PILGRIMS

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 Bau

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 Cle

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 Fus

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 Gan

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 Gan

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 Hor

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

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 IBB

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 Jim

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 Law

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 LAW

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 LAW

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 Lev

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 MIK

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 Smi

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 SOT

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 SOT

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 WAL

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 Wol

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 BAK

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 DOH

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 DIL

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 McK

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.

All annotations are excerpts from Amazon.com and Novelist.

More information on each title is available at either website.