Intermediate (ages 9-14)

Material appropriate for intermediate age groups

My Own Revolution

Fourteen-year-old Patrik rebels against the communist regime in small ways whenever he gets the chance: spray-painting slogans, listening to contraband Beatles records, even urinating on a statue of Lenin under cover of night. But anti-Party sentiment is risky, and when party interference cuts a little too close to home, Patrik and his family find themselves faced with a decision — and a grave secret — that will change everything. As the moments tick toward too late, Patrik takes his family’s fate in hand, risking everything for a chance at freedom. Examining the psychological toll of living under an authoritarian regime, Carolyn Marsden allows readers to experience both Patrik’s persistent worry and his hope for better things.

One Year in Coal Harbor

In a small fishing village in British Columbia, twelve-year-old Primrose tries to be a matchmaker for her Uncle Jack, befriends Ked, a new foster child, tries to decide if she is willing to go to jail for her convictions, and together with Ked, publishes a cook book to raise money for the Fisherman’s Aid. Includes recipes.

Island of Doom

Modo, the shape-shifting, masked spy, and fellow spy Octavia Milkweed learn that Modo’s biological parents are still alive but when the Clockwork Guild find Modo’s parents first, Octavia and Modo chase them across Europe and North America to the Island of Doom.

The Journey: Stories of Migration

Newbery Medalist Cynthia Rylant joins naturalist painter Lambert Davis to create a vibrant picture book that follow the migratory journeys of some magnificent creatures: locusts, gray whales, American silver eels, monarch butterflies, caribou, and terns. Rylant’s lively, poetic prose and Davis’ exquisite, dramatic paintings offer an awe-inspiring look at the animal world and the outstanding tests of endurance and strength that the animals have undergone for centuries, and which continue to cycle on and inspire us today.

Joan of Arc

A biography of the fifteenth-century peasant girl who led a French army to victory against the English and was burned at the stake for witchcraft.

Victory

In 1944, as Allied forces move to retake France from its Nazi invaders, the Tessier siblings risk their lives once more and journey to Paris, where they are to deliver top-secret intelligence to Resistance workers.

Beyond Courage: The Untold Story of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust

In a stirring chronicle, Doreen Rappaport brings to light the courage of countless Jews who organized to sabotage the Nazis and help other Jews during the Holocaust.

Under the noses of the military, Georges Loinger smuggles thousands of children out of occupied France into Switzerland. In Belgium, three resisters ambush a train, allowing scores of Jews to flee from the cattle cars. In Poland, four brothers lead more than 1,200 ghetto refugees into the forest to build a guerilla force and self-sufficient village. And twelve-year-old Motele Shlayan entertains German officers with his violin moments before setting off a bomb. Through twenty-one meticulously researched accounts — some chronicled in book form for the first time — Doreen Rappaport illuminates the defiance of tens of thousands of Jews across eleven Nazi-occupied countries during World War II. In answer to the genocidal madness that was Hitler’s Holocaust, the only response they could abide was resistance, and their greatest weapons were courage, ingenuity, the will to survive, and the resolve to save others or to die trying.

One Crazy Summer

In the summer of 1968, after travelling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters arrive to a cold welcome as they discover that their mother, a dedicated poet and printer, is resentful of the intrusion of their visit and wants them to attend a nearby Black Panther summer camp.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 5, Issue 1

Looking For Marco Polo

After his anthropologist father disappears from the Gobi desert while tracing Marco Polo’s ancient route from Venice to China, 11-year-old Mark suffers an asthma attack. To distract the boy, Doc Hornaday tells Mark the tale of Marco Polo. Marco’s journey bolsters Mark’s courage and whets his appetite for risk and adventure. Illustrations.