| Author |
Title |
Book Location(s) |
| Appelt, Kathi |
Kissing
Tennessee and Other Stories from the Stardust Dance
Graduating eighth graders relate their stories of love
and heartbreak that have brought them to Dogwood Junior
High's magical Stardust Dance. |
Teen
Appelt |
| Bauer, Marion Dane |
On My
Honor
When his best friend drowns while they are both swimming
in a treacherous river that they had promised never to
go near, Joel is devasted and terrified at having to tell
both sets of parents the terrible consequences of their
disobedience. |
J
PB Bauer |
| Berry, James |
Ajeemah
and His Son
A father and his eighteen-year-old son are each affected
differently by their experiences as slaves in Jamaica
in the early nineteenth century. |
J
Berry |
| Bunting, Eve |
Blackwater
When a boy and girl are drowned in the Blackwater River,
thirteen-year-old Brodie must decide whether to confess
that he may have caused the accident. |
J
Bunting |
| Cushman, Karen |
The Midwife's
Apprentice
In medieval England, a nameless, homeless girl is taken
in by a sharp-tempered midwife, and in spite of obstacles
and hardship, eventually gains the three things she most
wants: a full belly, a contented heart, and a place in
this world. |
J
PB Cushman
Teen Cushman |
| Deans, Sis Boulos |
Racing
the Past
After the death of his abusive father, eleven-year-old
Ricky tries to help his younger brother deal with his
residual fears and discovers that running helps him deal
with his own anger and the taunts of a bullying classmate.
|
J
Deans |
| DiCamillo, Kate |
The Tiger
Rising
Rob, who passes the time in his rural Florida community
by wood carving, is drawn by his spunky but angry friend
Sistine into a plan to free a caged tiger. |
J
DiCamillo |
| Dorris, Michael |
Morning
Girl
Morning Girl, a Taino child who loves the day, and her
younger brother Star Boy, who loves the night, take turns
describing their life on an island in pre-Columbian America.
In Morning Girl's last narrative, she witnesses the arrival
of the first Europeans to her world. |
J
Dorris |
| Fleischman, Paul |
The Borning
Room
Lying at the end of her life in the room where she was
born in 1851, Georgina remembers what it was like to grow
up on the Ohio frontier. |
J
Fleischman |
| Fleischman, Paul |
Bull
Run
Northerners, Southerners, generals, couriers, dreaming
boys and worried sisters describe the glory, the horror,
the thrill, and the disillusionment of the first battle
of the Civil War. |
J
Fleischman |
| Fleischman,
Sid |
The 13th Floor
When his older sister disappears, twelve-year-old Buddy
Stebbins follows her back in time and finds himself aboard
a seventeenth-century pirate ship captained by a distant
relative. Cast adrift, he washes up in New England where
his plucky ancestor, ten-year-old Abigail, is caught up
in the witchcraft mania and about to be hanged. |
J
Fleischman
J PB Fleischman |
| Fine,
Anne |
The
Tulip Touch
Natalie, who lives in the large hotel managed by her father,
has a dangerous friendship with Tulip, the wildly uncontrollable
girl on a neighboring farm. |
J
Fine
J PB Fine |
| Giff,
Patricia Reilly |
Nory
Ryan's Song
When a terrible blight attacks Ireland's potato crop in
1845, twelve-year-old Nory Ryan's courage and ingenuity
help her family and neighbors survive. |
J
Giff |
| Hamilton,
Virginia |
Bluish
An unlikely friendship between three girls is explored.
|
J
Hamilton |
| Henkes,
Kevin |
Sun
& Spoon
After the death of his grandmother, ten-year-old Spoon
observes the changes in his grandfather and tries to find
the perfect artifact to preserve his memories of her. |
J
Henkes |
| Hesse,
Karen |
Letters
from Rifka
In letters to her cousin, a young Jewish girl chronicles
her family's flight from Russia in 1919 and her own experiences
when she must be left in Belgium for a while when the
others emigrate to America. |
J
Hesse
J PB Hesse |
| Hesse,
Karen |
Witness
A series of poems express the views of various people
in a small Vermont town, including a young black girl
and a young Jewish girl, during the early 1920s when the
Ku Klux Klan is trying to infiltrate the town. |
J
Hesse |
| Hoffman,
Alice |
Aquamarine
A love-struck mermaid named Aquamarine supplies adventure
and insights to two twelve-year-old girls, life-long friends
who are spending their last summer together before one
of them moves away. |
J
Hoffman |
| Hoffman,
Alice |
Indigo
When her mother dies, Martha is so unhappy living in the
dried-up town of Oak Grove, that she convinces two unusual
brothers who long to return to the ocean to run away with
her. |
J
Hoffman |
| Jennings,
Paul |
Undone!
More Mad Endings
A collection of eight stories about the scary, the supernatural,
or the unusual, including a mysterious bottle whose contents
let you read people's minds and homemade granola that
turns a boy into an apple tree. |
J
Jennings |
| Johnson,
Angela |
Looking
for Red
A thirteen-year-old girl struggles to cope with the loss
of her beloved older brother, who disappeared four months
earlier off the coast of Cape Cod. |
J
Johnson |
| Johnson,
Angela |
Toning
the Sweep
On a visit to her grandmother Ola, who is dying of cancer
in her house in the desert, fourteen-year-old Emmie hears
many stories about the past and her Black family's history
and comes to a better understanding of relatives both
dead and living. |
J
Johnson |
| Kennedy,
Richard |
Inside
my Feet
When enchanted boots carry away his father and mother,
a boy tries to find a way to fight the enchantment. |
J
Kennedy |
| Murphy,
Rita |
Night
Flying
As the time for her solo flight on her sixteenth birthday
approaches, Georgia begins to question the course of her
life and her relationships with the other women in her
unusual family. |
J
Murphy |
| Myers,
Anna |
Captain's
Command
As Christmas approaches, Gail longs to hear that her soldier
father has not been killed in World War II. The sixth
grader also helps bring her handicapped uncle back to
life. |
J
Myers |
| Naylor,
Phyllis Reynolds |
Jade Green
While living with her uncle in a house haunted by the
ghost of a young woman, recently orphaned Judith Sparrow
wonders if her one small transgression causes mysterious
happenings. |
J
Naylor |
| Park,
Barbara |
Mick
Harte was Here
Phoebe recalls her younger brother Mick and his death
in a bicycle accident. |
J Park
J PB Park
|
| Paulsen,
Gary |
Nightjohn
Twelve-year-old Sarny's brutal life as a slave becomes
even more dangerous when a newly arrived slave offers
to teach her how to read. |
J
Paulsen |
| Peck,
Richard |
A
Long Way from Chicago
A boy recounts his annual summer trips to rural Illinois
with his sister during the Great Depression to visit their
larger-than-life grandmother. |
J
Peck |
| Skurzynski,
Gloria |
Good-bye,
Billy Radish
In 1917, as the United States enters World War I, ten-year-old
Hank sees change all around him in his western Pennsylvania
steel mill town and feels his older Ukrainian friend Billy
drifting apart from him. |
J
Skurzynski |
| Westall,
Robert |
The
Stones of Muncaster Cathedral
Soon after steeplejack Joe Clarke begins work on one of
the spires of Muncaster's medieval cathedral, terrible
things start to happen and Joe realizes that there is
a malevolent force connected to the spire's gargoyle.
|
J
Westall |
| Woodson,
Jacqueline |
Miracle's
Boys
Twelve-year-old Lafayette's close relationship with his
older brother Charlie changes after Charlie is released
from a detention home and blames Lafayette for the death
of their mother. |
J
Woodson |
dcelia@westportlibrary.org