Intermediate (ages 9-14)

Material appropriate for intermediate age groups

The Black Canary

Twelve-year-old biracial James has grown up in a musical family. Not only are both of his parents musicians, but his four grandparents are as well. Everyone assumes that James will pursue music, yet he would rather become a newspaper reporter…or an astronomer…or a cook…anything that will let him leave music behind and be his own self. Everything changes when, on a family visit to London, James discovers a portal that leads to London in the year 1600, then finds himself unable to return to the point in time he had left behind. James is forced to join the Children of the Chapel Royal, a group that performs for the queen of England, and the musical talents he denied are now put to the test and pushed to their limits. In this alternate world James comes to realize that he cannot survive and get back to the twenty-first century without recognizing, understanding, and making the most of his musical gifts. Jane Louise Curry brings Elizabethan London to life in this remarkable story about music, family, and finding one’s place in the world.

Mo’s Mischief: Four Troublemakers

Meet the mischievous star of China’s bestselling series! Mo Shen Ma and his friends, Hippo, Penguin, Monkey, and Bat Ears enjoy playing superheroes. But Mo and his friends only have one superpower: getting into trouble.  Part of an ongoing series.

Under the Persimmon Tree

Najmah, a young Afghan girl whose name means “star,” finds herself alone when her father and older brother are conscripted by the Taliban and her mother and newborn brother are killed in an air raid. An American woman, Elaine, whose Islamic name is Nusrat, is also on her own. She waits out the war in Peshawar, Pakistan, teaching refugee children under the persimmon tree in her garden while her Afghan doctor husband runs a clinic in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan. Najmah’s father had always assured her that the stars would take care of her, just as Nusrat’s husband had promised that they would tell Nusrat where he was and that he was safe. As the two look to the skies for answers, their fates entwine. Najmah, seeking refuge and hoping to find her father and brother, begins the perilous journey through the mountains to cross the border into Pakistan. And Nusrat’s persimmon-tree school awaits Najmah’s arrival. Together, they seek their way home.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume IV, Issue 4

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village

Step back to an English village in 1255, where life plays out in dramatic vignettes illuminating 22 unforgettable characters. Maidens, monks and millers’ sons–in these pages, readers will meet them all. There’s Hugo, the lord’s nephew, forced to prove his manhood by hunting a wild boar; sharp-tongued Nelly, who supports her family by selling live eels; and the peasant’s daughter, Mogg, who gets a clever lesson in how to save a cow from a greedy landlord. There’s also mud-slinging Barbary (and her noble victim); Jack, the compassionate half-wit; Alice, the singing shepherdess; and many more.

Hero Of Lesser Causes

World War II has just been won, and everything seems possible to young Keely Connor. She sees herself as a hero on a white charger, able to conquer the world, even though in reality her charger is Lola, the placid horse that lives in the field behind her house. One fateful summer day her brother Patrick is stricken with polio. Here is an enemy Keely cannot conquer. With all the will in the world, she cannot pass on to Patrick her zest or her energy or her own good health.

Airman

Conor Broekhart was born to fly. In fact, legend has it that he was born flying, in a hot air balloon at the Paris World’s Fair.In the 1890s Conor and his family live on the sovereign Saltee Islands, off the Irish coast. Conor spends his days studying the science of flight with his tutor and exploring the castle with the king’s daughter, Princess Isabella. But the boy’s idyllic life changes forever the day he discovers a deadly conspiracy against the king. When Conor tries to intervene, he is branded a traitor and thrown into jail on the prison island of Little Saltee. There, he has to fight for his life, as he and the other prisoners are forced to mine for diamonds in inhumane conditions. There is only one way to escape Little Saltee, and that is to fly. So Conor passes the solitary months by scratching drawings of flying machines on the prison walls. The months turn into years; but eventually the day comes when Conor must find the courage to trust his revolutionary designs and take to the skies.

Parthenon

The Parthenon. It was ravaged by the early Christians, occupied by the Turks, and looted by the British. Wars were fought all around it. Plato and Socrates, Phidias and Pericles contemplated philosophy, art, drama, and democracy on its steps. And today its proud, ruined columns stand high above the city of Athens, Greece, the last sentinels of what’s often considered to be the most important architectural achievement in the world. The Parthenon is without rival in regard to its beauty, purity of design, and tumultuous history. It grew out of war and strife, political uprisings and financial difficulties, and remains a symbol of what humanity — at its very best — is capable of accomplishing.