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 I was drawn to this book because it has CHOCOLATE in the title and on the cover. How could I resist that? At first it just seemed like an innocent, sweet story (no pun intended) about a Jewish girl, in fifth grade, living in Chicago right after WWII. The adults in the family discuss missing relatives in Europe while Dorrie looks forward to the end of the school year when she must bring in a dessert for a competition called “Sweet Semester.” I particularly enjoyed the end of the book when Victor, a 16-year-old relative, is brought to America to live with Dorrie and her family. HeRead More →

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Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis tells the story of Elijah Freeman, the first freeborn child born in the colony of Buxton, Canada, a settlement of runaway slaves just over the border from Detroit.  The year is 1860 and when a conman steals the money of a family friend that was intended to buy the man’s family from slavery in the South, Elijah embarks on a dangerous journey to America in pursuit of the thief and he discovers the unimaginable horrors of the life his parents fled. As readers have come to expect from Curtis, he delivers superior historical research (the author’s notes at the endRead More →