385 MUR

Murphy, Jim. Across America On An Emigrant Train. New York: Clarion Books,

[1993].

Note: Combines an account of Robert Louis Stevenson's experiences as he

traveled from New York to California by train in 1879 and a description of

the building and operation of railroads in nineteenth-century America.

631.45 Sta

Stanley, Jerry. Children of the Dustbowl. New York: Crown, [1992].

Note: Describes the plight of the migrant workers who traveled from the Dust

Bowl to California during the Depression and were forced to live in a federal

labor camp and discusses the school that was built for their children.

974.7 Hal

Hall, Bruce Edward. Tea That Burns: a Family Memoir of Chinatown. New York: Free Press, [1998].

Note: In Tea That Burns, Bruce Edward Hall uses the stories of these and others

to tell the history of Chinatown, starting with the tumultuous journey from

an ancient empire ruled by the nine dragons of the universe to a bewildering

land of elevated trains, solitary labor, and violent discrimination.

977.004 KAT

Katz, William Loren. Black Pioneers : an Untold Story. 1st ed. New York:

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, [1999].

Note: A biographical history of influential African American pioneers and

freedom fighters in the Midwest, including Sara Jane Woodson, Peter Clark,

and Dred Scott.

B BRA

Freedman, Russell. Out of Darkness: the Story of Louis Braille. New York: Clarion, [1997].

Note: A biography of the 19th century Frenchman who developed Braille. The book

spans Braille's life from childhood through his days at the Royal Institute

for Blind Youth and into his final years, when the alphabet he invented was

finally gaining acceptance.

B COLUMBUS

Meltzer, Milton. Columbus and the World Around Him. New York: F. Watts, [1990].

Note: Describes the voyages of Columbus, the terrible impact of the Spaniards

on the Indians, and the ultimate cultural influence of the Native Americans on

their white conquerors.

B Jennings

Suskind, Ron. A Hope In the Unseen: an American Odyssey From the Inner City to the Ivy League. Louisville, KY: Broadway, [1999].

Note: Cedric Jennings is the illegitimate son of an off-and-on drug dealer/ex-

con and a hardworking, badly paid mother; it is her single-minded vision to

have the boy escape the mean ghetto streets unscathed. Cedric has listened to

her and is, as the book opens, an A student at a run-down, dispirited

Washington, DC, high school, where he treads a thin line between being tagged

a nerd and being beaten by gang leaders.

B JIMENEZ

Jimenez, Francisco. The Circuit : Stories From the Life of a Migrant Child. 1st

ed. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, [1997].

Note: Having come from Mexico to California ten years ago, fourteen-year-old

Francisco is still working in the fields but fighting to improve his life and

complete his education.

Fic BAUER

Bauer, Joan. Hope Was Here. New York: Putnam, [2000].

Note: When sixteen-year-old Hope and the aunt who has raised her move from

Brooklyn to Mulhoney, Wisconsin, to work as waitress and cook in the Welcome

Stairways diner, they become involved with the diner owner's political

campaign to oust the town's corrupt mayor.

Fic CLEMENTE-DAVIES

Clement-Davies, David. Fire Bringer. 1st American ed. New York: Dutton Books,

[2000, 1999].

Note: The story of the change of leadership amongst the deer and the journey of

Rannoch, the next leader.

Fic CREECH

Creech, Sharon. The Wanderer. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, [2000].

Note: Thirteen-year-old Sophie and her cousin Cody record their transatlantic

crossing aboard the Wanderer, a forty-five foot sailboat, which, along with

uncles and another cousin, is en route to visit their grandfather in

England.

Fic DAVIS

Davis, Terry. If Rock and Roll Were A Machine. New York, N.Y: Dell Pub, [1994,

1992].

Note: The guidance of two adults and his interest in motorcycles and writing

help high school junior Bert Bowden regain the sense of self that had been

destroyed by his fifth-grade teacher.

Fic DYGARD

Dygard, Thomas J. Running Wild. Morrow Junior Books, [1996].

Note: When coach Wilson and Officer Stowell encourage him to join the high

school team, Pete no longer believes that "nobody does anything for nothing.”

Fic FUSCO

Fusco, Kimberly Newton. Tending to Grace. New York: Knopf, [2004].

Note: When Cornelia's mother runs off with a boyfriend, leaving her with an

eccentric aunt, Cornelia must finally confront the truth about herself and

her mother.

Fic GANTOS

Gantos, Jack. Joey Pigza Loses Control. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,

[2000].

Note: Joey, who is still taking medication to keep him from getting too wired,

goes to spend the summer with the hard-drinking father he has never known

and tries to help the baseball team he coaches win the championship.

Fic GANTOS

Gantos, Jack. Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key. New York: Farrar, Straus, and

Giroux, [1998].

Note: To the constant disappointment of his mother and teachers, Joey has

trouble paying attention or controlling his mood swings when his

prescription meds wear off and he starts getting worked up and acting

wired.

Fic HALE

Hale, Marian. Dark Water Rising. New York: Henry Holt, [2006].

Note: While salvaging and rebuilding in the aftermath of the Galveston flood of 1900, sixteen-year-old Seth proves himself in a way that his previous efforts never could, but he still must face his father man-to-man.

Fic HOFFMAN

Hoffman, Mary. Stravaganza: City of Masks. New York: Bloomsbury, [2002].

Note: While sick in bed with cancer, Lucien begins making journeys to a place

in a parallel world that resembles Venice, Italy, and he becomes caught up in

the political intrigues surrounding the Duchessa who rules the city.

Fic HOFFMAN

Hoffman, Mary. Stravaganza: City of Stars. New York: Bloomsbury, [2003].

Note: Fifteen-year-old Georgia, who loves horses as much as she hates her

bullying stepbrother, buys a figurine of a winged horse and finds it has

magical powers that transport her from present-day London to the sixteenth-

century world of Talia where, in the city of Remora, similar to Sienna,

Italy, she finds danger and intrigue as well as friendship and a chance to

perfect her riding skills.

Fic HOROWITZ

Horowitz, Anthony. Stormbreaker. New York: Philomel Books, [2001].

Note: After the death of the uncle who had been his guardian, fourteen-year-

old Alex Rider is coerced to continue his uncle's dangerous work for

Britain's intelligence agency, MI6.

Fic IBBOTSON

Ibbotson, Eva. Journey to the River Sea. New York: Dutton Children’s Books, [2001].

Note: Sent with her governess to live with the dreadful Carter family in

exotic Brazil in 1910, Maia endures many hardships before fulfilling her

dream of exploring the Amazon River.

Fic JIMENEZ

Jimenez, Francisco. Breaking Through. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, [2001].

Note: Having come from Mexico to California ten years ago, fourteen-year-old

Francisco is still working in the fields but fighting to improve his life

and complete his education.

Fic LAWRENCE

Lawrence, Iain. Ghost Boy. New York, NY: Delacorte Press, [2000].

Note: Unhappy in a home seemingly devoid of love, a fourteen-year-old albino

boy who thinks of himself as Harold the Ghost runs away to join the circus,

where he works with the elephants and searches for a sense of who he is.

Fic LAWRENCE

Lawrence, Iain. The Smugglers. New York: Delacorte Press, [1999].

Note: In eighteenth-century England, after his father buys a schooner called

the Dragon, sixteen-year-old John sets out to sail it from Kent to London and

becomes involved in a dangerous smuggling scheme.

Fic LAWRENCE

Lawrence, Iain. The Wreckers. New York: Delacorte Press, [1998].

Note: Shipwrecked after a vicious storm, fourteen-year-old John Spencer

attempts to save his father and himself while also dealing with an evil

secret about the English coastal town where they are stranded.

Fic LEE

Lee, Gus. China Boy. East Rutherford, NJ: Plume, [1994].

Note: Warm, funny, and deeply moving, Gus Lee's semi-autobiographical account of

growing up in a conflict-ridden family, unable to fully embrace either

American or Chinese culture, is an enthralling story of family relationships,

the perils of boyhood, and the difficulty of being Chinese in 1950's San

Francisco.

Fic LEVINE

Levine, Gail Carson. Dave at Night. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, [1999].

Note: It is 1926, and Dave's father has just died. His stepmother doesn't want

him; his quieter, more studious brother goes to live out of state with an

uncle; and Dave finds himself in the Hebrew Home for Boys--otherwise known as

the Hell Hole for Brats. Dave may be down, but he's not out. A natural-born

troublemaker, he sneaks out of the home and meets up with a "fortune teller"

named Solly, who takes Dave to a rent party and introduces the boy to the

world of the Harlem Renaissance.

Fic LIPSYTE

Lipsyte, Robert. One Fat Summer. 1st ed. New York: Harper & Row, [1977].

Note: An overweight fourteen-year-old boy experiences a turningpoint summer in

which he learns to stand up for himself.

Fic MIKAELSON

Mikaelson, Ben. Countdown. New York: Disney Press, [1997].

Note: In two parallel stories, a fourteen-year-old boy who is NASA's first

Junior Astronaut and a fourteen-year-old Masai herder in Kenya both edge into

maturity while questioning their family traditions.

Fic PATERSON

Paterson, Katherine. Parzival : the Quest of the Grail Knight. 1st ed. New York: Lodestar Books, [1998].

Note: A retelling of the Arthurian legend in which Parzival, unaware of his

noble birth, comes of age through his quest for the Holy Grail.

Fic PAULSEN

Paulsen, Gary. The Car. 1st ed. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, [1994].

Note: A teenager left on his own travels west in a kit car he built himself,

and along the way picks up two Vietnam veterans, who take him on an eye-

opening journey.

Fic SMELCER

Smelcer, John E. The Trap. New York: Henry Holt and Company, [2006].

Note: In alternating chapters, seventeen-year-old Johnny Least-Weasel, who is

better known for brains than brawn, worries about his missing grandfather,

and the grandfather, Albert Least-Weasel, struggles to survive, caught in his

own steel trap in the Alaskan winter.

Fic SMITH

Smith, Roland. Zach's Lie. 1st ed. New York: Hyperion Books For Children,

[2001].

Note: When Jack Osborne is befriended by his school's custodian and a Basque

girl, he begins to adjust to his family's sudden move to Elko, Nevada, after

entering the Witness Security Program, but the drug cartel against which his

father will testify is determined to track them down.

Fic SOTO

Soto, Gary. Pacific Crossing. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, [1992].

Note: Fourteen-year-old Chicano Lincoln Mendoza spends a summer with a host

family in Japan, encountering new experiences and making new friends.

Fic SOTO

Soto, Gary. Taking Sides. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, [1992].

Note: Fourteen-year-old Lincoln Mendoza, an aspiring basketball player, must

come to terms with his divided loyalties when he moves from San Francisco's

Chicano Mission District to a white suburban neighborhood.

Fic WALLACE

Wallace, Rich. Playing without the ball : a Novel in Four Quarters. 1st ed. New

York: Alfred A. Knopf, [2000].

Note: Feeling abandoned by his parents, who have gone their separate ways and

left him behind in a small Pennsylvania town, seventeen-year-old Jay finds

hope for the future in a church-sponsored basketball team and a female

friend.

Fic WOLFF

Wolff, Virginia Euwer. Make Lemonade. New York: H. Holt, [1993.]

Note: In order to earn money for college, fourteen-year-old LaVaughn babysits

for a teenage mother of two.

______________________________________________________________________________

Other Titles Recommended but not available in the school library:

Collins, Michael. Flying to the Moon: an Astronaut’s Story. Somerville, MA: Sunburst, [1994].

Note: Astronaut Michael Collins adds a revised chapter to the extraordinary

story of his training and participation in the Gemini 10 and Apollo 11

flights.

Fic BAKKEN

Bakken, Harald. The Fields and the Hills: the Journey Once Begun. New York: Clarion, [1992].

Note: Considered a witch for his extraordinary powers of sight and hearing,

thirteen-year-old Weyr sets off on his own and is drawn into the lives of the

Agari, a people feared and hated by Weyr's own Tamish village.

Fic TURTLEDOVE

Turtledove, Harry. Every Inch a King. New York: Del Rey/Ballantine, [2007].

Note: Discovering that he has a doppelg?nger, Prince Halim Eddin, an ambitious

Otto of Schlepsig, tired of his career with a third-rate circus, sets out for

Shqiperi, where Prince Halim has been invited to become the next king, in

order to assume the throne for himself, braving the perils of the ocean,

monsters, pirates, and the suspicions of his new subjects along the way.

Fic DOHOERTY

Doherty, Berlie. The Snake-Stone. New York: Viking/Penguin, [1998].

Note: While searching for his birthmother, 15-year-old James, a championship diver, discovers who his real parents are and where his real home is.

Fic DILLON

Dillon, Ellis. Children of Bach. New York: Scribner, [1992].

Note: After the disappearance of their parents, renowned Jewish musicians, Pali, Peter, and Suzy join their aunt, a young friend, and an elderly neighbor in a desperate flight from Nazi-occupied Hungary.

Fic McKERNAN

McKernan, Victoria. Shackleton's Stowaway. New York: Knopf, [2005].

Note: A fictionalized account of the adventures of eighteen-year-old Perce Blackborow, who stowed away for the 1914 Shackleton Antarctic expedition and, after their ship Endurance was crushed by ice, endured many hardships, including the loss of the toes of his left foot to frostbite, during the nearly two-year return journey across sea and ice.