Lunch-box Dream

The book is set in 1959, a time I remember though I was younger than middle school-age. The book has a lexile of 800, but the book is emotionally difficult. The book is told from multiple points-of-view. Bobby doesn’t like “chocolate” people and is traveling with his brother, Ricky, his mother, and his grandmother. The other narrators are part of the Thomas family, a black family from Georgia.

The trip is to take Grandma back to Florida and they will get to visit Civil War battlefields. This is something that Ricky loves, but Bobby doesn’t care about it. An accident puts Bobby and his mother and brother on the same bus as the Thomases. Bobby learns a lot about how people are alike no matter what their color.

Any of you reading this book who are not an older adult will not remember that this was a time of civil rights turmoil in the United States. The book talks about Jim Crow laws, you can see samples here.

Read part of the book on Google Books.

Camo Girl

Ella is a biracial girl who thinks she is ugly and thinks she is an outcast because her skin has patches of light and dark. She is the only African American student in her school, in a Las Vegas suburb. One of the popular boys at school gave her the name “Camo Girl” because of this condition.  She is best friends and protector of Z, a “weird”, white boy. Z lives in his own “make-believe” world that makes him a knight and Ella his lady, Elie-noor. All things might have continued as they had been if Bailey James had not moved to the school. Bailey is also African American , he is popular, and he seems to want to be Ella’s friend.

The reader will see some of the emotional ups-and-downs the middle-school-aged characters are experiencing and how each deals with friendship, loss, death, and bullying.

The author, Kekla Magoon, has also written The Rock and the River, a 2012 Rebecca Caudill nominee.

You can read and excerpt on Google Books

 

Every Soul a Star

Ida Mae Jones, also known as “Ida”, “Ida Mae”, or “Jonesy” is a seventeen-year-old girl who has a dream. She wants to fly. She has an old plane that was her father’s that is nicknamed “the Jenny”. It is World War II and he brother finds and article about WASPs (Woman Airforce Service Pilots)   She begs her mom to let her become one. Breslin says if you like historical fiction you will like this book.

Death Mountain

Most adventure novels have males as the main characters; this one has two girls, Erin and Mae. The novel is based partially on the author’s own experience on Mt. Whitney in the Sierra Nevadas.

Erin loses her ticket to take a bus to see her mother who left over a year ago. She hitchhikes and is picked up by Levi and his sister Mae who are on their way to Chicken Spring Lake. There is a thunderstorm while they are hiking – Mae is frightened and runs. Erin goes after her. The girls become lost and are saved by Erin’s utilizing the knowledge of surviving in the woods she learned from her Grandma.

If you like Gary Paulsen’s and Will Hobbs’ novels, you will like this one.

Wild Things

This book is told by two narrators. Zoe, one of the narrators, has been adopted by her eccentric uncle after her “mental” mother dies. The other narrator is done in third person and tells the thoughts and feelings of a feral, or wild cat. The girl is fictional, but the cat is based on a cat that lived in the author’s neighborhood.

Zoe is taken in by her uncle Henry who is a sculptor and also a famous heart doctor who lives in the North Carolina woods.. Because of her life experiences Zoe doesn’t trust people. She has to learn about trust. So does the Mr. C’mere, the cat. The reader also meets a “wild boy” who lives in the woods and the albino deer, Sister, who he protects.

You will get to meet lots of characters who inhabit this small town. You may even recognize some of the personalities as people you might know. You will also grow with Zoe.

The Rock and the River

The topic of this novel is the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. I was a middle school and high school student during this era of unrest in America so I am certain that I read this novel with a different perspective than most of you. The setting is 1968 in Chicago, Illinois – a very turbulent time.

Sam and Sticks (Steven) are the sons of Roland Childs, a lawyer and civil rights activist who follows the lead of Martin Luther King, Jr. Sticks is a member of the Black Panther Party and Sam who is13 is torn whether to follow his father or his brother.

If you are not familiar with the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, this novel will give you a chance to think about that time in American history. You will learn that this was not a time that is easy to understand, but the author helps the reader work through some of the many problems of the time. The author, Kekla Magoon, lets the reader see the good and the bad of the different groups involved.

This book will not give you answers to the happenings of 1968, but it will let you understand the questions. Maybe you will have some questions of your own. I think she has presented a different view of the Black Panthers; possibly idealized, but still something that one needs to consider.

Heart of a Shepherd

Brother, Ignatius, is the youngest of 5 boys. Dad is a reservist who is going to Iraq along with many other parents from this rural Oregon community. Brother feels that it is his responsibility to help his elderly grandparents keep the cattle ranch running.

He struggles with beoming comfortable with himself and his feelings. He learns from his Grandpa, Ernesto (the shepherd), and Father Ziegler (the parish priest).