The Song of Be by Lesley Beake
Firefly Summer by Pura Belpre
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Year of Impossible Goodbyes by Sook Nyul Choi
Breadwinner by Debra Ellis
 | I have read many books about children in third world countries but this tops the cake. Twelve year old Parvana use to be able to go to school, play outside and listen to music. All this changed a year and a half ago, when the Taliban (a very extreme Muslim religious group) took over the capital city of Kabul. The following is an excerpt from "The Breadwinner". "The whole family was laughing when four Taliban soldiers burst through the door. Ali was the first to react. The slam of the door against the door shocked him, and he screamed. Mother leapt to her feet, and in an instant Ali and Maryam were in a corner of the room, shrieking behind their legs. Nooria covered her self completely with her chador and scrunched herself into a small ball. Young women were sometimes stolen by soldiers. They were snatched from their homes and their families never saw them again." This excerpt is from page 30 of "The Breadwinner". This part of the book shows you the way that soldiers barge into an innocent family's home. I strongly recommend this book for someone who would like to read about the atrocities that happen in Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries. One of the most amazing parts of the story is how Parvana must become a boy in order to raise money for her family. One of the ways she and her friend Shauzia earn money is by collecting human bones (to be sold to the bone broker) in a mine field. Parvana's story proves that if you strive for your goals, they will come true. Read "The Breadwinner" and find out if Parvana's secret is revealed.--recommended by Alex |
A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer
|
Nhamo is forced to flee from her village in Mozambique to escape a hideous marriage. Her journey to find her father's family up river in Zimbabwe takes her through the paths that are interwoven between mythology and reality. Her mystic voyage against the current of of the river challenges not only her body, but her spirit as well. --book recommended by Mrs. Babin |
The Middle of Somewhere by Sheila Gordon
The Clay Marble by Mingfong Ho
|
Twelve-year-old Dara and her fractured family are forced to flee from their home in Cambodia to a refugee camp on the border of Thailand. Cambodia is also fractured from all of the small factions that are trying to take over the country. Dara makes friends with Jantu who has magic in her fingers to create toys from clay. Jantu creates a "Magic" clay marble for Dara to give her the courage she needs to survive. --book suggestion by Mrs. Babin |
Kim/Kimi by Hadley Irwin
|
Kim Andrews is a Hapa--half Anglo and half Japanese. Her birth name was Kimi Yogushi, but her Japanese American father died before Kim was even born. Her mother has remarried, and she became Kim Andrew when her step-father adopted her. Even though Kim has a great family, she still wonders about the other Japanese half of her. She has never met them or even communicated with them. Kim needs to figure out how the Japaneseness is a part of her life. She concocts a secret plan to fly out to California to meet her Japanese relatives, but not all goes according to her plan. She is befriended by other Japanese Americans and realizes that the history of the Japanese in America has much greater impact that she could have every realized on her own.--book suggestion by Mrs. Babin |
Finding my Voice by Marie G. Lee
The Return by Sonia Levitin
Young Fu of the Upper Yangze by Elizabeth Foreman Lewis
The Circuit by Francisco Jiminez
The Color of my Words by Lynn Joseph
A Step From Heaven by An Na
Esperanza Rising by Pam Munos Ryan
Call it Courage by Armstrong Sperry
Shiva's Fire by Suzanne Fisher Staples
Shabanu by Suzanne Fisher Staples
|
This novel is set in the Cholistan Desert of present-day Pakistan. Shabanu, 11, realizes that she will be married soon; already her parents are planning the wedding of her sister, Phulan, who is only a year older. But Shabanu chafes at the thought of restrictions that female adulthood will bring. She prefers tending the camels, accompanying her father to the city, and asserts herself even when prompt obedience means the difference between life and death. Just as Shabanu begins to accept her engagement to the handsome Murad, fate intervenes: her sister's groom dies in a cruel act of desert vengeance. What will happen to Shabau?--suggested by Mrs. Babin |
Haveli by Suzanne Fisher Staples
|
This is a sequel to the author's Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind (BRD 1990). "The story picks up five years later. Shabanu, given in marriage to an elderly, powerful man, has now presented him a daughter, Mumtaz, who means everything to her mother. Though her husband adores Shabanu, he has neither the time nor the inclination to protect her from the various cruelties and intrigues that occur in a household where there are three cultured senior wives who look down on Shabanu as a desert interloper. To protect her daughter, Shabanu is constantly making plans for their safety should her husband die, but when Shabanu becomes involved in a plan to save her only friend from a disastrous marriage and begins having feelings for her husband's nephew, her situation becomes increasingly perilous.--suggested by Mrs. Babin |