When Abby’s class gets a pet duck named Max, she is eager to take it home overnight, especially since her parents will not let her have a pet.
Intermediate (ages 9-14)
Material appropriate for intermediate age groups
Sadie and Ratz
Hannah and her hands, named Sadie and Ratz, regularly get into trouble, especially when younger brother Baby Boy is around.
Calvin Coconut: Man Trip
Fourth-grader Calvin flies from Oahu to the big island of Hawaii to go on a deep-sea fishing trip with Ledward, his mother’s boyfriend, and learns to appreciate other living creatures– especially one enormous marlin.
Graffiti Moon
Senior year is over, and Lucy has the perfect way to celebrate: tonight, she’s going to find Shadow, the mysterious graffiti artist whose work appears all over the city. He’s out there somewhere—spraying color, spraying birds and blue sky on the night—and Lucy knows a guy who paints like Shadow is someone she could fall for. Instead, Lucy’s stuck at a party with Ed, the guy she’s managed to avoid since the most awkward date of her life. But when Ed tells her he knows where to find Shadow, they’re suddenly on an all-night search around the city. And what Lucy can’t see is the one thing that’s right before her eyes.
Snowmobile: Bombardier’s Dream Machine
The true story of Joseph-Armand Bombardier’s journey to invent the snowmobile.
Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917
On December 6, 1917 two ships collided in Halifax Harbour. One ship was loaded top to bottom with munitions and one held relief supplies, both intended for wartorn Europe. The resulting blast flattened two towns, Halifax and Dartmouth, and killed nearly 2,000 people. As if that wasn’t devastating enough, a blizzard hit the next day, dumping more than a foot of snow on the area and paralyzing much-needed relief efforts. Fascinating, edge-of-your-seat storytelling based on original source material conveys this harrowing account of tragedy and recovery.
Tua and the Elephant
In Chiang Mai, Thailand, nine-year-old Tua releases an abused elephant from its chains–can she complete the rescue by getting it to an elephant refuge without being caught herself?
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 7, Issue 1
My Family for the War
Before the start of World War II, ten-year-old Ziska Mangold, who has Jewish ancestors but has been raised as a Protestant, is taken out of Nazi Germany on one of the Kindertransport trains, to live in London with a Jewish family, where she learns about Judaism and endures the hardships of war while attempting to keep in touch with her parents, who are trying to survive in Holland.
Featured in Volume VI, Issue 1 of WOW Review.
Olympians: Hades: Lord of the Dead
Volume 4 of the highly acclaimed Olympians series. Hades: Lord of the Deadtells the story of the great God of the Underworld and one of the most famous of all Greek myths: Hades’ abduction of Persephone and her mother’s revenge. Be prepared to see a new side of Persephone in this dynamic adaptation of the story of the creation of the seasons.In Olympians, O’Connor draws from primary documents to reconstruct and retell classic Greek myths. But these stories aren’t sedate, scholarly works. They’re action-packed, fast-paced, high-drama adventures with monsters, romance, and not a few huge explosions. O’Connor’s vibrant, kinetic art brings ancient tales to undeniable life in a perfect fusion of super-hero aesthetics and ancient Greek mythology.
One Dog and His Boy
When lonely, ten-year-old Hal learns that his wealthy but neglectful parents only rented Fleck, the dog he always wanted, he and new friend Pippa take Fleck and four other dogs from the rental agency on a trek from London to Scotland, where Hal’s grandparents live.