A Little Piece of Ground

During the Israeli occupation of Ramallah in the West Bank of Palestine, twelve-year-old Karim and his friends create a secret place for themselves where they can momentarily forget the horrors of war.

The Book Thief

Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel–a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.

Markus + Diana

A moment of false bravado and some imaginative letters allow shy, anxiety-ridden, thirteen-year-old Markus to connect with a Hollywood star, but when she returns home to Norway she wants to meet the thirty-six-year-old millionaire she believes him to be.  

Over a Thousand Hills I Walk with You

Eight-year-old Jeanne was the only one of her family to survive the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Then a German family adopted her, and her adoptive mother now tells Jeanne’s story in a compelling fictionalized biography that stays true to the traumatized child’s bewildered viewpoint.

Wintersmith

When witch-in-training Tiffany Aching accidentally interrupts the Dance of the Seasons and awakens the interest of the elemental spirit of Winter, she requires the help of the six-inch-high, sword-wielding, sheep-stealing Wee Free Men to put the seasons aright.

Something Remains

In 1993, as Hitler becomes Chancellor, twelve-year-old Erich and his family, who are Jewish, find they need to make changes in their everyday lives as hatred of the Jews grows.

The Roreshadowing

Having always been able to know when someone is going to die, Alexandra poses as a nurse to go to France during World War I to locate her brother and to try to save him from the fate she has foreseen for him.

Surrender

As he is dying, a twenty-year-old man known as Gabriel recounts his troubled childhood and his strange relationship with a dangerous counterpart named Finningan.

By The River

A fourteen-year-old describes, through prose poems, his life in a small Australian town in 1962, where, since their mother’s death, he and his brother have been mainly on their own to learn about life, death, and love.

The Fighter

Moshe Wisniak, a poor Polish Jew, uses his physical strength and cleverness, plus luck, to help him survive the horrors he is subjected to in the concentration camps of World War II. Based on the life of Moshé Garbarz.