Age: Realistic Fiction

Realistic Fiction genre

How To Make a Bird

By Book Importer | Published: January 20, 2011

It’s dawn, on an empty road in the countryside. Empty, except for the girl in the long, red evening gown, standing next to a bicycle, and looking back at the home she’s about to leave. Mannie’s ready to start a new life and forget the terrible things that have happened here, but there are questions [...]

Other Descriptors: Australia, Awards, Fiction, Oceania, Young Adult (ages 14-18) » Themes: , , , , , , , » Leave a comment

The Present Tense of Prinny Murphy

By Book Importer | Published: January 20, 2011

  An alcoholic mother, a distracted father, a best friend who spends all his time with his new “girlfriend,” and three relentless schoolyard bullies: Prinny Murphy’s past, present, and future certainly are “tense.” Adding to her misery, she still can’t read well enough to escape from remedial lessons with the dour Mrs. Dooks. But when [...]

Other Descriptors: Awards, Canada, Fiction, Intermediate (ages 9-14) » Themes: , , , , , , , , , , » Leave a comment

A Small Free Kiss in the Dark

By Book Importer | Published: January 20, 2011

Skip, an eleven-year-old runaway, becomes friends with Billy, a homeless man, and together they flee a war-torn Australian city with six-year-old Max and camp out at a seaside amusement park, where they are joined by Tia, a fifteen-year-old ballerina, and her baby.

Other Descriptors: Australia, Awards, Fiction, Intermediate (ages 9-14) » Themes: , , , , , , , , , » Leave a comment

Darius Bell and the Glitter Pool

By Book Importer | Published: January 20, 2011

The Bell family’s ancestors were showered with honors, gifts and grants of land. In exchange, they have bestowed a Gift, once every 25 years, on the town. The Gifts have ranged from a statue to a bell tower with stained-glass windows, but now it’s Darius’s father’s turn – and there is no money for an [...]

Other Descriptors: Australia, Awards, Fiction, Intermediate (ages 9-14), Primary (ages 6-9) » Themes: , , , , » Leave a comment

Thunder Over Kandahar

By Book Importer | Published: December 17, 2010

A powerful novel of enduring friendship set amid the terror and chaos of present-day Afghanistan.Best friends Tamanna and Yasmine cannot believe their good fortune when a school is set up in their Afghan village; however, their dreams for the future are shattered when the Taliban burns down the school and threatens the teacher and students [...]

Other Descriptors: Afghanistan, Awards, Intermediate (ages 9-14) » Themes: , , , , , , » 1 Comment

Hope For Haiti

By Book Importer | Published: December 17, 2010

A young boy finds hope when he is given an old soccer ball to play with in the wake of Haiti’s devastating earthquake.

Other Descriptors: Caribbean, Early Years (ages 2-6), Haiti, Picture Book, Primary (ages 6-9) » Themes: , , , , , , » Leave a comment

No Safe Place

By Book Importer | Published: December 17, 2010

Orphaned and plagued with the grief of losing everyone he loves, 15-year-old Abdul has made a long, fraught journey from his war-torn home in Baghdad, only to end up in The Jungle — a squalid, makeshift migrant community in Calais. Desperate to escape, he takes a spot in a small, overloaded England-bound boat that’s full [...]

Other Descriptors: Asia, Iraq, Young Adult (ages 14-18) » Themes: , , , , , , , , » 1 Comment

Sacred Leaf: The Cocalero Novels

By Book Importer | Published: December 17, 2010

The people of Bolivia have grown coca for legitimate purposes for hundreds of years, but the demands of America’s War on Drugs now threaten this way of life. Deborah Ellis’s searing follow-up to the highly praised “I Am a Taxi” deals with this frank reality.”” After he manages to escape from virtual enslavement in an [...]

Other Descriptors: Bolivia, Intermediate (ages 9-14), Latin America » Themes: , , , , , , , » Leave a comment

The Trouble With Marlene/Film Studies

By Book Importer | Published: December 17, 2010

Parents have a lingering impact on their teen children.If you act like Marlene, you end up like Marlene — messed up, lonely and broke. No wonder Samantha rejects her mother’s lifestyle. In The Trouble with Marlene, mother and daughter share one thing — thoughts of suicide. Marlene never stops talking about it, but for Samantha, [...]

Other Descriptors: Americas, Canada, Young Adult (ages 14-18) » Themes: , , , » Leave a comment

Too Late/Train Wreck

By Book Importer | Published: December 17, 2010

Some mistakes can never be repaired. The narrator of Train Wreck is looking back at the year she was 15 . . . She is in love with a bad boy named Johnny. Johnny’s friends play a cruel trick on a misfit named Suzy by convincing her that Johnny is attracted to her. When the [...]

Other Descriptors: Americas, Canada, Young Adult (ages 14-18) » Themes: , , » Leave a comment