- her though
Escape from Saigon: How a Vietnam War Orphan Became an American Boy
This is an informative account of a child left behind when his American soldier father left Vietnam and his mother died. It traces his journey to America, his adopted family and his eventual return to his homeland to help orphans.
| Author: Warren, Andrea |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies | language arts - reading
|
Families
The author interviewed 15 children from a variety of families. Each interview is accompanied by a photo of the family selected by the child.
| Author: Kuklin, Susan |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
Four Perfect Pebbles: A Holocaust Story
Author's memoir of the years that shaped her childhood as her Jewish family is trapped in Nazi Germany, sent to prison camps, and escapes to the United States.
| Author: Perl, Lila and Blumenthal, Marion Lazan |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading | social studies
|
Glass Castle, The: A Memoir
Jeannette Walls' memoir of her dysfunctional but vibrant family and the resilience and loyalty they exhibited.
Glass Castle, The: A Memoir
Jeannette Walls' memoir of her dysfunctional but vibrant family and the resilience and loyalty they exhibited.
Grandmama's Pride
This is a most beautiful book focusing on the segregation practiced in the south during the 1950's leading to the civil rights laws passed in the 60's. The illustrations make the book come alive with details showing the inequalities practiced in every day
| Author: Birtha, Becky |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
Grandmama's Pride
This is a most beautiful book focusing on the segregation practiced in the south during the 1950's leading to the civil rights laws passed in the 60's. The illustrations make the book come alive with details showing the inequalities practiced in every day
| Author: Birtha, Becky |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
Hidden Child
A survivor of the Holocaust describes with illustrations and text his hiding in France during World War II and his search for his family and friends after the war.
| Author: Millman, Isaac |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
How I Discovered Poetry
Marilyn Nelson describes her childhood in America in the 1950s, as the daughter of an African American Army officer. The poems span from her fourth to fourteenth year and touch aspects of civil rights, "Red Scare," atom bomb and the stirrings of the femin
| Author: Nelson, Marilyn |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading | social studies | language arts - writing
|
In Coal Country
Living in a small Ohio mining town, a small girl tells of her family's life in the first part of this century.
| Author: Hendershot, Judith |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
Long Way From Chicago, A
Subtitled "A Novel in Stories," this is a book about Joey and Mary Alice, who leave their home in Chicago each summer during the Depression to spend a week with Grandma Dowdel, who lives in a very small downstate town and who is, to say the least, an unfo
Memories of Sun
This is a collection of modern day short stories and poems about Africa. It has three divisions: 1) Africa 2) Americans in Africa 3) Africans in America. Although most of the 12 stories are engaging, teachers will want to read beforehand since some may
| Author: Kurtz, Jane (Ed.) |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading | social studies
|
Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot
During the occupation of Germany after WW II, a young girl writes a letter to an American airlift pilot who drops chocolates to children. The author includes a biography of Col. Halvorsen, "the chocolate pilot" of the title.
Mississippi Mud: Three Prairie Journals
Three pioneer children recount their trip across the prairie in a series of easy-to-read poems.
| Author: Turner, Ann |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
My Mama Had a Dancing Heart
In simple poetic language, a ballet dancer recalls how she and her mother welcomed the seasons by dancing outdoors and being together.
| Author: Gray, Libba Moore |
|
No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War
A touching recounting of a Jewish child's survival in Nazi Poland. Hidden with her Catholic nanny, Anita and her younger brother are hidden for years but are eventually caught and imprisoned. After freedom, they are both sent to a sanatorium for tubercul
| Author: Lobel, Anita |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading | social studies
|
Other Side, The
Spurred by a letter from her grandmother saying that "they're pulling Shorter down," the poet returns to the people and places of her childhood in Shorter, Alabama. The poems are accessible and concise but filled with powerful feeling. Photographs from
Rescued Images
The author contributes a moving and strikingly illustrated memoir of her experience of being a "hidden child" in Holland during World War II and its far-reaching effect.
| Author: Jacobsen, Ruth |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
Richard Wright and the Library Card
This is a 'slice of life' biography about the author Richard Wright set in his late adolescence/ young adulthood. Events deal with discrimination, Richard's discovery of literature, and how he decided to become an author.
| Author: Miller, William |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading | social studies
|
Seventeenth Child, The
The author writes the oral history of her mother, who is the seventeenth child in her family growing up in the South during the Depression.
| Author: Rice, Dorothy & Payne, Lucille |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
Sigmund Freud
This biography introduces the history of the study of the physical and emotional aspects of the mind as well as the colorful life of Sigmund Freud. Additional resources include an appendix, a bibliography, web sites, and an index.
| Author: Krull, Kathleen |
HSE Descriptors:
science
|
Silent Boy, The
Katy,the young and curious daughter of a small-town doctor living in 1908, learns about life, death, and social distinctions from her family and her friend, Jacob, who is "touched."
Silver Packages
A man returns to his childhood home in Appalachia to thank the benefactor on the Christmas Train. The story originally appeared in Rylant's book Children of Christmas: Stories for the Season.
Slavery Time: When I Was Chillun
Excerpts from 12 oral histories from former slaves, gathered during the Depression by WPA workers, provide several perspectives about slave life as remembered by the people interviewed, who were in their 80s and 90s at the time of the interviews.
| Author: Hurmence, Belinda |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
So Far From the Sea
A Japanese American visits Manazar, a Japanese relocation camp in World War II, to visit the grave of a grandfather.
| Author: Bunting, Eve |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
That Summer
A boy looks back on the summer that his brother became ill and died.
This Land is My Land
By telling his own story in words and in art, Littlefield describes what it is to be Native-American in the United States. He pays tribute to his ancestors and to the Native-American culture and history.
| Author: Littlechild, George |
|
Wall, The: Growing up behind the iron curtain
Author-illustrator Peter Sis documents his growing up in Czechoslovakia behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, using extraordinary drawings in black, white, and red that precede two-page spreads of journal entries. Because the running text at the b
| Author: Sis, Peter |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies | language arts - reading | language arts - writing
|
Wolf on the Fold
Six linked storeis follow an Australian family from 1935 to 2002 as different generations cope with discord and violence. The use of flashbacks may cause some readers difficulty.
Year Down Yonder, A
This is the sequel to A Long Way From Chicago. Both books have won awards, the Newbery Medal for this one. Mary Alice goes to live with her spunky, trouble-making grandma in rural Illinois because the Depression has torn her family apart.
Zlata's Diary
Eleven-year old Zlata keeps a diary during the siege of Sarajevo in 1992-93. The first part of the diary has insights about a child living her life in war torn Sarajevo, the second part becomes tedious and repetitive.
| Author: Filipovic, Zlata |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
|
