"A Ball for Daisy" by Chris Raschka
This wordless book for ages 3 and up deals with a dog’s loss of her favorite ball. It was inspired by an everyday incident in an elevator a decade ago involving Raschka’s four-year-old son, his favorite ball, and a dog named Daisy. The dog eventually destroyed the ball, but it also sparked the idea behind the award-winning book.
"Blackout" by John Rocco
As the story starts, you'll see a typical family with everyone busy on their own, on their phone, at their computer, in their own little space. But all of a sudden, the power goes out. Not just for that family, but across the whole city.
As the family adjusts to the power being out, they come together, start to play a board game, and then move up to their building's rooftop. "It was a block party in the sky." On the sidewalk below, people gathered and visited, neighbor with neighbor, sharing melting ice cream and making impromptu music. "And no one was busy at all."
As the family adjusts to the power being out, they come together, start to play a board game, and then move up to their building's rooftop. "It was a block party in the sky." On the sidewalk below, people gathered and visited, neighbor with neighbor, sharing melting ice cream and making impromptu music. "And no one was busy at all."
"Grandpa Green" by Lane Smith
Grandpa Green was born long ago. He grew up on a farm, got chicken pox in fourth grade, and kissed a girl in middle school. Though he wanted to be a horticulturist, he ended up going to war. There he met his future wife, whom he married when the war ended. Now Grandpa Green is getting old and starting to forget things. But he doesn’t forget the most important things, because the garden keeps his memories for him.
"Me...Jane" by Patrick McDonnell
This picture book about famed chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall as a child, portrays her as a curious, scientific-minded young girl whose favorite stuffed animal—a chimpanzee named Jubilee—fortelling her future career. In Me ... Jane, the stuffed chimp accompanies Goodall everywhere she goes as a young child, while exploring the natural world around her and dreaming of someday traveling to Africa.
"Inside Out and Back Again" by Thanhha Lai
For all the ten years of her life, Hà has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, the warmth of her friends close by . . . and the beauty of her very own papaya tree. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. Hà and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, Hà discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape . . . and the strength of her very own family. This is the moving story of one girl's year of change, dreams, grief, and healing as she journeys from one country to another, one life to the next.
"Breaking Stalin's Nose" by Eugene Yelchin
Sasha Zaichik has known the laws of the Soviet Young Pioneers since the age of six:The Young Pioneer is devoted to Comrade Stalin, the Communist Party, and Communism.A Young Pioneer is a reliable comrade and always acts according to conscience. A Young Pioneer has a right to criticize shortcomings.But now that it is finally time to join the Young Pioneers, the day Sasha has awaited for so long, everything seems to go awry. He breaks a classmate's glasses with a snowball. He accidentally damages a bust of Stalin in the school hallway. And worst of all, his father, the best Communist he knows, was arrested just last night. This moving story of a ten-year-old boy's world shattering is masterful in its simplicity, powerful in its message, and heartbreaking in its plausibility.
"Dead End in Norvelt" by Jack Gantos
Melding the entirely true and the wildly fictional,Dead End in Norvelt is a novel about an incredible two months for a kid named Jack Gantos, whose plans for vacation excitement are shot down when he is "grounded for life" by his feuding parents, and whose nose spews bad blood at every little shock he gets. But plenty of excitement (and shocks) are coming Jack's way once his mom loans him out to help a fiesty old neighbor with a most unusual chore—typewriting obituaries filled with stories about the people who founded his utopian town. As one obituary leads to another, Jack is launched on a strange adventure involving molten wax, Eleanor Roosevelt, twisted promises, a homemade airplane, Girl Scout cookies, a man on a trike, a dancing plague, voices from the past, Hells Angels . . . and possibly murder. Readers laugh out loud at the most unexpected things in a dead-funny depiction of growing up in a slightly off-kilter place where the past is present, the present is confusing, and the future is completely up in the air.