Family
Family > father
Just the Two of Us
Lyrics from the song put in illustrated book form. Father reminisces about raising his son incorporating themes about good decision making, love, and respect. A love song of a father to his son. The illustrations by Kadir Nelson really amplify the message
| Author: Smith, Will |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading | social studies
|
My Ol' Man
Patricia Polacco once again uses her rich family background to tell the story of her father, a traveling salesman, and the magic, hope, and dreams he inspired. (Photos of the author and her family adorn the inside covers.)
| Author: Polacco, Patricia |
|
Tibet Through the Red Box
The author-illustrator returns to his father's home as an adult to learn the contents of a mysterious red box that his father had brought back from Tibet years before. The past is revealed through a diary, memories, and extraordinary illustrations.
Family > father > father-child relationships
Ajeemah and His Son
This very powerful, short chapter book (83 pages) is set first in Africa, then on a slave ship, and then in Jamaica where Ajeemah and his son are taken. It tells the story of a father and son who are captured outside of their village and torn from their
| Author: Berry, James |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
Ann and Seamus
This story of a real event in 1828 alternates chapters in free verse of the two characters of the title. Ann, a real teenager, wants to experience the world beyond Newfoundland, and Seamus, a fictional Irish immigrant, wants to find fortune and a wife.
| Author: Major, Kevin |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading | social studies
|
At Gleason's Gym
The story of Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn NY, and the many people who use it. It includes a brief story of Sugar Boy Younan, National Silver Gloves Champion 2006. The words and pictures tap into the senses. The illustrations demonstrate the rhythm to the mus
| Author: Lewin, Ted |
HSE Descriptors:
literature and arts | social studies
|
Bat Boy and His Violin, The
Reginald is more interested in his violin than his father's job managing the worst baseball team in the Negro Leagues. Then his father makes him the team's bat boy, and his music begins to lead the team to victory. Father and son begin to understand each
Because of Winn-Dixie
10-year-old Opal and her preacher father move to a small Florida town. Opal finds a dog (Winn-Dixie), gradually eases her loneliness, and learns to accept some losses.
Becoming Billie Holiday
Weatherford uses the titles of Billie Holiday songs as titles for poems that tell the story of Billie's life and road to fame.
| Author: Weatherford, Carole Boston |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
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
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
Bored and lonely after his family moves from Berlin to a place called "Out-with" (Auschwitz) in 1942, Bruno, the son of a Nazi officer, befriends a boy in striped pajamas who lives behind a wire fence. Bruno climbs into the camp to spend more time with hi
| Author: Boyne, John |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
Boy Named Reckoning, A: A: The True Story of Dr. Carlos Montezuma, Native American Hero
The author has pieced together the writings of Dr. Carlos Montezuma to tell his life story in letter form. He was a Native American boy who was kidnapped, sold into slavery and eventually educated in Chicago. He devoted the rest of his life to lobbying fo
| Author: Capaldi, Gina |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading | social studies
|
Boy of the Deeps
On his first day in the coal mines, a boy with his father survive an accident.
| Author: Wallace, Ian |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
Bud, Not Buddy
It's 1936, Flint, Michigan, and 10-year-old Bud (not Buddy) has run away from foster care to search for his father. (Newbery winner)
| Author: Curtis, Christopher Paul |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading | social studies
|
Butter Man, The
The father of a young child recalls a time of poverty and famine in Morocco. Written in descriptive language, this is a story within a story. Rich author's note and glossary help support this read to become a literary event. Folk art paintings by Julie
| Author: Alalou, Elizabeth |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading | social studies
|
Charlotte
When 10-year-old Charlotte's father forbids her to associate with her cousins because her uncle was a royalist in the American Revolution, she disobeys with lifelong consequences. The book includes an Afterword about Charlotte's later life.
| Author: Lunn, Janet |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
Christmas Tapestry
While seeking to renovate their church, a minister and his son help reunite a Jewish couple separated in World War II.
| Author: Polacco, Patricia |
|
Clara Schumann
This biography chronicles the life of Clara Schumann, child prodigy and wife of composer Robert Schumann and mother of eight children. The book is illustrated with portraits and diary excerpts. A preface, an epilogue, a timeline, and an index make the b
| Author: Reich, Susan |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading
|
Dog Lost
An eleven-year old boy and pit bull terrier become best of friends. In an angry rage, the father throws the dog out into the street and the dog is forced to survive. Eventually the boy and his dog are reunited but not before the dog becomes a local hero
| Author: Lee, Ingrid |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading
|
ellington was not a street
The poet lovingly remembers her family's recent history that was filled with stars of the African American firmament. Brief biographies of the people depicted add welcome information.
| Author: Shange, Ntozake |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading
|
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
|
Fly Away Home
A homeless boy and his dad live at the airport while the father tries to find an apartment and a job. They hide out from airport officials but receive support from another down-on-their-luck family.
Ghost Train
Choon-yi is a painter. Her father leaves China for North America to find work. He asks her to join him, but when she arrives, she discovers that he has been killed on the job. As Choon-yi tries to paint the train, a ghostly presence beckons her.
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.
I Dream of Trains
This is the story of an African-American boy who lives in the South before the Great Migration, who loves trains, and who stands in awe of Casey Jones.
| Author: Johnson, Angela |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
If: A Fathers Advice to His Son
Sports themed photographs accompany Kiplings poem about the qualities that make up a mature person.
| Author: Kipling, Rudyard |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading
|
Jimi: Sounds Like a Rainbow
Told in vivid language and stunningly illustrated, this is a story of a talented child who discovers his love of music and learns to see, hear, and interpret the world around him in his own unique way.
| Author: Golio, Gary |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading | language arts - writing
|
Just the Two of Us
Lyrics from the song put in illustrated book form. Father reminisces about raising his son incorporating themes about good decision making, love, and respect. A love song of a father to his son. The illustrations by Kadir Nelson really amplify the message
| Author: Smith, Will |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading | social studies
|
Last Leaf First Snowflake to Fall
Part creation myth, part father/son initiation story, the book beautifully depicts a journey through the woods as the scene changes from fall to winter.
| Author: Yerxa, Leo |
HSE Descriptors:
science
|
Life Is So Good
This is the autobiography of George Dawson, grandson of slaves, who began to learn to read at age 98. Like Having Our Say, this book offers an African American perspective to 100 years of history. Moreover, Dawson's character and philosophy for l
| Author: Dawson, George & Glaubman, Richard |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - writing | social studies
|
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
This coming-of-age novel is a Newbery Honor Book. It tells the story of people in Maine in the early 1900s, a friendship between a minister's son and an island girl, and the ways greed and prejudice change all their lives.
Lost Lake, The
A boy and his dad go out trekking, looking for a private lake, and in the process they grow closer.
Maus I: My Father Bleeds History
This is the first of two volumes about the experiences of the author's parents in the Nazi concentration camps during WWII. The author depicts Jews as mice and Nazis as cats in his illustrations.
| Author: Spiegelman, Art |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
Maus II: A Survivor's Tale
A powerful graphic novel about a father who survived the Nazi concentration camps and his son in which Jews are depicted as mice and Nazis as cats. The story jumps back and forth between the present life in the Catskills and the past life in the camps.
| Author: Spiegelman, Art |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
Memories of Summer
The novel is set in 1955. A father and 2 daughters (Lyric, the narrator, is 13 and sister Summer is 16) move from rural Kentucky to Flint, MI. The story is about the move, about Lyric's adjustment, but mostly about Summer's descent into mental illness and
Moon Over Tennessee
A boy accompanies his father into the Confederate Army in the Civil War, eventually arriving at the battle of Gettysburg. The story-poem is told in a format of journal entries. Somber black and white woodcuts contribute to the tragic tone. A map and an
| Author: Crist-Evans, Craig |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
Out of the Dust
Set in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl years of the Depression, this powerful book tells in unobtrusive blank verse the story of personal tragedy and community hardship through the experiences of Billy Jo, a 15-year-old girl. The book is so credible that
| Author: Hesse, Karen |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading | social studies
|
Peppe the Lamplighter
A young Italian immigrant boy has to find a job lighting the lamps to help support his invalid father and many sisters. His proud father thinks it is inferior work until the night the boy refuses to light the lamps, and his little sister does not return
| Author: Bartone, Elisa |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
Printer, The
A son retells the story of his father, a deaf printer working in a newspaper plant in the 1940's who used sugn language to save his co-workers from a fire. In addition, the author gives biographical information about his father who was the model for the
Romeo and Juliet, (The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of)
This lively, clear, prose retelling of
Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet follows the original story very closely.
| Author: Shakespeare, William |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading
|
Ruby's Wish
The author tells the story of her Chinese grandmother, Ruby, who yearned for learning and the opportunity to attend the university, which was against custom.
| Author: Bridges, Shirin Yim |
|
Runaway Girl: The Artist Louise Bourgeois
This biography of Louise Bourgeois traces the influences of her childhood in France and her independent development as a woman artist later in the U.S. The book includes beautiful reproductions of her work and numerous back pages for further exploration.
| Author: Greenberg & Jordan, Sandra |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - writing | social studies
|
Seek
For a senior class autobiography assignment, Robbie creates "a sound portrait" in a radio script format, which includes his extended family and his search for his long-absent father. One reviewer thought that the text is too disjointed and confusing for
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."
Somewhere In the Darkness
Jimmy, a teenager, lives in the city with Mama Jean. Then he meets Crab, a "man with something to prove. Maybe Crab's not sure what it is; maybe Jimmy's not sure he wants to know. But it may be the last chance Crab has to tell Jimmy who he was, and who
| Author: Myers, Walter Dean |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading
|
Step Toward Heaven, A
When Young Ju emigrates with her immediate family to America from Korea, she misses her grandparents. As she grows older, she finds a refuge from her father's physical abuse in school achievement. The author mimics the style of narration with the age of
Stitches: A Memoir
An autobiographical graphic novel that profoundly describes the author's disturbing and often horrific childhood. This is a riveting and groundbreaking work by children's book illustrator David Small.
| Author: Small, David |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading | language arts - writing
|
Time to Love, A
Beautifully illustrated and ably introduced by sons of the author, this book retells six Bible stories from different perspectives, all revealing aspects of love--father/son, friends, brothers, lovers, and daughters-in-law. Teachers can promote religious
| Author: Myers, Walter Dean |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading
|
Wall, The
In this emotionally charged book told from the point of view of the child, a boy and his dad look for the grandfather's name on the Vietnam Memorial.
| Author: Bunting, Eve |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
Way a Door Closes, The
Told in a poetry format, a teenage boy describes his reaction to his father's leaving the family, and then to his return.
| Author: Smith, Hope Anita |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading | language arts - writing
|
Welcome to the World
This poetry book also includes stunning photos from all over the world, from a Seminole poem written in the U.S. to poetry from Southeast Asia. It ends with two pages of information on birthing traditions.
| Author: Siegen-Smith, Nikki (compiled by) |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading
|
With a Hammer for My Heart
When 15-year-old Lawanda befriends a WW II veteran living in an old school bus, she sets in motion events that will change her life and all those around her. The well-written story unfolds with each chapter telling the story from the point of view of eac
| Author: Lyon, George Ella |
|
Young Man and the Sea, The
In an attempt to push his father out of the alcohol-fueled funk he's been in since his wife died, 12-year-old Skiff Beaman repairs the family fishing boat and meets a 900-lb. tuna 30 miles at sea.
| Author: Philbrick, Rodman |
|
Young Man and the Sea, The
In an attempt to push his father out of the alcohol-fueled funk he's been in since his wife died, 12-year-old Skiff Beaman repairs the family fishing boat and meets a 900-lb. tuna 30 miles at sea.
| Author: Philbrick, Rodman |
|
Young Teddy Roosevelt
A biography of the life of Theodore Roosevelt up to the time of his presidency has illustrations that are as interesting as the well-written text.
| Author: Harness, Cheryl |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
|
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