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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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Set in the Mississippi bayou in the summer and fall of 1963, A Thousand Never Evers tells the story of 12 year-old Addie Ann Pickett.  After graduating from Acorn Elementary School, Addie Ann looks forward to a summer of swinging in her yard, jumping double Dutch, working in the kitchen at Old Man Adam’s house,  teaching her cat, Flapjack, new tricks, and to starting 7th grade at West Thunder Creek Junior High School.  Two unexpected events change the course of her summer, and ultimately, the life she has always known: the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers and the death of her employer, Old Man Adams. AsRead More →

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In my opinion this is Christopher Paul Curtis’s best novel yet.  He is a gifted storyteller, making you laugh one chapter and cry the next.  Elijah is the first child to be born free in Buxton, Canada, a town of freed and escaped slaves.  We see this period of time through Elijah’s eyes and ears, as he has adventures, welcomes escaped slaves to town, & overhears adults discussing their lives as slaves.  He learns to appreciate his freedom and so will the reader. This is a moving, beautiful novel.  I am recommending it to fifth graders and up.  It would make a great read aloud,Read More →

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Lynne Reid Banks’ newest novel is historical fiction set in Rome around the 3rd century AD. Two tiger cubs are captured and brought to Rome. One is given to the emperor’s daughter to be raised as her pampered pet. The other brother is taught to be a vicious man-eating fighter at the Colosseum. There is description of the gladiators and animals slaughtering each other, and also innocent, forbidden love between the princess and a slave. It demonstrates the social structure of Rome very vividly and also demonstrates how Christianity was viewed by the Romans. Tiger, Tiger would be excellent to use if you are teaching ancient Roman historyRead More →

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Revolution is Not a Dinner Party by Ying Chang Compestine is the sleeper hit of my library this semester. It sat on my new releases shelf for a while, unchecked by students. One afternoon, as I prepared for a booktalk, I stared at the book, wondering what had made it stand out to me when I made my purchasing order. Imagine a world where George Bush put his face on posters all over the country, required everyone to have a picture in their home, and stopped work halfway through the day to listen to his teachings. Thankfully we have a president and not a ChairmanRead 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 →