Intermediate (ages 9-14)

Material appropriate for intermediate age groups

Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party

Nine-year-old Ling is comfortable; her parents are both dedicated surgeons in the best hospital in Wuhan. But when Comrade Li, one of Mao’s political officers, moves into a room in their apartment, Ling begins to witness the gradual disintegration of her world. In an atmosphere of increasing mistrust, Ling fears for the safety of her neighbors and, soon, for herself and family. Over the course of four years, Ling manages to grow and blossom, even as she suffers more horrors than many people face in a lifetime. Drawing from her childhood experience, Ying Chang Compestine brings hope and humor to this compelling story for all ages about a girl fighting to survive during the Cultural Revolution in China.

Ancient Egypt: A First Look at People of the Nile

The civilization of ancient Egypt disappeared two thousand years ago, yet we still marvel at the wonders it left behind. This engaging primer for young readers introduces the land, people, and culture of Egypt, including the pyramids, the Great Sphinx, and mummification. In his signature style of creating three-dimensional illustrations, Bruce Strachan brings to life the monuments and everyday customs of an enthralling society for children just beginning their discovery of ancient Egypt.

Snakehead

Persues, the son of Zeus and a mortal princess, takes his easy life on the island of Serifos for granted, but lives in troubled times. First the gods, now the politicians, send trouble rumbling across land and sea. When a beautiful stranger, a fugitive from another disaster zone, arrives on the island, Perseus is smitten. But Andromeda isn’t all she seems. She must die to save her people, and a stunning, world-changing discovery will die with her, unless Perseus abandons everything to confront the Medusa quest.

Muddle Earth

Joe Jefferson is an ordinary schoolboy from ordinary Earth. At least, he was. But something strange happened when he was walking his dog, and now he’s Joe the Barbarian—fearless warrior-hero, summoned by Muddle Earth’s leading wizard to slay ogres, wrestle dragons, and bravely confront villains. Joe doesn’t feel much like a warrior-hero. But evil is stirring in the heart of Elfwood, and the people of Muddle Earth need help (although most of them don’t know it yet). Perhaps Joe Jefferson really is a hero after all. Actually, Muddle Earth’s only wizard. And he’s not very good. He doesn’t really look much like one either.

Out of Bounds: Seven Stories of Conflict and Hope

We are the young people, We will not be broken! For almost fifty years, apartheid forced the young people of South Africa to live apart as Blacks, Whites, Indians, and “Coloreds.” This unique and dramatic collection of stories—by native South African and Carnegie Medalist Beverley Naidoo—is about young people’s choices in a beautiful country made ugly by injustice. Each story is set in a different decade during the turbulent years from 1948 to 2000, and portrays powerful fictional characters who are caught up in very real and often disturbing events.

The Book of Time

A statue; a coin; an old book. They look as dusty as everything else in the Faulkner Antiquarian Bookstore, where 14-year-old Sam Faulkner seeks his father, who’s been missing for days. But when Sam slips the coin into the statue, he’s swept back in time — to Scotland in 800 A.D. — where he must find both the statue and another coin in order to return to the present. It’s the first step in an adventure that will take him to ancient Egypt, World War I, even Dracula’s castle and a mystery that will end only when Sam saves his father, or loses him in time.