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9-11 Artists Respond: Volume One
Over 100 graphic artists draw their reactions to the 9-ll attack on the World Trade Center. There are as many styles and points-of-view as artists. Although graphic in nature, some texts would be difficult for beginning readers due to size and type face
Author: No author cited |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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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
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Angels in the Dust
A poignant story of a family living in the Dust Bowl trying to make ends meet.
Author: Raven, Margot Theis |
HSE Descriptors:
science | social studies
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Ashfall
Alex, fifteen, was left alone in Cedar Falls, Iowa, for the weekend while his father, mother and sister, traveled to Illinois to visit an uncle. Then the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, plunging his hometown into a nightmare of darkness, ash and violenc
Author: Mullin, Mike |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies | science | language arts - reading
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At the End of Words: A Daughter's Memoir
What happens "at the end of words"? The author faced this difficult question as a teenager. Through alternating narration and poetry, she shares her anger, sorrow, confusion, and healing after her mother's death from breast cancer.
Baby
A family finds a baby on its doorstep with a note asking them to care for the baby indefinitely. They begin to love the baby, even though they know they will have to say goodbye, and through the process of becoming attached to the child they are able to
Author: MacLachlan, Patricia |
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Bearing Witness
This selection of powerful personal stories of the Holocaust in various literary and artistic forms gives testimony of the extraordinary bravery of ordinary people. A map of concentration camps, a bibliography, and brief introductory notes for each excer
Author: Rochman, Hazel & McCampbell, Darlene (Eds.) |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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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
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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
Blues Journey
Father and son team up to celebrate the blues in beautiful illustrations and lyrics. A short essay introduces the reader to the history and structure of blues. A timeline and glossary enable the reader to immerse himself in the form.
Author: Myers, Walter Dean |
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Brothers In Hope
The author, who worked with the International Rescue Committee, tells the story of the "lost boys" of Sudan, orphaned by war, who walked to refuge in Ethiopia, and later to Kenya. The first person narrative and vibrant illustrations add immediacy to the
Author: Williams, Mary |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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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
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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
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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 |
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Corpses, Coffins, and Crypts
"Drawing on extensive historical and anthropological research, personal accounts, and interviews of people who work in the funeral industry, Penny Colman examines... death and burial across cultures and societies" (dust jacket). Appendices include a chron
Author: Colman, Penny |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Eleanor
This biography of Eleanor Roosevelt's early life conveys the emotionally impoverished childhood amid wealth and power. The book captures the indomitable spirit of the woman who would become the greatest and most beloved First Lady and a leader in her own
Author: Cooney, Barbara |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Escaping into the Night
Thirteen year old Halina escapes from a Polish ghetto to a forest community of Jews where she and her friends Batya and Reuven learn to survive despite brutality, extreme hardship, and loss of family. Although this book is fiction, there were real commu
Author: Friedman, D. Dina |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Fever 1793
This is a very compelling fictionalization of life for one teenaged girl, her family, and her friends during the yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia in 1793.
Author: Anderson, Laurie Halse |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Finding Fish
This is the autobiography of Antwone Fisher (basis for a movie made by Denzel Washington). Antwone's childhood was filled with emotional and physical abuse. He found a way to overcome this difficult beginning.
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.
Gifts from the Sea
The lives of a lighthousekeeper and his daughter are changed by the discovery of a baby washed ashore after a shipwreck on the coast of Maine in the 1850's.
Author: Kinsey-Warnock, Natalie |
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Gratefully Yours
Orphaned by a New York tenement fire in 1920, Hattie rides an orphan train to Nebraska where she joins the Jansen household, Henry and his wife Elizabeth. The story relates the loss and healing process that both Hattie and Elizabeth experience. The stor
Author: Buchanan, Jane |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Home of the Brave
In a dream-like story and illustrations, Allen Say captures the infamy, dislocation, and loss experienced by Japanese Americans in the internment camps during World War II.
Author: Say, Allen |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This
A moving story of the friendship between two motherless 12-year-old girls--one black and one white--presents issues of racial prejudice, poverty, and child abuse.
Author: Woodson, Jacqueline |
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In the Shadow of No Towers
Part personal reaction to 9/11 and part history of newspaper comics, this book is a bit like a graphic novel. It is raw in tone and difficult to follow at spots.
Author: Spiegelman, Art |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies | language arts - reading
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Invention of Hugo Cabret, The
Part fiction, part graphic novel, this winner of the 2008 Caldecott Medal tells the story of an orphaned boy who maintains and repairs clocks in a Paris train station and discovers the history of an automaton and its maker. When he meets a mysterious toy
Author: Selznick, Brian |
HSE Descriptors:
science | social studies
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Islander, The
An orphaned boy, who grows up with his grandfather on an island off the coast of British Columbia, finds a key-literally--that helps him overcome his loneliness and loss.
Journey
Journey, an eleven-year-old boy whose Mom has left him and his sister to live with her parents, feels angry and betrayed. He spends the summer looking at family photos, learning to recognize the sustaining love of his grandparents, and letting go of his
Author: MacLachlan, Patricia |
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Kamishibai Man
The award-winning author/illustrator introduces the reader to the street storytelling tradition of the "paper-theater man" from his Japanese childhood.
Language of Doves, The
On her sixth birthday, Julietta's grandfather gives her one of his homing pigeons and tells her about his experiences raising and training doves for military use in Italy during WWI.
Author: Wells, Rosemary |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Last Princess, The
This biography recounts the history of Hawaii at the end of the 19th century and the life of the last Hawaiian heir, Princess Ka'iulani, who was denied the throne when the monarchy was abolished.
Author: Stanley, Fay |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Leaving and Other Stories, The
The nine short stories in this collection all feature young people on the brink of adulthood. Although themes vary according to story, most are written as reminiscences. Since the author is Canadian, readers will learn about Canadian culture.
Letting Swift River Go
This book tells the story of a community's act of selling up the houses and land to the government so that a water reservoir can be built. It is told from the view point of a woman who felt as though she lost her childhood because all her landmarks had
Locomotion
Lonnie, a.k.a. Locomotion, is encouraged by his teacher Ms. Marcus to write poetry. His poems, in many, many forms but all accessible, tell his story of losing parents in a fire, separation from his sister, group homes, and foster care.
Author: Woodson, Jacqueline |
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Log Cabin Quilt, The
Elvirey, her brother, grandmother, and father move to a log cabin in the Michigan woods after her mother dies. Granny's quilting scraps serve a greater purpose during a winter storm.
Author: Howard, Ellen |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Love You, Soldier
This touching story about the effects of WW II on one family is told through the eyes of seven-year-old Katie. (NOTE: This is a short chapter book that will be very easy for students to read.)
Author: Hest, Amy |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Memories of Survival
A mother and daughter create a narrative in stitchery and text of the mother's life in Poland during the Nazi occupation.This collection of memories of the holocaust provides a first hand account of danger, despair and hope. The detailed tapestries provid
Author: Krinitz, Esther Nisenthal & Steinhardt, Bernice |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Memory Coat, The
In order to flee persecution as Jews in Russia, Rachel and her cousin Griska emigrate with their extended family to America where they encounter difficulty at Ellis Island. The author provides additional information on immigration from Russia in the endm
Author: Woodruff, Elvira |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Mermaid Summer, The
Jon and Ana, brother and sister, display intelligence and courage as they break a mermaid's curse on their grandfather and the fishing community.
Mind's Eye
This is a novel in play form. Courtney, 16 and paralyzed, learns about the power of the mind from an elderly blind woman and a game they play--taking an imaginary trip to Italy using a 1910 Baedeker's guidebook.
Author: Fleischman, Paul |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Moving Mama to Town
Enterprising Freddy James moves his mother and younger brother to town after his father leaves and the farm fails. He works at the local saloon where he learns from everyone he meets.
Author: Young, Ronder Thomas |
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Music of Dolphins, The
Mila, a feral child raised by dolphins after her parents' death, is rescued, studied and taught human behavior and language at a research center. Different type face and size convey Mila's language development.
My Freedom Trip: A Child's Escape from North Korea
This story describes the flight of a young girl from North to South Korea just before the outbreak of the Korean War. The story is told simply with superb illustrations.
Author: Park, Frances and Park, Ginger |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading | social studies
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My Secret Camera
As a young man in the Lodz Ghetto in Poland, Mendel Grossman, secretly took hundreds of photographs to document the miserable life of the people in the ghetto and their struggles for survival. Simple text accompanies the photographs.
Author: Smith, Frank Dabba |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Our Eleanor
Organized like a scrapbook with themed chronological divisions that contain short texts, this very personable and balanced biography of Eleanor Roosevelt emphasizes her complexity and self-growth and her evolution as a political activist. The author incl
Author: Fleming, Candace |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Peace, Locomotion
This book is a collection of the letters and poems Lonnie, hero of the book Locomotion, writes to his sister Lili, who lives with a different foster parent than Lonnie does. The book is remarkably upbeat while dealing with the family issues that Lonnie an
Author: Woodson, Jacqueline |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - writing
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Peace, Locomotion
This book is a collection of the letters and poems Lonnie, hero of the book Locomotion, writes to his sister Lili, who lives with a different foster parent than Lonnie does. The book is remarkably upbeat while dealing with the family issues that Lonnie an
Author: Woodson, Jacqueline |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - writing
|
Real Time
A gripping story told in real time (hence the title)from the viewpoints of several characters involved in the bombing of an Israeli bus.
Author: Kass, Pnina Moed |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Reappearance of Sam Webber, The
With the help of adult friends, eleven-year-old Sam Webber adjusts to the disappearance of his father and the reduced circumstances of life in Baltimore. Although the story is told from Sam's perspective, every reader can identify with the ultimately upb
Author: Fuqua, Jonathon Scott |
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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
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Sarah, Plain and Tall
A mail-order bride comes from Maine to the midwest; the children (who have lost their mother) desperately hope she'll stay.
Author: MacLachlan, Patricia |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Saying It Out Loud
Mindy is a typical 16-year-old teenager when her mother develops a serious medical problem. This touching story alternates between Mindy's current feelings and actions and flashbacks to earlier memories to show her reaction to this terrible tragedy.
September 11, 2001
A New York Times journalist has chosen to tell the chronology of September 11, 2001, through personal stories. Photographs, maps and diagrams, and a bibliography provide additional resources.
Author: Hampton, Wilborn |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Shattered
This collection contains twelve stories about the impact of war on children and teenagers, some fictional, some personal experiences. A trailer with historical background crawls across the bottom of the page. Biographies of the authors are included.
Author: Armstrong, Jennifer (ed.) |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Tale of Paradise Lost, The
An exquisitly illustrated prose retelling of John Milton's famous poem Paradise Lost.
Author: Willard, Nancy |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading
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That Summer
A boy looks back on the summer that his brother became ill and died.
Through the Mickle Woods
The king is grieving for his dead wife, but with the help of a wise bear and a young boy learns the three lessons about living and loving.
To Be a Slave
Reminiscences of slaves and ex-slaves report their experiences of being owned and sold as property in the United States during the 19th Century. Many accounts of brutality are unsettling. This is a reprint of a 1968 edition with new introductory materia
Author: Lester, Julius |
HSE Descriptors:
social studies
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Toning the Sweep
Emily goes to the desert with her mother to help her dying grandmother Ola pack up her house and move. She slowly comes to terms with her family history and her coming loss.
Traveling Cat, The
A young girl takes in a stray cat who stays long enough to have kittens before traveling on.
Author: Lyon, George Ella |
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War and the Pity of War
This large collection of powerful poems and very moving illustrations on war ranges over time and place and level of difficulty. The editor includes an index of writers, and index of poems, and an introduction thate gives his reasons for selecting partic
Author: Philip, Neil |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading | social studies
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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
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White Wave
Retold from ancient sources, this Chinese tale of a lonely peasant's discovery of a magic shell relates the changes in his life that follow. The delicate pencil drawings by Ed Young complement the text. The author includes a note on the evolution of the
Author: Wolkstein, Diane |
HSE Descriptors:
language arts - reading
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Wild Boy, The
The author tells a very sympathetic account of the wild child of Aveyron, France, who was captured and studied in the early 1800's. Dr. Itard and his housekeeper become the family of this boy who never acquired all the traits of a "civilized" person.
Author: Gerstein, Mordicai |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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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