Battle of the Books

Whittington

Alan W. Armstrong The story is about a cat named Whittington that goes to live in a barn that is owned by a man named Bernie. Ben and Abby, Bernie's grandchildren, come to the barn. Ben struggles with reading in school. Ben has dyslexia and is struggling to learn how to read. He has been told by the school principal that if his reading skills do not improve, he will not advance to the next grade. Whittington tells the story of his namesake, a man named Dick Whittington, which encourages Ben.

Junebug

Alice Mead Reeve McLain, Jr.--Junebug--has a big dream that keeps him going. He dreams that someday he and his younger sister and mother will move from the awful housing project where drugs, gangs, and guns are part of everyday life. Junebug's 10th birthday is coming up, and he knows the gangs and drug dealers will be after him to join them. But he has a big birthday plan to keep his hope alive.

Rein Reign

Ann M. Martin

In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson

Betty Bao Lord

Twenty and Ten

Claire Hutchet Bishop Twenty and Ten is inspired by a true story, written by Claire Huchet Bishop as told by Janet Joly. It is an inspiring story that I would love to read to our kids. Twenty and Ten is a short book, only five chapters long. It is set during World War II in Nazi-occupied France. Written from the perspective of an 11-year-old girl, it tells the story of twenty schoolchildren that creatively hide ten Jewish children from the Nazis. It is written from a Christian perspective (Catholic, specifically). Parents should be aware that, considering the context, this book has some very scary moments when the children are afraid of being shot by Nazi soldiers. The children also mention many times how very hungry they are all the time. The message of this book is that sacrificing for others blesses you, and that even children can stand up for what is right.

The Thief Lord

Cornelia Funke

Rules

Cynthia Lord

Each Little Bird That Sings

Deborah Wiles

The View from Saturday

E.L. Konigsburg

Shakespeare's Secret

Elise Broach When Hero starts sixth grade at a new school, she's less concerned about the literary origins of her Shakespearean name than about the teasing she's sure to suffer because of it. So she has the same name as a girl in a book by a dusty old author; Hero is simply not interested in the connections. But that's just the thing: Suddenly connections are cropping up all over, and odd characters and uncertain pasts are exactly what fascinate Hero. There's a mysterious diamond hidden in her new house, a curious woman next door who seems to know an awful lot about it, and then, well, then there's Shakespeare. Not to mention Danny Cordova, only the most popular boy in school. Is it all in keeping with her namesake's origin, or just much ado about nothing? Hero, being Hero, is determined to figure it out.

The Westing Game

Ellen Raskin

It's Like This, Cat

Emily Cheney Neville

SOS Titanic

Eve Bunting A dread sense of the inevitable drives this taut disaster story-and makes it nearly impossible to put down. Only moments after 15-year-old Barry O'Neill boards the Titanic in Queenstown, Ireland, the final port of call before the Atlantic crossing, he learns that the ship narrowly missed a collision at Southampton-a ""bad omen,"" says a fellow passenger. Watley, Barry's steward in first class, claims intuitive knowledge that the voyage is ill-fated, while another uneasy passenger notes the shortage of lifeboats and refers to a novel written years earlier about an eerily similar ship called the Titan that sinks after colliding with an iceberg. Barry, understandably, is on edge-and so is the reader. When disaster finally strikes, Bunting (Spying on Miss Muller) unfolds the terrifying events in gripping climactic chapters. Barry acts nobly, risking his own life to save Pegeen, a girl from steerage class with whom he has fallen in love, and her brother, a ruffian with a longstanding grudge against Barry and his wealthy family. It's well-wrought historical fiction, but lest anyone forget, a brief afterword reminds readers of the horrifying and very real toll of the tragedy.

Owls in the Family

Farley Mowat

Millions

Frank Boyce Cottrell

My Life in Dog Years

Gary Paulsen

No More Dead Dogs

Gordon Korman

The Penderwicks: a summer tale of four sisters, two rabbits and a very interesting boy

Jean Birdsall The Penderwicks, a family of six, (four sisters, their father, and their dog) get lost on the way to Arundel but find it and their rental cottage with the help of Harry the Tomato Man and Cagney, the estate gardener. When they get to the cottage, the girls choose their bedrooms, Skye getting a huge white bedroom with two beds, Jane getting the attic, and Rosalind and Batty get two small rooms right next to each other with a closet that has a passage to get to the other room. Then, Skye goes exploring, and meets Cagney personally. They start talking, but then Mrs. Tifton, the owner of Arundel, comes looking for Cagney. Skye hides then overhears Mrs. Tifton telling Cagney that he needs to get rid of the Fimbriata rosebush that his uncle kept alive for 30 years, so Skye tells Cagney that he can move the rosebush to the cottage and he can come over every morning to water it. When Skye leaves, she meets a boy. She almost knocks him unconscious, and then tells him not to go near Mrs. Tifton's gardens and what a horrible person she is but finds out that the boy is Mrs. Tifton's son. After Rosalind puts Batty to bed, Skye calls Jane and Rosalind to a MOOPS, Meeting Of Older Penderwick Sisters. Batty knows only about a MOPS which is meeting of Penderwick sisters. She tells them what she said to the boy, and Jane is sent to apologize to him the next day. Jane finds out his name is Jeffrey, and becomes friends with him. Meanwhile, at the cottage, Rosalind and Skye are baking cookies for Jeffrey, and Cagney comes over with the Fimbriata. So Rosalind goes to help Cangey, Skye finishes making the cookies, but broils them. When Rosalind comes back inside the house, she sees that Skye ruined the cookies. She accidentally insults Skye, and then Skye yells that she thinks that Jeffrey's a snob, right as he and Jane are walking through the door. Mr. Penderwick sends them on a walk, and then Batty almost gets attacked by a bull. Skye, Jane, and Jeffrey manage to save her, but aren't allowed to tell anyone what happened, because Mr. Penderwick and Rosalind will think Skye and Jane didn't take care of her well. But Batty's butterfly wings get scratched up, so they tell everyone that Batty got stuck in a rosebush. Rosalind fixes them for her, and everyone goes to Jeffrey's house for Churchie (beloved housekeeper and cook)'s gingerbread. Churchie wants Jeffrey to invite the girls to his birthday party but Jeffrey doesn't want them to come. After convincing a reluctant Jeffrey, Churchie brings the girls to choose beautiful dresses. Then they go to the birthday party but it turns out to be a disaster. At the birthday dinner, Mrs. Tifton starts to despise the girls, and Jeffrey finds out that his mother is going to marry Dexter Dupree, a very mean man. Jeffrey also finds out that Dexter is planning to send him off to Pencey Military Academy once he and Mrs. Tifton get married. Over the next few days, many things happen. Skye now likes Jeffrey very much, and she, Jane, and Jeffrey play soccer and archery almost every day. They name their target Dexter Dupree, with a picture of Dexter's smirking face on it, and their soccer ball Pencey Military Academy. Also, Batty finds out that Cagney has rabbits, so she, Cagney, and Rosalind visit them in Cagney's apartment.. Yaz comes out from under the couch when Cagney has parsley, as usual, it's the first time Carla's ever come out when strangers are around, because she likes Batty so much. Rosalind and Batty start to visit the rabbits almost every morning. Sometimes Cagney was at his apartment, but usually he wasn't. Batty would always slip a carrot through the screen door, and then she must latch the door. If she doesn't, Cagney explains, Yaz will run away, get killed by an animal, and then Carla would die of loneliness, since she and Yaz are best friends. All of the Penderwick sisters hate Mrs. Tifton, but Batty is afraid of her. She's never been alone with Mrs. Tifton before, but when Rosalind is too busy to take Batty to see the rabbits, she goes alone. She sees Mrs. Tifton and Dexter there, and accidentally forgets to close the screen door. Batty let's Yaz out, and runs away. Batty tries to find him, but can't so she decides to go look for him in the forest. Hound senses Batty is missing, runs away, with all the Penderwick sisters and Jeffrey trying to catch him. He catches Yaz, and finds Batty, but right as Batty crosses the street, a car comes by. However, Jeffrey pulls her out of the way. The girls tell Mr. Penderwick what happened, and he says that in some cultures, when a person saves another person's life, their souls are linked together. They decide not to tell Jeffrey this, though. One day, when Skye, Jane, and Jeffrey are playing soccer together, they accidentally go into the Arundel gardens, while the Garden Club Contest is going on, which Mrs. Tifton desperately wants to win. She gets second place, and is furious. She forbids Jeffrey to ever see the Penderwicks again, but when she and Dexter go shopping in Vermont, Skye and Batty go to the Arundel mansion. Jane stays home, because she has the flu and Rosalind has to take care of her. Dexter and Mrs. Tifton come home early and find Skye and Batty there. She kicks them out, but Skye goes back and listens to Mrs. Tifton lecturing Jeffrey to make sure he is okay.. She hears that she is sneaky and sarcastic, which she doesn't mind, but then hears that Rosalind is always following Cagney around like a lovesick puppy, and if she keeps that behavior up, one daysome man will let himself be caught and that will be the end of her wide-eyed innocence. Skye also hears that Mr. Penderwick is a pushover, she thinks Batty has a mental issue because of "her tacky wings and the odd way she stares without speaking", and that Mrs. Penderwick ran away from the family because she got tired of caring for all the girls. Skye loses all of her self-control, and comes storming into the room, telling Mrs. Tifton that her mother is dead. She leaves the house, and tells Batty that she is perfect. That night, Skye tells Rosalind everything that happened, including the part about Rosalind's obsession with Cagney. Rosalind decides to go on a walk, but sees Cagney with another girl, Kathleen, hits her head on a rock, falls into the pond, and Cagney saves her. Churchie calls Skye and tells her that Mrs. Tifton and Dexter took Jeffrey for an interview at Pencey, the military school and she also delivers Skye a message from Jeffrey telling her that it wasn't her fault, though Skye believes it was. That night, Jeffrey comes over to the cottage and tells the girls that he is running away. He plans to sleep under Harry's tomato stand, and then stay with Churchie's daughter in Boston. Rosalind invites Jeffrey to stay with them for the night, and he accepts. The next morning, Mrs. Tifton and Dexter come over to the cottage, trying to find Jeffrey. Jeffrey explains to Mrs. Tifton that he doesn't want to go to Pencey, and she finally listens to him. Even better, she lets him take a lesson at the Boston Music Conservatory. In the end, the Penderwicks go home, and Jeffrey, the rabbits, and everyone else is happy.

The Double Life of Pocahontas

Jean Fritz

The City of Ember

Jeanne DuPrau

The Upstairs Room

Johanna Reiss The Upstairs Room, by Johanna Reiss, is a story told from the view of a Jewish girl, Annie, who is only six years old when Hitler first begins to destroy the Jews. Annie and her family must go into hiding with Gentile families in order to avoid the concentration camps. By the time the war is over many people have lost their lives, but Annie survives to tell her story. The story begins in the year 1938 as six-year-old Annie is listening to a radio program about the war and what is happening to the Jews because of a man named Hitler. Annie doesn't understand everything that is being said but she knows that her father and many of the other adults in Holland are worried. As the months pass notices soon pop up in Annie's town telling the Jews what they can and cannot do. Soon Annie's father is no longer allowed to conduct business. Annie's mother becomes ill and is admitted to the hospital. More Jews are taken away on trains to Hitler's work camps. Annie's father puts his family into hiding, although they cannot all go together. Annie's older sister stays behind to take care of their mother who is still in the hospital. Annie and her sister Sini are soon sent to live in a town called Usselo with a family named Hannink. The Hannink family is kind and lets the girls live in the house until they are worried about being discovered by the Germans. Annie and Sini have to go and spend a day in an underground hiding place until Mr. Hannink can move them to a family named the Oostervelds. The Oostervelds, Johan, his wife Dientje, and his mother Opoe, are very kind although they are not as well off as the Hannink family. Soon the family comes to love the girls. Despite how much they are cared for the girls are not allowed to be seen and Sini and Annie begin to suffer from being locked away. After they are finally liberated by Canadian troops Annie has almost lost the ability to walk. Sini and Annie are happy to be free but don't want to go home and leave the Oosterveld family. Their older sister Rachel comes to take them home and they refuse to leave for a time until Rachel and their father have their home ready. In time the family moves to America. Years later Annie brings her children back to Holland for a visit and shows them where she hid as a girl. She tries to crawl back into the small space behind the closet but is unable to stop crying.

Stone Fox

John Reynolds Gardiner

Flora and Ulysses: the Illuminated Adventures

Kate DiCamillo

Words of Stone

Kevin Henkes

Dragon Wings

Laurence Yep

A Single Shard

Linda Sue Park A Single Shard is the story of a twelve-year-old boy growing up in Ch'ulp'o, a twelfth-century Korean town. An orphan, he is called Tree-ear after a kind of mushroom that grows "without benefit of parent seed." He and his protector, Crane-man, live under a bridge and eat scraps of food from garbage heaps. Crane-man has taught Tree-ear that they must live honorably by scavenging and not give in to the temptation to steal. The town of Ch'ulp'o is famous for its pottery. The clay in the region allows potters to glaze their pots a beautiful, highly prized gray-green color called celadon. In his free time, Tree-ear likes to hide in the bushes and watch Min, an old master potter, make pots grow on his pottery wheel. Min is a perfectionist who typically forms and discards far more pots than he keeps. As a result, he is not only the best but also one of the slowest potters in the village. One day Tree-ear finds the potter away from home. Tree-ear sneaks into the yard to look more closely at several of Min's creations. The delicate pieces—a duck formed to pour water from its bill, a large jug shaped like a melon, and a plain rectangular box that hides several other boxes inside it—amaze him. When Tree-ear drops and breaks a piece of the box, he offers to pay for the broken pottery with nine days of work. Tree-ear secretly hopes that Min will teach him to become a potter, but Min makes him cut firewood to stoke the village kiln instead. This is a difficult job, blistering Tree-ear's hands and straining his muscles. At the end of each day, Tree-ear is exhausted. Lucky for him, he has Crane-man to treat his blisters, tell him stories, and provide him with small meals of scavenged food at the end of each day. After his nine days of work are finished, Tree-ear returns to Min and offers to work for him permanently, even though Min refuses to pay any money for the work. He hopes that Min will teach him to make pots, but Min sends Tree-ear to the clay pits outside town to cut clay and bring it home. Tree-ear finds the job difficult. However, the new job has a positive side. Min's kindly wife provides him a midday meal of rice, fish, and cabbage—far better food than Tree-ear normally earns scavenging. At first, Tree-ear is thrilled with himself for earning his lunch, but soon he grows worried. Crane-man has always shared everything with him, and now Tree-ear gets a meal every midday which he cannot carry home. He soon solves this problem by bringing his own bowl for Min's wife to fill. He eats half of the food and hides the other half to take home to Crane-man in the evening. Tree-ear is used to eating very little, and it fills him with satisfaction to help the old beggar eat so well. After Tree-ear collects enough clay, he learns to drain it at a nearby stream, thus making purified clay and glazes. Rather than explain how to do each job, Min barks orders and leaves Tree-ear to figure out how to fulfill them. Tree-ear works by experimentation and by watching other potters. Min responds to mistakes with criticism, but he never rewards good work with praise. By eavesdropping on other potters, Tree-ear learns that Min is struggling to earn a living because his perfectionism makes him so slow. What he needs is a royal commission, a contract to produce pottery for the king's household. This position is well-paid and extremely honorable. It is the dream of many potters, but Min pursues it with more drive than anyone else in town. From long habit as a scavenger, Tree-ear is observant. He notices before anyone else that a certain potter, Kang, has developed a new technique to make beautiful inlaid patterns on his pots. It is a great innovation, but Kang is a poor potter whose work is sloppy. Tree-ear observes the man working in secret and realizes that this new technique will draw attention. He wants to tell Min about it, but he does not know if it is right to give his master another man's secrets. He asks Crane-man, who advises against telling Min, at least until Kang makes his innovation public. Min's wife continues to give Tree-ear his lunch every day, and she soon realizes that he is hiding half of his food to take home. Every afternoon she surreptitiously refills his bowl so that he will have a full meal to take with him. This means that Tree-ear gets to eat half of a meal with Crane-man every night, in addition to the half meal he eats at midday. He realizes that Min's wife would probably give him a whole extra meal every day if he ate all of his food at midday, but he is too proud to find out. In addition to working hard for Min, Tree-ear does many small tasks for Min's wife, hoping that this is adequate thanks for the extra food she gives him. He rarely speaks to her, but the two of them develop an affection for each other. When winter arrives, she gives him a beautiful warm jacket and pair of pants that she originally made for her son, who died when he was Tree-ear's size. Tree-ear is thankful, but he cannot bear wearing such wonderful clothes when Crane-man has none. He gives Crane-man the jacket and keeps the pants for himself. Word arrives in town that an emissary of the king is going to visit Ch'ulp'o to award royal commissions to the best of the potters. Everyone in town begins working to ready their best pieces. When the emissary, Kim, arrives, everyone sets up...

I, Houdini

Lynne Reid Banks

The Door in the Wall

Marguerite De Angel

The Gold Cadillac

Mildred D. Taylor

The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman

Riding Freedom

Pam Munoz Ryan

The Big Wave

Pearl Buck Kino lives with his family on a farm on the side of a mountain in Japan while his friend, Jiya, lives in the fishing village below. Though everyone in the area has heard of the big wave no one suspects that when the next one comes, it will wipe out Jiya's entire family and fishing village below the mountain. Jiya soon must leave his family behind in order to keep the fisherman traditions alive. Jiya, now orphaned, struggles to overcome his sadness and is adopted into Kino's family. He and Kino live like brothers and Jiya takes on the life of a farmer. Even when the wise Old Gentleman offers Jiya a wealthy life at his rich castle, Jiya refuses. Though Jiya is able to find happiness again in his adopted family, particularly with Kino's younger sister, Setsu, Jiya wishes to live as a fisherman again as he comes of age. When Jiya tells Kino that he wishes to marry Setsu and return to the fishing village, Kino fears that Jiya and Setsu will suffer and it is safer for them to remain on the mountain as a farmer, thinking of the potential consequences should another big wave come. However, Jiya reveals his understanding that it is in the presence of danger that one learns to be brave, and to appreciate how wonderful life can be.

Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio

Peg Kehret

The Boys Start the War

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

The Teacher's Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts

Richard Peck "If your teacher has to die, August isn't a bad time of year for it," begins Richard Peck's latest novel, a book full of his signature wit and sass. Russell Culver is fifteen in 1904, and he's raring to leave his tiny Indiana farm town for the endless sky of the Dakotas. To him, school has been nothing but a chain holding him back from his dreams. Maybe now that his teacher has passed on, they'll shut the school down entirely and leave him free to roam. No such luck. Russell has a particularly eventful season of schooling ahead of him, led by a teacher he never could have predicted--perhaps the only teacher equipped to control the likes of him: his sister Tansy. Despite stolen supplies, a privy fire, and more than any classroom's share of snakes, Tansy will manage to keep that school alive and maybe, just maybe, set her brother on a new, wiser course.

The Lightening Thief

Rick Riordan

The Witches

Roald Dahl In the introduction, our narrator tells us that witches are real. More importantly, they hate children. Actually, hate isn't a strong enough word, it's more like despise, detest, loathe - to the point of trying to kill children. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, it's hard to tell a witch from a non-witch, because they're really good at disguising themselves. But fear not, Shmoop readers, our narrator is going to give us a few helpful hints on how to recognize these deadly creatures. Through a dialogue between our narrator and his rather portly grandmother, we learn all about witches: what they look like, how to spot them, what they do to children, the whole shebang. Sure enough, before he can say grobblesquirt, our narrator has a run-in with a witch at his house. He gets away unharmed, but something tells us it's not the last time he'll meet a witch. (By something, we mean the narrator: he tells us himself.) After a brief Grandmamma-is-sick-and-actually-quite-old scare, our narrator and his grandma decide to take a vacation, and they head for a stay at a giant, beachfront hotel - not too shabby. They also bring along the white mice that Grandmamma bought for her grandson. While training his mice for the circus (naturally), our narrator accidentally finds himself right smack in the middle of the annual meeting of witches. Their leader, The Grand High Witch, and the rest of the witches, take off their disguises and are frighteningly ugly. Our narrator hears these ladies (if we dare call them that) talking about their plan to turn all the children in England into mice using a magical witch formula. He even watches another young boy, Bruno, get transformed into a mouse, right before his very eyes. Unfortunately, our narrator has the same fate as little Bruno. The witches smell him out and, in the blink of an eye, turn him right into a mouse. Because he's awesome, he's totally unfazed by the whole thing. He goes straight to his grandmother and, being the best grandma ever, she loves him even though he's a mouse. Together, they decide they will get revenge on the mean, old witches. And do they ever: our narrator sneaks into the room of The Grand High Witch and steals some of the Mouse-Maker formula. After an exciting adventure in the hotel kitchen, he manages to pour the formula into the witches' soup. Back in the dining room, all the witches turn into mice and proceed to be stepped on, kicked, and squashed to death with frying pans. Victory! Back at home, our narrator really has no complaints about his new life as a mouse. Together with Grandmamma, he decides that defeating the witches of England isn't enough. They need to do something about the rest of the world's witches. They hatch a plan to track down every last witch and turn each one into a mouse. The two adventurers head out on their way, ready for the challenge ahead of them.

Pax

Sara Pennypacker

Walk Two Moons

Sharon Creech

William Armstrong

Sounder Sounder is a young adult novel by William H. Armstrong, published in 1969. It is the story of an African-American boy living with his sharecropper family. Although the family's difficulties increase when the father is imprisoned for stealing a ham from work, the boy still hungers for an education. "Sounder", the dog's name, is the only character name used in the book. The author refers to the various characters by their relationship or their role in the story. The setting is also ambiguous. The author notes prisoners were hauled in "mule-drawn wagons", and the mention of chain gangs places an upper limit to the story of 1955 when the practice ended. The boy hears his father may be in Bartow and later Gilmer counties but the author does not specify where the boy lives. Since the boy is assured his father would not be taken out of state, and because the ground freezes, we are left to assume the family lives in the counties around northern Georgia or northwestern South Carolina.

The Boggart

Susan Cooper The Volniks are a modern Toronto family: Mother Maggie owns an antique shop, father Robert is artistic director of a playhouse, and the kids are Jessup, 10, and his slightly older sister Emily. The family learns they have inherited a distant relation's castle on an island in a Scottish loch; they go over to visit the place, realize they could never live there, and sell it. But among the few things they bring back to Canada unknowingly is the castle's long-time resident, a boggart -- a mostly invisible spirit that lives to create mischief and trickery. A lot of strange things start to happen to the Volniks, from their home, shop and playhouse to Jessup's school hockey practice, and a nosy psychiatrist and TV news crew start to upset their lives almost as much as their mysterious guest.

The Cay

Theodore Taylor

Where the Red Fern Grows

Wilson Rawls

Lion Boy

Zizou Corder The Volniks are a modern Toronto family: Mother Maggie owns an antique shop, father Robert is artistic director of a playhouse, and the kids are Jessup, 10, and his slightly older sister Emily. The family learns they have inherited a distant relation's castle on an island in a Scottish loch; they go over to visit the place, realize they could never live there, and sell it. But among the few things they bring back to Canada unknowingly is the castle's long-time resident, a boggart -- a mostly invisible spirit that lives to create mischief and trickery. A lot of strange things start to happen to the Volniks, from their home, shop and playhouse to Jessup's school hockey practice, and a nosy psychiatrist and TV news crew start to upset their lives almost as much as their mysterious guest.

Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo

Zlata Flipovich