Elijah of Buxton
by Christopher Paul Curtis
from Scholastic Press
The House of Dies Drear
by Virginia Hamilton
from Aladdin
A huge, old house with secret tunnels, a cantankerous caretaker, and buried treasure is a dream-come-true for 13-year-old Thomas. The fact that it's reputedly haunted only adds to its appeal! As soon as his family moves in, Thomas senses something strange about the Civil War era house, which used to be a critical stop on the Underground Railroad. With the help of his father, he learns about the abolitionists and escaping slaves who kept the Underground Railroad running. While on his own, he explores the hidden passageways in and under the house, piecing clues together in an increasingly dangerous quest for the truth about the past. Newbery medalist Virginia Hamilton creates a heart-pounding adventure with this absorbing classic for older readers. (Ages 9 to 12)
The house held secrets, Thomas knew, even before he first saw it looming gray and massive on its ledge of rock. It had a century-old legend -- two fugitive slaves had been killed by bounty hunters after leaving its passageways, and Dies Drear himself, the abolitionist who had made the house into a station on the Underground Railroad, had been murdered there. The ghosts of the three were said to walk its rooms....
Rush Home Road
by Lori Lansens
from Little, Brown and Company
When 5-year old Sharla Cody is dumped on the doorstep of Addy Shadd, a 70-year old woman living in a trailer park, Addy does not know how completely her life is about to change. She's hardly used to company and the troubled Sharla is not the sweet, beautiful angel she had envisioned. Over time, Addy and Sharla form a bond that neither of them expected-and Sharla begins to undergo a transformation under Addy's patient and loving care. But much to Addy's surprise and dismay, Sharla's presence brings back memories of her own tumultuous childhood. As she reminisces about her days growing up in Rusholme, a town settled by fugitive slaves in the mid 1800s, she remembers her family and her first love and confronts the painful experience that drove her away from home, never to return.
Brilliantly structured and achingly lyrical, this beautiful first novel by the award-winning author of The Girls tells the story of two unlikely people thrown together who transform each other's lives forever.
The African Safari Papers
by Robert Sedlack
from Overlook TP
The African Safari Papers is an intense and outrageous portrait of a family so troubled that their family trip is, in a word, torture. Richard Clark, the narrator of this sharp and madcap novel, is nineteen years old, a drug-addicted, foul-mouthed, sex-crazed young man who is off to Africa on a safari with his parents. Obviously, this is a mistake of magnitude. As Richard smolders with resentment, his voice by turns self-loathing and self-righteous, he documents his trip in a series of journal entries that are funny, sad, and piercingly insightful. Juxtaposed with the hostile environment, the already tense situation becomes explosive: Mom is going insane, Dad drinks compulsively as he ticks off wildlife sightings on his checklist, and Richard is busy getting high on the drugs he has smuggled in his mother's suitcase. Anything can happen, and it does, in this Catcher in the Rye for the twenty-first century.
Ann and Seamus
by Kevin Major
from Groundwood Books
This historical fiction's rich yet accessible narrative verse draws the reader into the drama of sea rescue, without losing the tender and impetuous voices of youth at the core of the story. David Blackwood's illustrations present stark, intense impressions of life at the edge of the North Atlantic.
Wait and See (Classic Munsch)
by Robert N. Munsch
from Annick Press
It is Olivia's birthday, and when she blows out the candles on her cake and makes a wish she gets exactly what she wanted!
Teenage Refugees from Rwanda Speak Out (In Their Own Voices)
from Rosen Publishing Group
Teenagers from Rwanda, both Hutu and Tutsi, describe the conditions in their war-torn country that led them to seek safety and new lives in the United States and Canada.
Espera y veras
by Robert Munsch
from Annick Press
It is Olivia's birthday, and when she blows out the candles on her cake and makes a wish she gets exactly what she wanted!
Lightning & Blackberries
by Joanna Jefferson
from Nimbus
Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Evans is the privileged and naïve only child of prominent New Englanders, part of a group of Planters who settled in Nova Scotia following the deportation of the Acadian people. As a teenager, she is leading a carefree life in the Annapolis Valley, tending to her cows on the family farm, daydreaming by the brook, and resisting her mother’s attempts to refine her manners and marry her off. She thinks nothing will ever change. But a stranger’s arrival at Evans Hall, and a chance meeting with a mysterious Acadian girl in the woods nearby turn Elizabeth’s carefree life upside down. And when she learns the truth about the history of the farm she loves so well, she knows nothing will ever be the same.
Zack
by William Bell
from Simon Pulse
In this intriguing story that will appeal to younger teens, a boy goes on a journey in search of his roots. Zack is the son of an unlikely but happy marriage: his mother is a black blues singer and his father is a white Jewish college professor. Zack is resentful and bitter toward his parents for moving--in his last year of high school--from Toronto to a small college town in the country. He misses the excitement of the city, and things are rough at school, where he meets racial rejection for the first time in his life. Zack is comfortable with his Jewish heritage through his paternal grandparents, but his mother has without explanation cut off all contact with her relatives in Mississippi, so he knows nothing about his own black history. When he finds an old chest buried in the back yard and discovers that it belonged to a freed slave, his interest in exploring his African American background is piqued. While his parents are on a trip, he commandeers the family truck and drives to Mississippi to meet his grandfather. There Zack discovers a part of himself that he never knew, but he also must face the bitter understanding that racism can be a double-edged sword. (Ages 10 to 14) --Patty Campbell
Jack, a senior in high school, has one last chance to save his history grade. So, while his parents are both away, he plans a road trip to Mississippi to interview his maternal grandfather, whom he has never met.
What Zack finds, after being stopped by police, getting caught in a rainstorm, and damaging the family truck, is worst than he had expected. But it could also hold the key to Zak's future.
A compelling on-the-road saga, coming of age story, and a portrait of an interracial family, Zack is one book you'll never forget.
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