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What We Had: Birdie’s Story 1929-1945 Jacalyn Wilson
Wilson, J. (2016). What we had: Birdie's Story 1929-1945. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform .
ISBN1539872904 (ISBN13: 978153987290
Paperback 318 pages, $14.99
What we had is about a young woman named Birdie. The story takes place in a NC. This novel tells the story of Birdie from her teen years in the early 30’ through the end of World War II. It begins with her thinking about what kind of life she wants for herself. She meets Ned during the summer months. During one of their visits she asks Ned what plans does he have for future? Is he planning for a family soon? If so, how does he plan to support a wife and children? Ned replied that he was happy, and he had a place to stay. He left. It’s been three weeks since Ned has visited Birdie. Will he return? Will there be others like Ned? Or will she find someone that fit into her life.
Sensing that Birdie had an argument with Ned, mama talks to her about the future. “The world is changing.” I want you and your sister to be free to make your own choices.
What kind of future lies ahead for Birdie? Will she finish high school? Will the man of her dreams be enough? She tells about her life and times as she grows into womanhood before the depression to the end of World War II. What will life be like for Birdie? Unfair, perfect or easy.
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Carbone, L. (2001). Stealing Freedom. NY: Random House.
Ann Maria Weems, a slave lived in Maryland with her family, her father, mother and siblings. Ann is 13 years old when the novel begins in 1853. For a time, the family is together on the Price farm working from sun- up to sun -down. Charles Price decides that farming is not profitable and goes into the slave trading business.
He sells off Ann’s three brothers, and Mr. Bigelow, an abolitionist buys Anne’s mother and sister. Her family is ripped apart. Ann is heartbroken. She is the only family member left as Charles Price’s slave. In addition, she has the added chore of taking care of his niece who has moved in with the Prices. Ann struggles to get through each day. “Sleep was the only thing that bought her peace.” Mr. Bigelow offered seven hundred dollars for Anne’s freedom, but Price wanted sixteen hundred. After the visit from the abolitionist Price refused give Ann a pass to go see her family up North during the Christmas Holidays and the holidays for the next year. Charles Price refused a second offer from Mr. Bigelow to buy Ann’s freedom. Ann had no choice but to take Mr. Bigelow offer of help in planning her escape to freedom. It would be a long dangerous journey on the Underground Railroad. Ann was frightened at the thought of what would happen if they got caught. But she wanted her freedom, and this was the only way.
Recommended for tweens and up.
ISBN:9780440417071, Paperback $6.50, 258 pages- Cover art 1998 – Sean Beavers
Library Binding ISBN: 978-0756904395, $17.80, 258 pages-Photograph courtesy of Montgomery County Historical Society from the Underground Rail Road by William Still 1872
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Carbone, L. (2001). Stealing Freedom. NY: Random House.
Ann Maria Weems, a slave lived in Maryland with her family, her father, mother and siblings. Ann is 13 years old when the novel begins in 1853. For a time, the family is together on the Price farm working from sun- up to sun -down. Charles Price decides that farming is not profitable and goes into the slave trading business.
He sells off Ann’s three brothers, and Mr. Bigelow, an abolitionist buys Anne’s mother and sister. Her family is ripped apart. Ann is heartbroken. She is the only family member left as Charles Price’s slave. In addition, she has the added chore of taking care of his niece who has moved in with the Prices. Ann struggles to get through each day. “Sleep was the only thing that bought her peace.” Mr. Bigelow offered seven hundred dollars for Anne’s freedom, but Price wanted sixteen hundred. After the visit from the abolitionist Price refused give Ann a pass to go see her family up North during the Christmas Holidays and the holidays for the next year. Charles Price refused a second offer from Mr. Bigelow to buy Ann’s freedom. Ann had no choice but to take Mr. Bigelow offer of help in planning her escape to freedom. It would be a long dangerous journey on the Underground Railroad. Ann was frightened at the thought of what would happen if they got caught. But she wanted her freedom, and this was the only way.
Recommended for tweens and up.
ISBN:9780440417071, Paperback $6.50, 258 pages- Cover art 1998 – Sean Beavers
Library Binding ISBN: 978-0756904395, $17.80, 258 pages-Photograph courtesy of Montgomery County Historical Society from the Underground Rail Road by William Still 1872
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De La Cruz, M. (2017). Alex and Eliza: A Love Story. New York: Penguin Random House.
Alex and Eliza, book 1 of a trilogy is a novel about the romance of Eliza Schuyler and Alexander Hamilton. Elizabeth (Eliza) is the middle daughter of General Philip Schuyler and Catherine Van Rensselaer a prominent family in New York State. Catherine’s family history dates to the Dutch days of the 1600s. Alexander (Alex) Hamilton, in contrast, had no significant lineage. Alex is in the company of Eliza from the oldest and most distinguished bloodlines. He was born out of wedlock in Nevis, raised by a merchant, and sent to New York to pursue an education. The novel begins in 1777 in Albany, NY at the Schuyler mansion. Catherine Schuyler was throwing a grand ball one of New York’s most prominent social event. Eliza was excited to meet this mysterious young Colonel and right-hand man to George Washington. When they meet that night at the ball, they are attracted to each other. Eliza goes Morristown to help inoculate the soldiers from smallpox, and they meet again. As they work side by side in the infirmary tending the injured soldiers together, their love story begins.
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The Book Thief
The story begins with death the narrator introducing Liesel Meminger, the ten-year book thief. Death is ever present and follows Liesel throughout her life.
Liesel suffers the loss of her brother, and her mother gives her up for adoption to Hans and Rosa Hubermann who becomes her parents. Her father disappeared.
The novel takes place in Molching, Germany beginning in 1939. Liesel, her mother, and brother were on their way to the Huberman’s when her brother mysteriously dies on the train.
At the burial sight Liesel took a book called: The Grave Digger’s Handbook, however, she could not read it. When she settles in her new home, she is sent to school but is ridiculed and put in classes with younger students. Her Papa helps her learn to read and write starting with the book she took from her brother’s burial. Death notes other times that Liesel steals books. During a celebration for the Fuhrer’s birthday, the people of Molching gather for a bonfire. They burn enemy propaganda including books. Liesel sees one book that survives the fire and puts it in her shirt to take home. She realizes how powerful words are and learns to read and write. Liesel grows up on Himmel street, and for a while, she was happy despite the presence of the Nazi Party. Bombs fall on Himmel Street and destroy everyone she loves – Mama, Papa and everyone else. Liesel lives a long life in Australia with her husband and children, but death is still following her.
Zusak, M. (2016). The Book Thief. NY: Knopf Books for Young Readers.
ISBN-13: 978-1101934180 -Hard cover $13.99, 592 pages
Literary Awards
National Jewish Book Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature (2006), Book Sense Book of the Year Award for Children's Literature (2007), Buxtehuder Bulle (2008), Sydney Taylor Book Award for Teen Readers (2007), Prijs van de Kinder- en Jeugdjury Vlaanderen (2009)
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Larson, K. (2008). Hattie Big Sky. Yearling; Reissue edition.
ISBN-10: 0385735952
ISBN-13: 978-0385735957
Library binding $18.40 Paperback $7.99
December 17, 1917, Arlington, Iowa, and Montana WWI
Hattie Inez Brooks is a 16-year-old who had lost her parents by the time she was five years old. She was shuttled between family members until finally at the age of thirteen she goes to live with her Uncle Holt (a distant cousin). He and her friend Charlie are very supportive of Hattie. Hattie feels a deep sense of loss when Charlie enlists to fight the war. Her Aunt Ivy, wife to Uncle Holt’s wife always resented Hattie living in their home. She is mean-spirited and looking for the first chance to get rid of Hattie or find someone who can “put her to good use.” She finally finds work for Hattie in a boarding house for her keep.
Meanwhile, a letter arrives from her Uncle Chester from Montana. Chester was her mother’s brother. Hattie learns of him when in his final letter he bequeaths his claim of 320 Montana acres. Hattie must meet the remaining requirements, and the acres are hers. Hattie decides to accept the challenges against the wishes of Aunt Ivy and with the blessing of Uncle Holt. Hattie homesteaded for a year. During that year, she wrote letters to her Uncle and good friend Charlie. She kept them abreast of her endless work, loss, war efforts, her life as a homesteader. During Hattie’s stay she met many friends and neighbors, and for the first time, she had a place to call home.
Hattie #1 Hardcover 289 pages
Setting: Vida (United States),Montana (United States)
Literary Awards
Newbery Medal Nominee (2007), Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award Nominee (2008), Montana Book Award (2006), California Young Readers Medal for Middle School/Junior High (2009), Missouri Gateway Readers Award Nominee (2009)
Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award Nominee (2009)
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Historical Fiction
Larson, K. (2008). Hattie Big Sky. Yearling; Reissue edition.
ISBN-10: 0385735952
ISBN-13: 978-0385735957
Library binding $18.40 Paperback $7.99
December 17, 1917, Arlington, Iowa, and Montana WWI
Hattie Inez Brooks is a 16-year-old who had lost her parents by the time she was five years old. She was shuttled between family members until finally at the age of thirteen she goes to live with her Uncle Holt (a distant cousin). He and her friend Charlie are very supportive of Hattie. Hattie feels a deep sense of loss when Charlie enlists to fight the war. Her Aunt Ivy, wife to Uncle Holt’s wife always resented Hattie living in their home. She is mean-spirited and looking for the first chance to get rid of Hattie or find someone who can “put her to good use.” She finally finds work for Hattie in a boarding house for her keep.
Meanwhile, a letter arrives from her Uncle Chester from Montana. Chester was her mother’s brother. Hattie learns of him when in his final letter he bequeaths his claim of 320 Montana acres. Hattie must meet the remaining requirements, and the acres are hers. Hattie decides to accept the challenges against the wishes of Aunt Ivy and with the blessing of Uncle Holt. Hattie homesteaded for a year. During that year, she wrote letters to her Uncle and good friend Charlie. She kept them abreast of her endless work, loss, war efforts, her life as a homesteader. During Hattie’s stay she met many friends and neighbors, and for the first time, she had a place to call home.
Hattie #1 Hardcover 289 pages
Setting: Vida (United States),Montana (United States)
Literary Awards
Newbery Medal Nominee (2007), Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award Nominee (2008), Montana Book Award (2006), California Young Readers Medal for Middle School/Junior High (2009), Missouri Gateway Readers Award Nominee (2009)
Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award Nominee (2009)
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Historical Fiction
took their clothes. Bruno meets him every day and brings food. They become very good friends. Bruno decides that he wants to help Shmuel find his father and changes into a set of prison clothes (which look like striped pajamas). He leaves his clothes outside the fence and goes in the camp in search of his friend’s father. The children are rounded up and led to the gas chamber.
Literary Awards
Pacific Northwest Library
NYTimes Bestseller List
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtU5sEex1C4
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Genre – Historical Fiction
1. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
Boyne, J. (2006). The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. David Fickling Books.
ISBN: 9780385751063 215 pages
Summary
It’s 1942 WWII – Berlin- Bruno arrives home one day to discover that his family must leave his home and friends and move to Auschwitz. His father has received a promotion. With nothing to do Bruno and no one to play with he wanders and explores his new environment. He discovers a wire fence that separates him from the strange people in the distance. He walks along the fence; he meets a Jewish boy named Shmuel his age and with the same birthday. Bruno doesn’t understand why they are separated. Shmuel explains that the guards took their clothes. Bruno meets him every day and brings food. They become very good friends. Bruno decides that he wants to help Shmuel find his father and changes into a set of prison clothes (which look like striped pajamas). He leaves his clothes outside the fence and goes in the camp in search of his friend’s father. The children are rounded up and led to the gas chamber.
Literary Awards
Pacific Northwest Library
NYTimes Bestseller List
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtU5sEex1C4
The Boy in the Striped Pajama audiobook by John Boyne
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Science Fiction
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Meg Murry is in high school. She is an intelligent, talented, awkward daughter of two world-renown physicists. She has self-esteem issues and desperately wants to fit in and be like everyone else. She is sent to the principal’s office often because of her attitude, anger issues and constant fights. Meg is also upset over the rumors in school and her hometown that her father has left the family. Her father, Mr. Murry disappeared while conducting scientific work for the government. He has been missing for two years when the story begins.
The story begins on a dark and stormy evening. The Murry household gets a visit from the celestial being Mrs. Whatsit. She reassures the family that Tesseract—a “wrinkle” in space and time, a shortcut through time and space exist and that’s how they will travel through the fifth dimension in search of Mr. Murry. The very next day Meg ’s younger brother Charles Wallace Murry, a child prodigy, Calvin, a high school athlete joins her on the rescue mission. Leading the Murry children and friend Calvin are the three celestial guides Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which, who journeyed to earth to help search for their father. Along the way, the group confronts the evil forces “IT, ” the brain, “Man with the Red Eyes,” and “That Black Thing” that threatens to destroy the universe.
For Meg, the return of her father may be what she needs to accept her differences and change her behavior.
Can Meg, brother Charles and friend Calvin outwit the evil forces to rescue Mr. Murry, and make it back to earth?
I would recommend this book for middle or high school libraries.
L'Engle, M. (1962). A Wrinkle in Time. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
ISBN: 978-0374386139, Hardcover $11.98, Pages 216
Awards
Newbery Medal
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Science Fiction
A Wrinkle in Time
by Madeleine L’Engle
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Adjoua Aya Bintou
A Graphic Novel
Aya, Life in Yop City
by Marguerite Abouet
This edition brings together the first three volumes of the series
Aya is a 19-year-old teenager, with friends Adjoua and Bintou. Aya, her friends, and relatives all live in Yop City short for Yopougon City. Aya hopes to become a doctor one day, but her father would rather see her marry. Aya is the one who everyone turns to for help. In this colorful graphic novel, Aya and her friends are funny, playful teenagers. This trilogy revolves around the pleasure and private troubles of everyday life in Yop City which portrays life contemporary life in an African setting. Aya and her friends have the same experiences desires and needs like any other teens around the world.
Recommended for middle and high school library collections.
Series: Aya
384 pages $21.55 Paperback
Winner of the Best First Album award at the Angouleme International Comics Festival
The Children’s Africana Book Award
Glyph Award
Nominated for the Quill award, the YALSA “s Great Graphic Novels list
Eisner Award
ISBN: 978-1770460829
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Walter Dean Myers All The Right stuff
Multicultural
All the Right Stuff by Walter Dean Myers
Paul Dupree’s father is shot and killed, and he thinks about him a lot. In All The Right Stuff 16-year-old Paul Dupree gets a summer job working in a Harlem soup kitchen. Elijah runs the soup kitchen for the elderly who comes every day for soup. Paul also has a second job Paul mentoring Keisha who has a baby but still wants to play basketball.
Elijah the soup man believes he’s fulfilling the social contract, Paul is skeptical, and Elijah won’t stop talking about this social contract. Paul listens to lessons about the contract while Sly, a notorious Harlem big shot shows up and put conspiracy theories in his head. Will Paul settle issues with his father? Does Paul figure out the social contract?
This book is recommended for ages 15 and up. Most of the book is a debate about the social contract between the characters.
Hardcover, 224 pages $17.99
Meyers, W. D., (2012). All the right stuff. Amistad: Harper Collins, NY.
ISBN: 978-0061960871
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Chick Lit
Chick Lit: Princess Diaries Series
Cabot, M. (2008). The Princess Diaries, Volume VII: Party Princess. Harper Teen, NY ISBN:0061543746 $9.99 paperback
Party Princess is volume 7 of the series Princess Diaries.
Mia attends Albert Einstein High School in Greenwich Village in New York City. She has several significant problems to worry about this school year. As head of the student government, Mia bankrupts it with the purchase of fancy recycling bins. She needs $5000 to put back in the budget to pay for the rental hall for the senior class’s commencement ceremony. Her grandmother has a crazy scheme to raise money to get Mia out her money crises. Lastly, Mia is a princess that wants to be a party girl. She wants to have some fun. She doesn’t know how to party. Lana, a cheerleader, doesn’t like Mia but wants tickets to her grandmother’s party. Lana threatens to tell everyone about the bankruptcy if she ‘s not invited to the party. Mia should have let her go. Instead, she had to ask, (open to page 101)
“Um, Lana. Can I ask you a question?” And she was like, “What?” with her eyes all narrowed. “How do you, um. Party?” “How do you “WHAT?” “You know,” I said. “Party. I mean, I know you go to a lot of, um, parties So I was just wondering…. like, what do you DO at them?” How do you, you know, Party? Lana just shook her head. “God,” she said. “You are such dork.”
Will the princess Mia learn to be a party girl? How will Mia’s boyfriend Michael like his partying princess? Will Mia’s grandmother’s scheme help the student government make enough money to pay for renting Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center for the graduation ceremony.
When I am first starting reading Party Princess, I was bored because it began slow. The grandmother’s character made the book a little more exciting and later I wanted to know what happened at the end of the story. Princess Diaries series is an excellent collection for tweens and early teens. This series would fit well into an elementary and middle school library collection
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Street Fiction
Street Fiction
Buckhanon, K. (2005). Upstate. NY: Martin's Press.
Upstate by Kalisha Buckhanon- ISBN: 2-312-33269-3, $14.75 paperback
Antonio and Natasha are two teenagers in love. They have big dreams of getting married and having a family, a beautiful house. They even planned to have businesses of their own. But the dreams will have to wait. Antonio is in jail for killing his father, he claims in self-defense. Antonio pleads guilty and goes to prison upstate for ten years. He had a secret and told no one, not even Natasha. Prison is his life now as he tries to make sense of what has happened to his hopes, his dreams, his Natasha whom he loves. He’s struggling with prison life while Natasha is trying to make a better life for herself. Antonio has accepted his fate and is okay. He wants her to know that they will be together always.
“But Natasha I do want you to know I’m okay. I want you to know that you all I been thinking about and there ain’t shit that’s gonna tear us apart—not the cops, not these pen walls, not my daddy, nothing. I need you to come see me soon; I need to see your face so bad it hurts.”
Will Antonio and Natasha stay together during the 10-year sentence he’s scheduled to do? Will Natasha wait for Antonio or does she move on? What will happen to Antonio when he gets out of prison? Will he finally tell the secret?
Awards
Alex Award 2006
YALSA's Best Books for Young Adults 2006
Nominated for a Hurston/Wright Award in the category of Debut Fiction
Audie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Literary Fiction 2006 (for the audiobook)
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